Problems in the Process of Foreign Teachers’ Job Seeking

With the reform and opening up of China, coupled with the transformation of people’s thinking, more and more training schools, including public schools began to recruit foreign teachers to teach English courses. No matter what the purpose is, either to increase the school’s influence or to enroll students, hiring foreign teachers has become an effective and quick way. From another point of view, although more and more schools’ recruitment will increase the employment opportunities of foreign teachers, there are still some problems that need foreign teachers to face and solve in the process of seeking English teaching jobs in China.

First of all, the purposes of foreign teachers coming to China are different, so the problems and troubles will be different. Some foreign teachers come to China for “love”, that is, for his girlfriend in China. Then the location of his girlfriend will be a very important factor that affects his selection of esl jobs. However, the location restriction will influence the salary to some extend. Cf course, if the girlfriend is in first-tier cities and the foreign teacher has excellent abilities, then   the influence of region limit is very low. However, the problem is more pronounced when it is in a city that is not so well developed, or when salary is very different from his expectation. Especially that is ability is not good enough to make the school offer high salary. At this time, foreign teachers tend to fall into struggles. And this situation often leads to that foreign teachers accept the job for the “love” or other factors temporarily. But the quality of work and the enthusiasm of foreign teachers will certainly not be too high and this state will not last too long. If the foreign teachers did not change , there are only two results: to give up his “love” and the job and find another way out, looking for better areas and treatment. The other one is directly dismissed by the school. Without the source of income, love can not be maintained. He will be forced to look in other cities or return home.

Of course, this factor is not the largest trouble while looking for ESL jobs in China. After all, the enthusiasm for the work and the requirements of the pay are subjective and controllable. But another factor-visa issue is a greater issue in choosing region and salary. Only work visa is considered legitimate to teach english in China . However, it’s not an easy thing to get a work visa. On one hand, foreign teachers need to have necessary materials such as bachelor degree and certificate. But not all the teachers that come to teach in China have a bachelor degree. This is a problem. On the other hand, even if foreign teachers have these necessary materials, schools may not be able to hire them, because the school doesn’t have the qualification to hire foreign teachers. Schools can apply for the qualification to hire foreign teachers only after running for a certain time. This is another problem. Even if these conditions are equipped, there can be another problem. After foreign teachers work for a period of time and close to finishing the contract, the current school no long extends the visa. Foreign teachers can only go to find a school to extend the visa for them. But due to the limited time for the residence permit, they have to find a new school as soon as possible so that there is enough time left to get a new visa. This will affect salary and other aspects. So it seems that foreign teachers can not look for ESL jobs all at their own will.

In China,most schools require the tesol certificate because they need it to apply for the working visa for foreign teachers. Even if you have many years teaching experience, tesol is also a must in many cities. In addition, in some cities, a tesol certificate can be instead of two years teaching experience. So if you are new for esl jobs in Asia, then this course will definitely helpful to you. A tesol certificate can get you more chances of being hired.Tesol gives you the basic entrance to the field of esl jobs in Asia. It’s a first step to enter a new career and makes your more competitive among other candidates.Simply speaking, if you and other teacher are interviewing the same school, you have a tesol, but he doesn’t. Then you can easily beat him and get the job, because you are more qualified.

Another point is the search for tefl jobs in China can be restricted by various factors, especially for race and education background. On one hand, schools are not looking for qualified teachers only, they are looking for white native teachers. So this makes non-native teachers and non-white raced teachers hard to find tefl jobs. On the other hand, some schools are looking for not only oral English teachers, but subject teachers like math, physics, etc. They will have higher demand for qualifications and experiences. So to get good tefl jobs is not as easy as before.