Hi,

Just been sent this by a friend. I can’t take her up on it, but I know there’s a lot of bright people here.

AFAIK it’s teaching English.

Pls forward immediately if you know someone who’d like this opportunity, I MUST hear back by Mon a.m. latest.

My job is up for grabs as I’m leaving. Shanghai Jianqiao University finds it hard to recruit foreign teachers, and has previously employed people with no teaching experience. But you must have degree-level education. There will be more than just my job going.

I have to tell my nice boss on Monday that I’m not renewing my contract. I wish to give him name(s) of person(s) who they could recruit in my place.

If you or someone you know is interested, please send me a cv by Monday, or at least an email with a paragraph about yourself that I can forward.

The new contract they are offering is:
commence 1 September 2015, end 30 June 2016, renewable (in which case you’d get 2 months summer holiday july-Aug 2016 on full pay).
8,500 Chinese Yuan per month (£850) plus furnished flat plus payment of your gas and electricity bills and local calls from a landline.
return flight to UK at beginning & end of contract, and will pick you up from the airport.
max 16 teaching hours per week. In semester 1 I had 16 hours, in semester 2 I’ve had 12 hours, teaching on 3 days only, no Sats or Suns.
2x 16 week semesters. Full pay throughout Spring Festival holiday, which totalled 9 weeks! (Extra long for foreign teachers – we have a shorter semester).
Staff discount card for cafes/canteen/food and shops on campus.
Bonus payment for ‘holiday travel’, totalling c.£200 paid in two instalments.
Pros:

it’s Shanghai! Food for your creativity. It will blow you away.
I was allowed to bring my partner to live rent-free with me the whole time, and they were really helpful with sorting him out an extended visa when it came round. AND offered him a job (which he didn’t want – but he gave a couple of very well paid lectures).
Teaching: you do exactly what you want. Go your own sweet way. Nothing provided, just do your own thing. No pressure.
Decent accommodation with microwave, gas rings, fridge-freezer, washing machine, hot shower, water dispenser (water free, but pay for occasional delivery of bottles)
Everyone is really very kind and helpful. Absolutely no altercations with staff of Foreign Affairs Office who look after us, nor with English dept.
Depending on how organised you are re: prep, you do actually have a LOT of free time.
Cons:

it’s Shanghai! it’s a totalitarian state! It will drive you nuts. If I had not brought my partner I would have lasted 2 weeks.
Teaching: they throw you into a classroom without telling you who’s going to be in it, how many students, what their level is, no class list until you flail about asking people for one. Nowt.
Must bring/think up your own materials. This can be a pro, of course.
NOT (from next semester) in central Shanghai. This campus is moving to a new “university city” in the very south of Shanghai so it’ll be a long commute (though do-able) to reach all the delights of the centre. Many teachers living centrally will have to do this long commute to get to work.
If you don’t speak Chinese, like me/us, it’s at times really hard. You have to recruit friends who want to ‘help you’ and thus improve their English.
It is enormously challenging and you need loads of energy and tolerance but of course at the same time it is massively stimulating, exhilarating, and life-transforming. AN ADVENTURE. Go for it!

Pls Monday morning AT LATEST (don’t forget we’re 7 hours ahead) if you want me to pass on your or your friend’s name.

If anyone interested send me an email with qualifications and CV if possible and I shall forward it on.

Email address in profile.

Sam

a freinds daughter has just accepted a similar job in Japan TEAFL.

Hope she’s not scared of frying.

TEAFL, = teaching english as a foreign language.Strange how foreigners are all wanting to learn english yet we fail to learn their languages.

Yep.

Anyway, this is a serious thing. Anyone who fancies an adventure might as well put their name forward.

You’ll be dealing with the uni from then on, I’m only writing about here because sometimes STWers want to leave the country and have an adventure 🙂

English is a world language. in science, if you want to be recognised you have to publish in an English written journal and present in English.

Late night bump….

What an amazing opportunity.

The TEFL games is a tough one, and is a good experience, but 850 living in Shanghai is not a lot of cash to splash around.

I started out in teaching doing something similar to this, but saw the light and got qualified. The cost of the qualification was paid for in the first overseas post, and the student loan cleared. It can be a decent paying gig outside of the UK

A qualified teacher, BEd or PGCE. should be making considerably more in Shanghai, even if they are ESOL is their specialism. Many international schools will require qualified teachers who specialise in ESL/ESOL
Long commutes shouldn’t be part of the package.

If we are advertising for posts, I’m currently looking for an EYFS Teacher and a KS3&IGCSE English teacher.

850 living in Shanghai is not a lot of cash to splash around.

plus furnished flat plus payment of your gas and electricity bills and local calls from a landline.
return flight to UK at beginning & end of contract, and will pick you up from the airport.
max 16 teaching hours per week etc etc etc…

It’s not a lot of money, but it’s got it’s share of perks plus holiday pay and travel…. all for 16 hours a week

Why does the friend need to line someone up before telling their boss, although it is short notice to tell them at this stage in the hiring year and bad form?

16 hours isn’t a lot of contact time, then you have prep, are you made to stay in work for the whole day, then that is still however many hours per day stuck in an office climbing the walls.

850 is what universities were paying 10 years ago in China for TEFL teachers and they now want to pay that for qualified teachers.

Shanghai will be good for private tutoring outside of work as well, not sure of the current rate there, but if you now have a long commute that has gone as well.

Worth the experience for a couple of years, but that long commute is what is going to kill the fun.

Sorry, I don’t know the answer to your questions.

However she is something of a free spirit so I guess another thing came along?

Anyways, this is the offer and I’m laying it out there if anyone wants it.

Goodnight 🙂

Can you survive in Shanghai for 850GBP, I would have though it a struggle as most of the teachers I know in HK are on at least 2k and rising.
Also, you will need some basic Mandarin if you want to make the most of the trip, although Shanghai is a major international hub its very Chinese once you get out of the centre i.e. where you will need to live.

its not a lot of money for Shanghai as an expat.
I’m not saying that you’ll want an expat package, but expats eat different food and drink.
And whilst at first eating local food will be a novelty, you’ll soon be drawn to foreign supermarkets and bars, and that money won’t last long.
It’s also less, than the average office worker will receive in Shanghai too.

^ That is an issue one of the ESL teachers I subcontract as a TA is facing just now. Rest of the academic staff, expat academic staff, are paid well, whereas I have contracted her on exceptionally good rates for the school.

She wants to live an expat teachers lifestyle on a poor, TEFL teachers wage. The have and have nots are becoming more apparent for her.

Does this gig in Shanghai include health insurance?

I kindly agreed to give subcontracted teacher access to our basic health insurance programme that I provide to local teachers, about 12GBP per day health cover if needed.

I warned it was basic, but would cover doctors visits, didn’t have to do this, but it was a “I know i’m paying you buttons, so here is something to make you feel better”

I didn’t know, she cancelled her international health insurance and is currently in hospital, has been for several days now, was in the main ward, with everybody else including the dogs, until on her boss took pity on her and put her in a private room.

Certainly highlights the need for proper health insurance if you are overseas.

William Russel cost me around 2500 per year for my wife and daughter a few years ago, and that is a bg chunk of your 850 per month salary.

Being a free spirit is all well and good, until you have a 27kUSD hospital bill, which recently happened to a member of staff, but we have a good health insurance policy for him.

just read about the long commute.
Stuff that.
It would be hell travelling from SH to the South ever day.
There should be living quarters on site, but you’d so remote from anything else, it would feel like solitary confinement.

In China, a lot of campuses are put way out of the way to stop the students from going into town to (enjoy) distract them from their studies.

Straight out of uni this’d been awesome.

Especially if you like em asian 8)

What a depressing response.

Why does everything have to be profitable? Why not just do it for fun?!

Insurance is a good point mind you, but overall I really expected more people to be enthusiastic.

The person who wrote this has been there for a year, so she survived on that much.

How about only positive contributions from now on?

^ Been there, done this and got the t-shirt, and I would recommend to anybody who thinks they might be interested in teaching, skip the poorly paid bit, get qualified and do it properly. The TEFL game is a young persons game – and if you are going to do it, go to Korea where you can at least bank some money to further travels.

Far too many English teachers out there who give the profession a bad name.

Positives – you get to live somewhere different, eat different food, and possibly travel a bit.

Negatives – employers don’t care, so not something exciting on your CV. easy to get trapped out there, met so many teachers who are stuck in a rut, not enough money to get home or do anything.

Saying that – doing the TEFL grind for a couple of years was what got me into it properly, got me qualified and into a decent enough a job.

Been there, Did it…
Still here, but not teaching.

I’d would recommend people to do it, but if you want experience etc, then I wouldn’t choose any large city.
It is fun, as the OP wrote, but I would just like to point out problems they would face, and their trip of a lifetime, would be one with negative feelings, and not what is great and fun about it.

I live and work in Shanghai. If anyone’s tempted, drop me a line and I’ll talk you through the pros and cons. dccbysea AT outlook.com

Also, this kind of cobblers really gets on my tits.

“but expats eat different food and drink. And whilst at first eating local food will be a novelty, you’ll soon be drawn to foreign supermarkets and bars, and that money won’t last long”

Although it is undeniably true that a lot of the ex-pats I’ve met are racist cocks. Anyway, I think the grub here is great – about a quid for lunch and less than a 3-5 quid for a dinner with a couple of local beers. Unless you really want to pay Euro prices for pizza, burger and such sh*te. Marmite and Yorkshire tea excepted, natch.

OK.

AFAIK no one has applied yet, so it may still be worth slinging me an email if you want me to pass it on.