Hi,

I'm a mature British male teacher working in a very small town in Henan Province, China. I am definitely the only foreigner in the town and regarded as something of a spaceman on the rare occasions I go into town.

I now work in a large government middle school of high reputation around the vicinity. There are three separate campus to the place and the one I work in holds around 4,000 students, most of whom also live in dormitory accommodation on the campus. It is exceptionally well organised and no-one has to go around bowing or scraping to the staff or saluting the headmaster - the students are simply expected to pay normal courtesy to the staff.

I have been teaching here for three weeks and in that time the Headmaster (Next to God!) and all of his staff could not have been more helpful and accommodating. I was made to feel as much at home as one can be living on one's own in the middle of nowhere. I have a smart flat on campus which is fully equipped though a little bit spartan. They pay for everything except my phone bills (zero anyway!) and my food. They have a full staff restaurant on the campus that would put many commercial restaurants to shame.

I am under contract to work 80 x 45 minute teaching periods each month and I have a predictive schedule extending forward a month at a time. I teach only Grade Threes - around 16/17 yrs and I rotate through 18 classes in a five day week. (Though the students are studying for 7 days (simply that these people are so nice that without asking they have scheduled me not to work at weekends). On average I have just 3 or 4 classes a day plus a weekly staff session - my big day is Wednesday when I have six classes up to 9.30 pm finish. Class sizes in Chinese government schools are nearly always large and this school is no exception. All my classes have between 85 and 90 students which is not ideal for conversational work but I have to take as I find - so it's time for the loud voice and much marching up and down crowded classrooms. But the classrooms are not large despite the numbers that sit in them and I don't find it too difficult to project myself to the back of the room.

THis school is a nice place. There is a very nice atmosphere here, all the staff are nice people and the students are all nice young people too, very attentive, very well disciplined and very hard-working. I am doing conversational English and my material and subject matter is left to me to devise - though I tend to spend some time following through their English language text books.

I have two Chinese teachers who "look after" me and they won't even allow me off the campus on my own in case I get robbed! Nobody speaks English outside the school and I might just as well be on another planet.

I am definitely in a nice place and I have every intention of staying for as long as I can - or until it all goes sour or whatever.

Prior to this I taught in a nearby town in a small private institute. The owner was a very fair man indeed. If my pay day fell on a non-working day for me he would come to my flat and personally put the money in my hand. But he was not organised at all well and he had a very high teacher turnover rate.

Classes were not well planned and frequent changes of teachers did not help either. I left him because he was not able to hold enough students to warrant my continued expense. I remain friends with him, however, as he was a nice man but disorganised and reluctant to accept help with his management, which I offered to do for him.

I think with any job overseas you need to be very careful before you take a job, to ensure so far as you can, that it is the right one. There is no guarantee that ALL jobs will be good ones - and similarly there is no way that one bad job can imply that ALL jobs will be bad. As a highly qualified teacher you should have enough about you to be able to size up a prospective employer before you commit to him.

China is no different to any other country - there will be good employers and there will be bad employers. They all expect their pound of flesh and that is not unreasonable - after all you will expect every penny of your salary placed in your hands each month will you not? So it cuts both ways.

But if your new employer turns out to be even slightly slippery with terms and money then leave him instantly - or as "instantly" as you can manage - finding alternative teaching jobs in China is simply NOT a problem!

Best of luck - but in six months in China my own experience has been generally very good so far.

Dave