How do you show a university in China that you are qualified to teach? Well, there has never been any formal sort of testing or examination if that is what you mean. I suppose that the uni sees my resume and notices that I have taught at several other universities, that must be how they judge if I am "qualified" or not. When I first came to China I taught at middle school, I must say that I was hopeless at it, on top of that I did not like it. I had taught adults before back home ( in textile industry ) , but it took me some time to adapt to the large ( sometimes huge ) university classes in China.

My previous work and life experience is what I believe has made me become a good teacher in China, I can relate to people of all races,and people from many different socio-economic backgrounds. I have been both rich and poor a few times. Asian people really need to change this "degree is everything" mindset that they foolishly cling to. This situation is worst of all in Thailand, a country with nice peole, but full of degree snobs who often know absolutely nothing ( tell me about anything useful that has come out of Thailand recently, except it's women ofcourse! ) Thailand lost all of it's most talented FT's many years ago because of a degree mentality.

As for China, whether it's FT's have a degree or not is a non-issue, a red herring. And you are right, there are many college professors who can't teach. I would also like to point out that at the university where the dumb American was briefly employed there was also a professor who told me I should use the text book I was given because it was "written by a professor". He was not impresed when I told him that does not mean much in my experience!

Wise words, indeed. And absolutely on the money.

I've known kickass teachers that had no degree...and blithering idiots with a boatload of degrees. The lack of a college degree doesn't necessarily make you a bad teacher.

But these days, no degree probably DOES make you an illegal teacher, unable to acquire the absolutely vital Residence Permit by honest means.
Being illegal is just a terrible, terrible idea. Please...DON'T GO THERE.

In that case, it would seem as if the guy really didn't possess the necessary skills to even maintain a normal, independent living. Perhaps the United States is a better place for him as psychological help is more readily available, he certainly has issues it seems. You probably did your best, so no worries there.

Also I think that sometimes people just need to get over the "jitters". I remember when I first came back to China to teach I was nervous as well. However through my own "feel" of the class and practice I got more confidence in myself and the teaching came naturally. Maybe I can teach because I have the inborn ability but being in a foreign country halfway around the world can be a frightening experience. As adults though we are expected to keep those emotions pent up. I know for a fact that not all countries are necessarily good at giving new teachers the "warmth" and "family" atmosphere. I certainly know for a fact that the university I was at didn't give peopel a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. When the local management can't be counted on, other foreign teachers should take it up themselves and help the new guy/gal out. I know I was lucky enough to have made a couple of really good friends here who helped me not so much with my teaching as giving me comraderie so I could go into a classroom knowing that I was in an environment where I was familiar with people around there, giving me confidence to teach in that setting. That's all.

Last year I was working at a university in a large city in central China. I had been there for about a month when I was told thayt a new teacher who was very well educated would be arriving soon from the USA to teach there. I met him a week later, he was actually a nice guy, and he offered to show me his resume. He had never taught before, but he had degrees in literature and linguistics. He arrived on a Z-visa and for two weeks he did nothing, there were no classes for him. Then he was given his schedule ( he has signed the contract by this time )

Shortly after that he was given the textbook. He said to me "This textbook is like reading double dutch, I can't undrstand it , how am I going to teach?" I thought that was not a good sign. Then I told him to create his own lesson plan if he did not like nor couldn't understand the textbook. "How do I do a lesson plan?", he said. By then I was feeling worried for him. But I was very busy at that time, so I said I would talk about it later. Several days later he was scheduled to begin his first class. He told me that he was "very anxious". When he went to his first class I was also teaching in the same building and happened to to have finished my classes for the day.

He asked if would discreetly observe his class and later comment on it. I stood about twenty metres away from the classroom door ( it was wide open, hot and no air-con ) I pretended I was sending text messages, tried hard to listen, and looked in the direction of the classroom every now and then. He told the students where he was from, talked about his home state for a while, asked who each student was, and then he shook hands with each of them.

What hapened next was a complete disaster for him! He asked the students what they wanted to do next. He stood there like a stunned mullet, and the students were staring at him intensely. "C'mon guys, help me out here, it's my first day", he said. That was excruciating for me to watch, I can't imagine how this American "teacher" must have felt! He then asked a male student " How about you, what do you want to learn, what should I do?".

Afterward he said to me that he was f....d in there, couldn't teach, and should never have come to China. The following morning I found him hiding in his university hotel room. He seemed to me to be pretending to be sick, presumably because he was too scared to teach his classes. By the way, he had a panic attack once when his phone ran out of credit ( he did not know any Chinese ) Things came to a head, when, not only did the university refrain from processing his RP, but, even worse for him, he did not have enough money to fly home. So he had to plead with his family to fund his ticket back. But they would not give him the money, because they said that he was weak, and that he was a "quitter".

I pleaded on his behalfwith his family to buy a ticket because his visa was about to expire and he was starting to panic seriously. That stupid university employed someone just because they had a few fancy bits of paper, thus ending up with egg on it's face!

I know that someone with five years teaching experience and no degree would have been a much better choice!