Oh yeah!

Credibility on a discussion board!

Please!

Your credibility's gone forever, presuming you had any in the first place, which I doubt very much, by the way!

Wow!...and you say that you've got no "qwams" with my view, and that I've got a problem with your views! If you behave like you do here with the FAO faculty, no wonder you find it necessary to wine and dine them!

I think you should lighten up! I knew you'd hit on 'kwams', that's why I misspelt it for you! Well, you've been saying that I'm a fraud. For doing what? Buying dinner once a month for certain Chinese folks without asking for specific favors? BTW, it's MY money, not yours, so I'll spend it as I please!
Can't you envisage a newbie trying to do his (or her) best in the classroom, but having some complaints from students, and being unable to judge the gravity of such complaints? No Chinese employer will say to such a newbie, don't worry, you'll be fine if you persevere! Things can change, just like the weather! I'm trying to help borderline laowei folks to get a little edge to keep them here longer so they can improve.

If I presumed that you wanted to stay, I would not have asked you. I just wanted to point out a method that would help you or others to go one stop further.

How long or where can mean absolutely nothing re teaching prowess. Certain schools will only pay air fare reimbursement if a ticket is first bought by the FT. Don't buy one, don't go home, and maybe you can stay for a long time somewhere despite pretty average teaching - do I have to spell it out? The school can save MONEY! Are you in an ivory tower?

You're right about one thing, though. We need to stop this conversation. I'm getting nowhere with you.

You accuse me of fraud, and if I were to get a glowing report, of using it to defraud the next employer. Absolute garbage according to any country's laws! Unlike you, CL didn't take the bait - he can see that my writing skills didn't equate with my deliberate spelling mistakes. BTW, I have a Bachelor's degree, and teaching experience in the West. What's more, I've never been a cinema usher. Seems you've been the subject of an entrapment. The News of the Screws has entrapped Fergie. Do you think she'll get sympathy for that? Course not! You neither! A little later, I'll give you another revelation, another real shocker, stand by for it! In the meantime, get off my back, and Turnoi's too!

Nice one, Gibbo.

It's worked for me, too. I think that if an FT follows the contract, and is an honest worker who does his best to fulfill the needs of his students, he will find that there's no need to wine and dine his superiors. Chinese employees have to keep their employers happy; they don't have many options and Chinese leaders know that, and take advantage of it. Chinese leaders do not expect foreign teachers to play the "guanxi" game, because they would expect us to be more independent and to have more options.

Cheers and beers to FTs who don't swallow their pride while in China!

If you post some details of your life on a public discussion forum then you should expect people to respond in different ways.

I was not judging you, i was judging your approach, while in fact giving yourself, and any others unfamiliar with Chinese schools, advice. I was trying to assist you, but for some reason you can't see it, or, perhaps do not wish to. Where does quarrelling come into it? This is healthy debate, about what techniques or approaches may help foreign teachers in China prosper in their employment.

Yes, your topic, is about how to get good release letters; I accept that. However I don't think that there is any harm in letting yourself and others who may be contemplating coming to teach in China, that your approach is quite short-sighted, and unfair to Chinese students. Many FTs would like to find a good school and stay there if they're happy. Your approach is only ok if a teacher is happy to keep moving from job to job all the time, content to sell Chinese students short, and willing to be false to those that they wine and dine, if they don't really like them. Also such an approach would need an individual to be ready to swallow a lot of pride.

I wanted to let those who are considering coming to teach in China, know that there are much better alternatives than your approach.

I think that Smartie, the OP, has been given an unnecessarily rough ride because of his candid comments about obtaining a complimentary release letter. The truth is that it is a common occurrence in Chinese culture to offer such niceties to one's boss in order to gain his favor. I worked in one school in which the foreign teachers' relationship with their department liaison was so tenuous and volatile that we were truly at wits' end. A Chinese friend who is neither inexperienced nor naive suggested that we present the liaison with a cash gift, treat him to dinner, or present him with a simple bottle of baiju to sweeten him up. We ruled out the cash immediately (our cultural values at play). Dinner was voted out because we didn't think he'd accept, but if he did we were unsure just how well the evening would turn out. We settled on the baiju. Since none of us liked the stuff, and none of us had much experience with it, we gave my friend 100 rmb to buy a good bottle of baiju. (Yes, I know: "good" and "baiju" are oxymorons). I don't remember how much it cost, but I do remember getting a LOT of change back.

At the end of the term, when we turned in our grade books and all of our textbooks, we presented him with the bottle of turpentine --- I mean baiju--- and the guy's demeanor changed drastically. My Chinese friend was right. A little grease goes a long way. The next term, our liaison went to bat for us to negotiate with the department for us to have more reasonable schedules and more reasonable timetables for handing in required paperwork. At the time, there were no required Letters of Release, so I can't say whether our gift would have changed the outcome of any evaluation issued in the form of a letter of release or a letter of recommendation (which is not the same as a letter of release. Now, the letter of release is mandatory on the part of the FAO. The letter of recommendation is something that is voluntary and may be issued at the discretion of the dean of the foreign languages department or the FAO).

Re: becoming a better teacher in order to obtain a good word from an employer. In a rational world, it is a reasonable assumption that doing a good job would prompt an employer to communicate good things about a good employee. Anyone who works in the real world for any length of time learns that doing one's job well does not always earn the respect and admiration of his employer. In a previous China gig, I worked with two wholly incompetent foreign teachers. One professed to have ten years experience in EFL and BA in English. The other had about four years experience in China and professed to have a Ph.D of some sort. Neither demonstrated any class room ability. One teacher's classes went on strike and refused to respond to him after mid-term; the other teacher's students complained bitterly to me about her incompetence and iron-fist approach to "teaching" as well as using her class room as a pulpit to trash the school, her students, and her foreign colleagues. (I know about their complaints because we shared a couple of groups of students. I had to hear their complaints, though I instructed them not to complain to me but to their group leader). At the end of the term, the ten-year veteran was given a letter of release with no negative remarks. The Ph.D retained her job and her exorbitant salary.

How did they do it? Each spent a lot of time in the FAO's office schmoozing the waiban. It didn't matter one bit to the waiban that they were incompetent, and the foreign teachers didn't care that their students hated them or that the foreign languages department viewed them as bad teachers. The foreign teachers knew that the FAO held the power, so that's where they expended their energies.

These are just a few of the realities of teaching in China. For some strange reason, frauds and incompetent teachers demonstrate remarkable ability to maintain employment in China not because of their teaching skills but for their political acumen. This occurs not only in China TEFL but elsewhere in the world and in other areas of employment.

Smartie, although your sucking up to the FAO got you a very good reference letter, did it also provide an opportunity for you to renew your contract with the school? If it didn't, then this would demonstrate the limits of your approach.

A better way, would be to do your best to let your teaching speak for you. Put more heart into improving, so that if you find a school that you like, you will increase your opportunity of staying there by being offered contract renewals.

In my experience, I have found that Chinese school leaders, at least in public schools, generally do not expect or particularly require foreign teachers to suck up to them. They expect it from their fellow Chinese, but when it comes to FTs, all they generally expect is somebody who doesn't rock the boat, who sticks to the contract, and carries out his job as best he can.

A good reference letter is ok, but you could save yourself a bit of pride, and money, and attain a more successful outcome if you focused your energies, primarily, on doing the best job that you could. Your strategy is limited, because it generally only brings about the "Ok here's a good reference letter, now get lost!" result.

can you guys imagine a "complimentary economic system"?

It certainly does happen to an extent in private industry in the West. Big multinationals that make huge profits can afford to be wasteful of talent, and they are! Haven't you heard of 'the old school tie'? My father worked for such a haughty company. They don't always promote or reward the right people. Imediate bosses of workers can make mistakes. Crawlers can get preferrential treatment. So, some talented people get p***ed off and leave!

can you guys imagine a "complementary economic system"? any evaluation based on such practices as our OP has mentioned is a prescription to failures and the dooms day. first is that the really good workers do not or will not get what they deserve, and then goes the downfall of such companies (schools). such companies that offer such evaluations usually offer faulty products. hasn't china flooded its domestic and international markets with enough junk already? i know that you can recycle some products but how do you really recycle ill prepared youngsters and the workforce that might fill in some actually important positions?
cheers and beers to visions to future, not some short sighted eyes that cannot see on tips of their noses :)

Really? Hmmm ... Great advice! Even though it's not true! Spend your money on the boss? The key to success in China is very easy and very few know how to open the door. When I say it's easy one must also possess the necessary tools and know how to use those tools to one's advantage. A degree in teaching will not necessarily make you successful in China. You need to come to the table with more than a teaching degree on your plate. People come here like sheep to be shorn. They have nothing to offer! Incompetence runs rampant. Over half the FT's in China should get released and banned at the same time from ever working here again. The majority of teachers here can't teach to save their ass! And that's at every level!

It appears that you have misread my post(s).
I have a handler at college, the FAO. He is Chinese, my other boss there is the dean of the English department. He is Chinese too. I've been keeping my FAO sweet by inviting him and his wife to dinner regularly. I regard him as my handler at college.
I also have a Chinese agent, who has been very good. What happened at the college re me being giving writing classes to teach was not his fault. I asked him to try to get me a 100% oral post next time, as I'm not qualified to teach writing. His main interest in me is to sell me to an employer. He doesn't care about my carreer development. Though his job is boring, but he does it well. The reason he mentioned low schools and colleges to me is that he doesn't want me to go back to my home country. If I did that, he couldn't flog me again. So, he tried to make me feel better about my next destination by saying he would find me a job with little stress where the students are very poor in English.

Smartie, I know that you want a quiet, stress-free life (most people, do, including myself, and there's nothing wrong with that. At the same time, though, are you really content to be looked upon as a person who's only fit to teach in "low public schools", " ordinary high schools", and "Backward counties". Man, I would feel a bit insulted if my handler told me what he said to you. Not that I would blame him: I think that I would take a look at myself and ask myself if I would be satisfied with people having such an opinion of me.

I don't know you, but I get the feeling that you can do better for yourself. You don't have to accept low jobs, and low salaries. Believe in yourself a bit more. Take some guidance from good teachers around and slowly, step by step, try to improve your skills and methods. Do you like teaching? It would help if you liked it to some extent. As I said, you don't have to go crazy, but set yourself small challenges as regards improvement, and in the future you may find yourself confident enough to go for the better paid jobs in better cities and schools. Also, your students would benefit from this, too!

Use the poorer quality schools as a platform to start improving yourself as a teacher. Just because a place is deemed backward it doesn't mean it's not a good place to teach, though. You might be able to help those who are less well off. The point I am trying to make is, don't accept that you have to stay at at a low skill level if you don't want to. Why not try to better yourself and earn acknowledgement for your ability, too?

I have been given a very boring writing textbook to teach regarding the theory of writing. I can hardly follow it, and many of my students can't. I have a feeling that the main reason some were complaining about my teaching was to put pressure on me to let them pass, even though they were clueless. My dean told me to be kind in the exam marking so that only 5% would fail, and to let them all pass the resit. I did so, and this semester the students are happier, and complain less. The dean knows that the students can't write well. He even admitted that none of the teachers can too! I think he had forgot to exclude the other foreign teacher. As long as I follow the system and keep my nose sqeeky clean, I'll be left alone. That's what my experience has taught me, and don't dare to complain. And, just for good measure, be generous regularly to one's hardworking minder who likes good food and liquor in fine settings.

If you're not good enough at teaching, how about trying to improve yourself for the sake of your students? How about making self-improvement (in teaching) your goal, instead of focusing on getting a "good" release letter.

I have been trying to improve my teaching to satisfy my students more, but the other foreign teacher told me in confidance the Chinese teachers in the English department office had said I was not a good teacher and not likely to develop into one. He can speak Chinese, so he was able to moniter what they were chatting about. He didn't tell them his Chinese was good, as he wanted to understand their unhibited talk! He has a degree, so he's on much more than me, but that's fair. I'm on 3500 quia a month, which gives me a comfortable life. He has no need to make trouble for me, as I can never be a threat to him visa vie employment. I think his teaching rating was just average because he often complains about things like late pay. I never complain about anything as I feel vulnerable because of my poor teaching. I would have been happy with an average release letter, but I was worried I would get a poor rating. So, I tried to engratiate myself and flatter my Chinese superiors. Where I came from, I'd been a movie theater usher ever since flunking uni as a freshman. I don't want to go back to that kind of bad job. I had not shown that on my resume before coming here. I know Chinese teachers like to look down on others. My agent told me that and how to do my resume.

Smartie, I find your post, both, honest and dishonest. Since you've provided us with such an advice, I'll follow with mine as well. Let's spend more to improve professionally than on dining out with ones that do not know what professional means! :)

Local college students need to learn how to improve their academic reading and writing skills. Their writings often lack any cohesion, the main ideas of their sentences or paragraphs are hard to see or even infer and that never mind their poor spelling of words they sometimes do not really know. Not that my writing's great, but I am trying. Smartie, you could try that too. WINK TO YA

To all other readers on, not long ago, in China, the honorable FAOs,Smartie's talking about, were inviting foreign teachers to dinners themsleves. Some of the reasons being then were that such FAOs wanted to learn or practice their English at the table and some that they just wanted to get to know some of the western culture at dinner tables. Also some FAOs were as desperate as they were to keep the foreign teachers invited happy in schools. The situtation has surely changed in past few years, hasn't it? LOL LOL LOL

Cheers and beers to Smartie that makes our forums forums after all

If you included some Baijiu in that meal, you're well on your way to a first class everything in China.
Self-evaluations are hard sometimes, especially when you do try to be a good teacher but the students do
not respond in kind.
Seriously though, if YOU believe that your teaching methodologies need work please try to improve those first before sending out future dinner invitations. Investing on some kind ESL books that will teach you some things in the long run is cheaper; I bought four ESL books plus three manuals.
In China, mostly the education is crap and some of the teachers and administrators of the province that I work in know this. I personally work with some who admitted that Chinese education has alot of improvement to do. My jaw almost dropped to the floor when I heard this. In China, things change slowly but they do change. I want to see if in the next ten years Chinese education improves or continues its current path of degrees for sale.

There's a lot of truth in your post, but were your 'minder' a Chinese lady teacher, or indeed the head of the English department were a Chinese lady, your way of being well regarded is much less certain to succeed. Chinese lady teachers will be very careful not to accept favours like yours. Firstly, because their husbands or boyfriends or colleagues may suspect there is romance in the air. Secondly, because they tend to be more ambitious than Chinese male teachers - so
they will not want others to say bad things about them accepting any kind of bribe behind their backs.
It's been my observation Chinese men tend to be easygoing and more inclined to repay kindness with kindness. Anyways, you seem to know what you're doing in order to continue teaching on mainland in spite of not being a good teacher. Though you didn't say your college was a state establishment, I would expect it to be so. A good piece of advice for you and your like is never ever work for private employers nor for those half public half private outfits, and you should be fine. And, I almost forgot, you'd better not complain about anything, that's the way to go. the Chinese dislike foreign wowsers.

I've just been pleasantly surprised by my release letter from a Chinese college where quite frankly I have done a pretty average teaching job at best. After being in trouble every so often due to complaints about my teaching from some aukward students of mine, I decided to keep in with my minder. At the end of every month, I invited him and his wife for a good meal, saying that I was very happy to do so, as I'd been given a wonderful opportunity to experiense their country through being employed by the college. It cost me about 200 quia a dinner. In all honesty, I was only expecting an average teaching asessment, but I could hardly believe the great one I received. Meanwhile, the other foreigner here, who never invited our FAO out for a meal has got a very average rating of his teaching. Naturally, I didn't tell him about my great rating, as I didn't want to disappoint him, as he is a much better teacher than I'll ever be able to be, and he would have been even more disappointed, had he known about my super rating. My advise is if you're no good at teaching, keep your head down, accept the critizism, and be kind to your minder by buying him dinners oftentimes. Then you'll be okay for getting a great report, and then can move on to a new gig!

If you're not good enough at teaching, how about trying to improve yourself for the sake of your students? How about making self-improvement (in teaching) your goal, instead of focusing on getting a "good" release letter.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about an "average" release letter, if I knew in my heart that I taught the best that I could, and that my students were generally satisfied with me. That would be success, enough, and my confidence and self-belief would carry me through. I heard about one teacher using student references to help him get a teaching position. For that to work, though, your focus and priorities would have to be on/your students.