Larrrie White
- 2007-05-30
While I agree in spirit with what your are saying it is a fact the we do pay the recruiters in a round about way. Many of my more savy friends who can negotiate for themselves get what the recruiters would get . Examples: a business offers pay 400 rmb per hr. for English Classes the recruiter gets 300
and offers you 100. I have a friend who, with his girl friend (Chinese of course) started their own
language school and they making a kings ransom. It seems the schools have a set amount in mind and recuiters know this and cut us out.Our problem is we are not organized. No China is not organized. Collective bargaining has its place. As a member of the NEA and the teachers Union in America I can tell you there is a big difference all the way around. Here there are no standarards at all. A you need is a cute face preferably white, and some lame tesol certificate. Sorry I haven't seen one of those so called Tesol SChools that was anything but a scam. Unless they are attached to a major university. I myself Have a creditial in Secondary education and 24 units towards my masters. Yet I am regularly told that cute white kids with a HS diploma and a tesol are prefered. I also a have a degree in Enlish from Rutgers University and 25 years teaching experince.
Oh I forgot to mention I am African American and Over 50. This my retirement I thought I would travel exciting Asia and broaden my horizens well I have in a way. When I get home I can tell my friends that we have nothing to worry about. These people haven't got a clue. They are victums of the same stupid prejudices everyone else is and are being taught The Lingua Franca of the world by people with little or no training many of whom reagard thier experince here as a lark!!!!!
Larrrie White
- 2007-05-29
I say use a dog to eat a dog. I have found my lying
cheating recruiter to be quit useful. She is able to negotiate for me with the lying schools. I then have several Chinese friends and my own reaserch to help sort out both. As result I have made a decent living with a minamal of hassle. Oh I have had my bumps and bruises but I always keep in mind why I came here
and that was to teach. There is an old saying "You can't cheat an honest man." I let the dogs cheat the dogs I only teach and carefully count my coin.
Old and Tired
- 2007-05-29
Sir Doubting Thoas,
You write: "I never looked for a job that was offered through a recruiter, mainly because it was one more person to go through to get the same job I could get on my own. Why should I pay somebody else to do that for me?"
Obviously, you are not working in China, and probably haven't before. In China, ESL teachers do not pay recruiters. Recruiters collect their fees from the "school," "unversity," "training center," who engages them to deliver a foreign teacher to them.
Their fees range wildly from a minimum of 4000RMB per ESL body up to 45,000RMB per teacher (as a few ex-partners of recruiters will attest). Therefore, a great many (majority, perhaps) will not only paint an overly-rosey picture of living and teaching in China (especially to those who have not yet entered the PRC), but will also withhold as much negative information as possible concerning the position.
If you know what questions to ask, they will SOMETIMES answer them fairly, but first one must know what questions need to be posed, which can be quite difficult because so many positions have very unique, negative features that one could not possibly anticipate.
The unsuspecting/trusting FT is caught in the scramble of educational "disorganizations" who are desperate for FTs, and the financial ambitions of recruiters who see us as little more than their personal ATM.
And please -- ALL READERS -- keep in mind that when one applies for an ESL teaching position in China, you must provide any all documents (diplomas, transcripts, main passport pages, photos, etc.) to prove your identity and credentials, as stated in the resume.
That is certainly fair from the side of the employer, but NEVER forget that recruiters operate under numberous aliases, and that they -- and schools -- are not required to truthfully identify themselves to us.
China is full of ESL landmines.
Doubting Thomas, before you admonish those of us who are trying to protect ourselves IN CHINA (and warn others considering coming here), try first having more informed knowledge about the plight and challenges of FTs here.
Doubting Thomas
- 2007-05-28
I never looked for a job that was offered through a recruiter, mainly because it was one more person to go through to get the same job I could get on my own. Why should I pay somebody else to do that for me?
Yes, please be aware of most recruiters. Approach them with a large measure of caution and skepticism. They have a tendency to misrepresent the schools you may work at and jobs you may take.
And beware of future potential employers, whether they are business managers, headmasters or university deans/HR managers. They also have a tendency to misrepresent themselves.
And, as anybody can painfully see in this internet forum, beware of other teachers, past teachers, wannabe teachers, angry teachers, foolish teachers, lying teachers, drunken teachers, threatening teachers, violent teachers, mentally ill teachers and pervert teachers. They all exist, and in pretty significant numbers. Your working conditions will be influenced negatively to a far greater extent by your own workmates and fellow countrymen than by the recruiter that you will likely never meet, or by your boss which would rather just leave you alone and have nothing to do with you as long as you fulfill your end of the bargain and do your work as assigned.
But as in all parts of life, be careful of the people that scream. There has been a lot of screaming here lately, not unlike the screaming that frequently goes on in other internet forums about anything, and as any intelligent person can see, it's just been so much exercise.
In this particular forum, the name callers are accusing others of being name callers, and the others are just being antagonistic, seemingly for fun. But who is who? It's hard to tell without an event program. At first it was kind of fun just to sit back and watch the parade of fools as it went by, but now it has become so sad and tiresome to the point of being alarming. What's all the anger about anyway? You disagree with each other? So what? You've never had somebody disagree with you before? You've never met somebody with a different opinion than yours'? Okay, fine, disagree with each other. But to sit there at your keyboards and make silly accusations about each other, people that you have never met and more than likely never will, and shout censorship and stupidity at each other is just too much juvenile behavior.
To the stupid posters here: why don't you wise up and quit trying to win an argument on the internet? It won't happen, no matter what you say. You once had decent reputations, but you allowed those to be shattered just for the sake of being argumentative.
And to the people that have complained about censorship, well, just put a muzzle on it. Nobody is trying to censor you, they just don't want to listen to you scream your rants. If anybody listened to you before, they probably don't now.
And for crying out loud, can you all just grow up?