One teacher I knew thought 15 hours a week too much! Some people don't want to be co-operative and industrious it seems...real losers back in their respective homelands

I see you use this much-loved by the Chinese word 'cooperate' You are obviously not a native born English speaker. Why would anybody want to co-operate with a private school in China that want you to work for a lower hourly rate of pay than you'd get at a university, with no chance of promotion, no pension, no sick pay, no holiday pay and the company is invariably owned by a non English speaking ex chicken farmer with sod all interest in the English language himself. The only industrious westerners in China are engineers and such like whose companies are investing in China, not white monkeys who will never be allowed a decent cut of the education industry pie, no matter how much they co-operate.

I repeat, FT's in the main are not proper teachers, they are not recognised as such in their respective countries and they can be industrious and co-operative as they like in those countries but we wouldn't be able to even get a job in said schools wiping the students arses.

An FT's job in China should be a long working holiday-we shouldn't be ingratiating ourselves to ex-chicken farmer Chinese gravy train private school owners.

You can be industrious and co-operative till the cows come home but there will never be any advancment for you as a FT in China, and of course back home it'll count for nothing.

Now, I'll tell you what would be really industrious- Get a job in a university, as few hours as possible. learn to speak and read fluent Mandarin instead of getting poe-faces every night. If you want extra money, put your details on a Chinese website and go ziji shang ke- Illegal yes, but are you a man or a mouse? A private training centre drunken waster mouse?