Here are some tips, fellow colleague:

1. Do not follow the job leads on Dave's ESL Cafe, they are basically a who's who list of crap "schools" to avoid.

2. Find a Top 30 preferably Top 20 University in China. Go directly to their website and try to find the human resources web page. If there is trouble with this then google the English name of the University with "esl" attached to the search. You should then be able to find some ESL pages that can help you apply.

3. Public High school and Middle School jobs will fall into 2 types of categories. Either you will be teaching classes of 50+ kids who are just regular students or you will be teaching special "international exchange" classes with less than 20 students. You may get a mix of both but if you do try and make sure the workload is no more than 16 periods a week at 45 minutes per class. Check for online reviews as well because if the public school has been reviewed on the internet chances are it is a place to be avoided.

4. There is no such thing as a GOOD training center. The only time I could ever tolerate being at one was when I worked there VERY part time (to put it mildly, like once a month) and getting paid a decent amount on the same day that I taught there. Even then, you will want to quit after 2 months maximum due to one or two useless buffoons foreign or local getting on your case. Working full time at these types of places will make you feel like an exploited sweatshop worker. You risk burning out and even losing your soul over the bad experience. I do not need to say more than that, there are a bajillion articles regarding the "wonderful" experiences of working at training centers.