WHORING YOUR ENGLISH OUT
As i have already covered chinese people all really really want to practise their horrible english on you! So why not get paid handsomely for it? I was told by my friends when in college that pulling RMB150 an hour was good with 100 the going rate. I think its higher: ive started to collect RMB180 an hour from one kids school and RMB150 (guy said 200 was fine) from an executive type. And with the STRONG demand for native speakers you could demand 200 without much trouble, people will push 100/120 onto you but if everyone is offering that more is very possible. Dont feel greedy, all the schools (Private and otherwise) are too.
Sign me up
These gigs were not hard to find either, after posting that i wanted some weekend hours on an ex-pat website i was literally flooded with offers. I went to a few schools who tried to push year-long contracts on me with hum-drim wages (120), then pestered me night and day on the phone for my "FOREIGN FRIENDS" to come to their shitty school and teach. Too many schools need the white guy to walk around and look impressive, the schools i visited all looked fairly opportunist, money grabbing and worst of all: decked out and surrounded by more terrible english. It struck me that the most desperate were these kinder-school for ages 4-14 pushed along by their parents who cant string a sentence together and who most likely think it means instance access to the world or something. The parents love me when i say "你好" but their expression darkens when i start speaking quasi-flaunt chinese. This is like a "face-off" and a chance to show of your education maybe, i dont care.
Teaching the brats
The executive taiwan dude is in New York for a month, so this is the only story to tell right now. I recently started teaching at "wittykids" somehow translated from a name like: english american school of language, im Australian, and this shouldnt be a problem as i have heard MANY cases of Russians and Spanish people passing themselves off as "native english speakers". So i do about 1 hour on fri, sat, sun night. The initial impression of the school (when i signed on) was good - the girl spoke passable english and the premise was slick and clean. But quickly this impression fell apart as i discovered it was run in a very ad-hoc way, a telemarketing like system (with some auctioning) pumps the kids in at random and everything seems to be thrown together on the run. Yes the lesson plans i have been given all reek of bad english too, despite assurances the boss lived in Ireland (ok i understand 80% of what she said, but its still far from good enough).
Why Kids
My girlfriend teaches college aged students japanese and i have heard that it is demanding. They all have a good grasp on grammar and the like. After work or a weekend studying session i dont feel like revisiting my grammatical inadequacies and stressing out. Shouting out "APPLE" ..."BANANA" is limited but rewarding in a way because these kids are easily amused and catch on fast. The other critical consideration is PRACTISING MY CHINESE at the same time as teaching english, every day i will say APPLE afterwards slip in 苹果, i do get saddled with an assistant who chirps away in chinese, but i feel that if i just speak english the kids dont really connect with me and im just a clown/english-tape-player. The biggest problem is the parent who tag along and demand a show or disturb class but encouraging their children to partisipate. FUCK OFF.
Sign me up
These gigs were not hard to find either, after posting that i wanted some weekend hours on an ex-pat website i was literally flooded with offers. I went to a few schools who tried to push year-long contracts on me with hum-drim wages (120), then pestered me night and day on the phone for my "FOREIGN FRIENDS" to come to their shitty school and teach. Too many schools need the white guy to walk around and look impressive, the schools i visited all looked fairly opportunist, money grabbing and worst of all: decked out and surrounded by more terrible english. It struck me that the most desperate were these kinder-school for ages 4-14 pushed along by their parents who cant string a sentence together and who most likely think it means instance access to the world or something. The parents love me when i say "你好" but their expression darkens when i start speaking quasi-flaunt chinese. This is like a "face-off" and a chance to show of your education maybe, i dont care.
Teaching the brats
The executive taiwan dude is in New York for a month, so this is the only story to tell right now. I recently started teaching at "wittykids" somehow translated from a name like: english american school of language, im Australian, and this shouldnt be a problem as i have heard MANY cases of Russians and Spanish people passing themselves off as "native english speakers". So i do about 1 hour on fri, sat, sun night. The initial impression of the school (when i signed on) was good - the girl spoke passable english and the premise was slick and clean. But quickly this impression fell apart as i discovered it was run in a very ad-hoc way, a telemarketing like system (with some auctioning) pumps the kids in at random and everything seems to be thrown together on the run. Yes the lesson plans i have been given all reek of bad english too, despite assurances the boss lived in Ireland (ok i understand 80% of what she said, but its still far from good enough).
Why Kids
My girlfriend teaches college aged students japanese and i have heard that it is demanding. They all have a good grasp on grammar and the like. After work or a weekend studying session i dont feel like revisiting my grammatical inadequacies and stressing out. Shouting out "APPLE" ..."BANANA" is limited but rewarding in a way because these kids are easily amused and catch on fast. The other critical consideration is PRACTISING MY CHINESE at the same time as teaching english, every day i will say APPLE afterwards slip in 苹果, i do get saddled with an assistant who chirps away in chinese, but i feel that if i just speak english the kids dont really connect with me and im just a clown/english-tape-player. The biggest problem is the parent who tag along and demand a show or disturb class but encouraging their children to partisipate. FUCK OFF.
maybe ill do an update down the track
1 comment:
still teaching english and slaving away for DTZ i see, I;m trying to figure a way of coming back to china on a decent salary, i'm not slaving away for peanuts like locals do.
Adam is conducting interviews for a new batch for interns, hopefully it will be better organised for them this time round and not like us, the pioneers of Adams little experiment. am coming to Hangzhou sometime next month, expect me soon!!
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