A huge percentage of the foreigners in China taught English, in some form, at some point or another. It’s not just the Americans or the British – people from Africa, Europe, India and South America also tutor and teach. Teaching English is big busines – the market is huge and the demand is high. Though they’ve experienced turmoil since then, New Oriental Education was successful enough that they listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006. Yet complaints ring out from foreigners about the shoddy treatment they receive: promises and contracts changed or broken, visa problems, being shorted on pay. On the other side, schools that hire foreigners cite foreigners’ inflated salaries and expectations as causing the problems. As always when faced with a difficult question, we turned to you for the answer.

Do Chinese schools take advantage of foreign English teachers?

Photo: Haldini

Perspectives seeks to promote dialogue and cross-cultural understanding by featuring Chinese and foreign responses to a single question. Email us to be added to our weekly question mailing list or to suggest questions of your own and feel free to add your perspective in the comments section below.

Some schools do, but I think that is at least partly cultural. Many Chinese worker just take orders from above and rarely question what they're told to do even if that means long hours that they might not be getting paid for. Many of them just see it as more guanxi. What we might think of as being taken advantage of, they just think of as work that needs to be done and someone needs to do it. This scenario is probably only the case in better schools and probably only happens like 25% of the time. The rest of the time they're just being dicks and trying to get you to do more work because they know you're stuck here.
J / US

Yes, but both of them are winners.
X / China

I have never worked as a teacher in China, but I've heard from friends that some schools take advantage of foreigners popping up in Shanghai wanting to teach English. It's just a case of being rigorous with your research, talking to teachers who have been here a while, and making sure you don't get ripped off. If it looks fishy and smells fishy, it probably is.
S / China

Depends on the situation. Yes, foreign teachers often make more money than the Chinese teachers, maybe even more than the school’s principal, but there is no defense for when school promise you something – be it a certain kind of apartment, schedule, classes or money – and don’t follow through. Often, it seems like they never had any intent to actually provide what was in the advertisement or what they told you at the interview and act surprised when you push them on it. There are many good schools, and bad foreign teachers, out there but this is no justification for those schools that cheat and take advantage of people’s ignorance and isolation.
R / US

I work at a school where we hire many foreign teachers. Foreign teachers expect way too much and get very angry when they don’t get what they want. They can be quite racist and think that all the Chinese at the school are stupid and lazy, even though we work longer and often have more experience than them. None of them make any attempt to learn and communicate in Chinese or eat meals and go play with the Chinese teachers. If anything, the foreign teachers take advantage of the Chinese staff.
L / China

I think so.
T / China

 

 

I worked for a school that promised me a work visa. I kept asking when it would be ready and what I needed to do and they kept telling me it would be done soon. My visa expired and there was no new visa and no help from the school. I had to leave China quickly and pay a fine and still haven’t been paid all of my salary.
J / South Africa

In an unfamiliar environment it can be easy to think you’re taken advantage of when you’re not and also easy to miss it when you are. It’s important to do as much research as you can before you take a job and make sure you plan far enough in ahead that you’re not panicked and have to take the first job offered. This is where I’ve made mistakes and almost been deported as a result. When you have a job try to befriend your Chinese coworkers as well, but beware, their allegiance will always be to the company, not you.
H / US

Chinese schools usually do not care about education or hiring good teachers. They will hire foreign faces and ignore qualified teachers because they cost more or try to pay them less. They pay based on how hard you bargain your salary, not how much experience you have or what a good teacher you are. Private schools in particular are businesses, not centers of education and learning.
L / Australia

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