ESL TEACHER JOBS

ESL teacher jobs provide you with the opportunity to start a new rewarding job almost anywhere in the world. As an ESL teacher, you can expect to earn a comfortable salary that will allow you to save some money, travel and even go out from time to time depending on your lifestyle. China is currently one of the largest markets for ESL jobs which representa great opportunity for new teachers, and teachers with years of experience. In the video below, EF recruiters Zach and Heather talk about almost everything related to ESL teacher jobs. Watch the video to learn more as they recount their teaching experiences and offer insights into teaching English in China.

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Intro

Hi, welcome back, in case you don't remember, I'm Zach, and this is Heather and we recruit with EF. Yep, so we're here to talk about ESL teacher jobs, tell you a little bit more about them and what you can expect.

There are a couple of different terms you'll hear depending on where you from or where you've been. One is ESL, that stands for English as a Second Language, and the other is T E F L which stands for Teaching English as Foreign Language and both refer to teaching English to Speakers of Other languages, there's a lot of terms for it.

There are a few different types of ESL teacher jobs here in China, one of those is in a public school, so that's actually where I got my start as an ESL teacher. I was working in a public high school in some tiny tiny town, and it was really fun. My classes were huge, my classes were 70 kids in a classroom, they were shoulder to shoulder sitting on these little benches, but they had so much energy, it was really, it was a lot of fun. And after doing a year of that you know, I actually wanted to move into a place where I could get a little bit more support, training, and grow and develop as a teacher and that's how I came to an EF training school where it was far smaller classes. Other than public schools, for kids, there are also ESL teacher jobs in international schools and private schools, which a few of my friends over the years have taught at.

Training schools are another area of the English teaching industry. Basically, you'll find a lot of different types of training centres here; adults, kids maybe even online. But basically, they're schools that focus only on teaching English, and that's outside of student's public school hours or outside of their working hours.

The class sizes are definitely smaller; it's maximum of 16 in our kids and teens classes. Then, in our adult's classes, we have the 25 student workshops, (maximum of 25 students) which are kind of active, energetic classes. We also have face to face classes with a maximum of four, a little bit smaller for those.

Across all of these jobs, the hours can be pretty consistent; it's typically 20 hours of teaching per week. Of course, there are additional office hour times, it is a full-time job, so there's lesson planning time, staff meetings, communicating with other members of staff and training depending on what kind of centre you are in.

The main reason that you would be looking for ESL teacher jobs in China is probably to travel while you earn a decent wage at the same time. For training centres, the wage is definitely comfortable with the salary that you will be receiving and other areas of the industry as well. So it's kind of a sliding scale right, so smaller towns the cost of living is a little bit less, and you will make a little bit less money. But, you can still live very comfortably for what you're going to be spending your money on. Bigger cities, a little bit more going on, a little bit higher prices, and things like that, and there you will have a higher salary in those kinds of situations as well. Across the board, teachers live comfortably, one thing I have also noticed is that some teachers have Ai Yi's which is Chinese for ahousekeeper, so that's someone who can pick up after you. I never thought I could have one, I mean, I don't have one now, of course, I clean up after myself all of the time, but you could if you wanted to, even if you didn't want to admit to it.

Another big factor is being able to save money or send it home, which I do every single month when I was teaching in the south and now that I have been here, so that's definitely a possibility, you can save money and send money home easily.