How to find a job teaching EFL in a Chinese kindergarten

Before getting into how to teach English to very young learners in a Chinese kindergarten. I wanted to talk for a moment about how to find yourself a job teaching in a Chinese kindergarten.

The first part is that you want to be sure that you are legally working in China. At this moment you pretty much have to be from a native English speaking country. This sucks for those of us who are non “native” but still qualified to teach English but hopefully one day the rule will be more balanced and based on qualifications instead of what country you were born in. That being said you do need a certain minimum of qualifications. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the general paperwork required. Be sure to double check with your recruiter on exactly what you need:

• Bachelors degree or higher (any field)
• TESL/TEFL/CELTA certificate with 120 hours
• 2 years teaching experience (this is sometimes waived depending on qualification)
• Clear criminal record from your home country. (This is becoming more official due to some incidents between teachers and kids.)

All the above has to be what they call “authenticated/notarized” which is a process by which your home country, or whatever country issued the diploma/certificate says that this is a real diploma.

The in country process is pretty involved to get a “Z” visa and FEC card. A lot of schools/agencies can’t be bothered and try to just let you work on a tourist/business/student visa. Don’t let them get away with it. If they can’t give you an official working visa, don’t work for them, no matter how much they are offering or what excuses they give you. If you are caught, you will be fined and deported while they will get a slap on the wrist. There are incidents of schools reporting their illegally working teachers themselves in order to avoid paying out bonuses at the end of the school year since its cheaper to pay a fine than the bonuses, especially to multiple teachers.

But let’s say that all your paperwork is in order, you are qualified and now you are looking for a school. You basically have two choices. Work directly for a kindergarten or work through a placing agency.

If you want to work directly for a kindergarten, the pros are that you can negotiate your own salary. The downside is that you can easily be fired at any time as there is no job security. If a parent complains about you the kindergarten can and will fire you from one day to the next. If you don’t speak fluent Chinese you might have difficulty communicating with the HR department or even with your immediate superior. This also leaves you vulnerable to having your salary withheld or all the other horror stories about teaching in China which you might have heard of and I can assure you are all true and probably understated as well.

If you work for an agency, your salary might be a bit lower and they place you in a random kindergarten so might not have an exact idea of what you need to do.  Depending on how involved the agency is, they might wash their hands of you once you’ve been placed in the school after which you will have the same issues as if you were working on your own.

A third option is to be directly employed by a company who then contracts you out to teach in a kindergarten for the school year. This is actually quite useful as any orders to you or changes in your schedule have to be negotiated between the kindergarten and your company.

I am currently working under the third option. In my personal opinion, having worked directly for many primary schools and kindergartens, you don’t want to be on your own in China trying to get your Chinese employer to do right by you, whether it’s paying your salary on time or getting your visa paperwork done in a prompt manner. 

You can see different types of adverts online or in social media groups. Here is an examples of a bad advert:

We need two or three foreign English teachers, preferably women. Can sign a contract for two years or more. Foreign teachers need to meet the conditions of work visa. Working place is in Wugang, Hunan.You can consult me if you are interested.

I would avoid this type of advert at all costs.

This is my company’s current advert:

HIRING ENGLISH TEACHERS FOR SHANGHAI:

Kindergarten, full-time, Monday to Friday

Salary:

23,000-27,000元/mth,

 + 13,000元 summer bonus,

 + 5,000元 CNY bonus,

 + Accident Insurance,

 + free 3 days accommodation if required

 + other benefits (explained at interview)

Requirements:

– must have a passport from a native English speaking country, according to Foreign Expert Bureau rules

– must be between 22 and 50 yrs old

– must have a university degree (notarized)

– teaching certificate (notarized) or 2 years experience,

– criminal background check (notarized – if not holding a working visa)

– must be able to pass the government medical, which now includes, a drug test.

If interested, email:

1. resume (CV)

2. copy of passport,

3. copy of visa, and/or clear criminal background

4. copy of degree

5. Copy of TESOL/TEFL certificate

WE ARE A DIRECT EMPLOYER

Legally licensed to hire foreign teachers.

Only applicants who qualify for Category B work permit and working visa are considered                   

If you want to teach EFL in a Chinese kindergarten in Shanghai, I feel my company is one of the better ones (naturally I’m biased) so feel free to contact me through the comments of this post for further details if you are interested. As you can see the current salary is between 3250-3800 US dollars per month and roughly another 2500-3000 dollars in bonuses at the end of the year. It’s not an exorbitant amount but when you consider that the average salary in Paris, my home country’s capital is 2169 euros, it looks better. It can also be cheap to live here if you are careful and I will be doing another article on how to save money while teaching in China and Shanghai specifically.

If anyone is offering you a lower salary, I wouldn’t accept it but contact my company instead J.

Next article will either be on personal finance as an EFL teacher in Shanghai or we’ll be diving into the contents of your lessons as an EFL teacher in a Chinese kindergarten.