the eternal question: to teach english or not to teach english. in planning to move to beijing, i was of course asked countless times whether i planned to teach english while i was over here. i've always been sort of snobby about it. i thought that teaching english meant that a person was not really attempting to interact with their new country. this was probably heightened by the fact that so many people who do not know any chinese are able to come over here through programs for teaching english. i've studied the language, and so i had always thought that teaching english was a crutch that i shouldn't have to fall back on. i'm totally rethinking this.
first of all, to be practical, teaching english is definitely the best way to make a decent living without a huge investment of time. almost everyone over here has some sort of big scheme, their plan to make a bundle through fulfilling some need to the expat community, but those take time, often don't pan out at all, and require way more connections and know-how than i've got. teaching english, one can work on an hourly basis, and can get paid up to about 22 US dollars. even in the US that wouldn't be bad pay, over here its great pay. there are a plethora of opportunities, and you can totally set your own hours if you work it right.
second, to really cut down the holier-than-thou attitude i'd had about teachers of english, my language skills are not really good enough to get most jobs that rely heavily on language skills. i may have studied chinese for 2 years, but i'm essentially in the same boat as the non-chinese speakers in terms of employment.
third, i've rethought my previous judgement that teaching english was not a worthwhile means of employment in getting to know one's new home. it's a great way to make friends who can help you work on your chinese. and, as i've learned from my chinese language teachers, you can ask all sort of questions about your students' culture, satisfying your own curiosity while you help them flesh out their language skills.
the verdict? no, i'm not going to try to get a job teaching english right now. i'm going to try to see if i can find something more along the lines of my actual employment interests, so when i go back to the states i can have something to show for my time over here. but the point is that now i would teach english. i've got nothing against it, and so i know that if i need to, i could do it without having any qualms about it.
first of all, to be practical, teaching english is definitely the best way to make a decent living without a huge investment of time. almost everyone over here has some sort of big scheme, their plan to make a bundle through fulfilling some need to the expat community, but those take time, often don't pan out at all, and require way more connections and know-how than i've got. teaching english, one can work on an hourly basis, and can get paid up to about 22 US dollars. even in the US that wouldn't be bad pay, over here its great pay. there are a plethora of opportunities, and you can totally set your own hours if you work it right.
second, to really cut down the holier-than-thou attitude i'd had about teachers of english, my language skills are not really good enough to get most jobs that rely heavily on language skills. i may have studied chinese for 2 years, but i'm essentially in the same boat as the non-chinese speakers in terms of employment.
third, i've rethought my previous judgement that teaching english was not a worthwhile means of employment in getting to know one's new home. it's a great way to make friends who can help you work on your chinese. and, as i've learned from my chinese language teachers, you can ask all sort of questions about your students' culture, satisfying your own curiosity while you help them flesh out their language skills.
the verdict? no, i'm not going to try to get a job teaching english right now. i'm going to try to see if i can find something more along the lines of my actual employment interests, so when i go back to the states i can have something to show for my time over here. but the point is that now i would teach english. i've got nothing against it, and so i know that if i need to, i could do it without having any qualms about it.
posted by Amanda at 8:42 PM
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