Do you want to teach in China? Are you qualified?

If you are going to go teach in China, please give yourself at least 5-6 months to get everything together. Seriously. Especially if you are in the US.

Disclaimer: There are ways where people from other countries can go to China to teach. However, I’m from the US so I’m posting this according to my experience.

What do you typically need to be initially considered?

1. You must be from one of these approved countries – UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand & South Africa. Korea is the same about this.
2. You must be a native-English speaker.
3. You must have a Bachelor’s Degree. Your major doesn’t matter.
4. You must have a recognized and accredited TEFL certification and/or 2 years of experience that you can prove. If you have a degree in English or TEFL or anything similar you can get a waiver.
5. You need a criminal background check from your home country.
6.  You must be between 18 and 60 years of age (men) and 55 (women) apparently these are the ages for Chinese teachers as well.

Honestly, these requirements are almost similar to Korea if that’s where you want to go.

Ok, so you are qualified from just these few checkpoints. That’s the easy part. There’s a lot more work that needs to be done.

Ask yourself…

1. When do I want to go to China? Is it doable? Be realistic here.
   • If you answer in the next month, that’s probably not possible even if you have all your documents ready. Authentications from the US State Department take 6-8 weeks and up to 12 weeks. (April 2023).
2. Do I have the funds or will I be able to get them to pay for authentications, visa fees, flights, etc? It can become costly. A lot of jobs will reimburse you for things like the flight if you are paying upfront after you arrive, keep that in mind.
3. Where do I want to work in China? What kind of vibe am I going for?
   • Below are examples of cities in the different tiers. Depending on the tier, the population, pay, and cost of living are different. What you can get in a tier 3 city would cost you more in a tier 1 city.
     • tier 1: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen
     • tier 2: Chengdu, Changsha, Nanjing, Xi’an, Hangzhou
     • tier 3: Guilin, Nanning, Guiyang, Changde
     • tier 4: Changshu, Hulin, Linhai, Xiangcheng
4. What kind of school do I want to work for?
   • A public school, a kindergarten, a training center, a university, or an international school?
   • What’s the difference between these? The workload? Hours? Pay? What kind of vacation and benefits do I want?

DO YOUR RESEARCH!

Please! Google is your best friend. Search like you never have before. You don’t want to interview and then agree to anything because you don’t know much. Don’t do that to yourself.

The questions I put above, try to answer. You’d have a brief outline of things you are looking for at least before interviewing.