A TEFL, TESOL, CELTA required to teach in China now?

Howdy!

I have found out recently that there is a new rule that stipulates that one must have a teaching certificate to teach in China. This would be a Tesol or Celta or something along those lines. Supposedly someone in Hangzhou was gonged from getting a work visa because he lacked this.

Texted my FAO and got the typical Chinese answer, "It's a requirement but not necessarily necessary". I am going to try to talk to him about it tomorrow. There are other sources online that state that this is a new requirement.

A cost for a one month course is over $1500 USD or 10,000 RMB. Obviously, I don't want to spend that much money to listen to some ESL hippy with a Master's Degree spout out hopw to teach a class, when I have done this job for over 10 years and have taught people from babies to adult professionals.

It is also a matter of time. My contract does not expire until July, so I don't have the time to be in a classroom Monday to Friday. I would like to do this on the weekends or on my spare days off, but I know this will be a problem.

To us teachers, this is the time to ask your boss/FAO about this. I am a bit concerned and worried. Anyone else know about this?

I wouldn't be too concerned about it, as far as I've always seen SAFEA asked foreign experts to have at least a BA, tesol and 1 year teaching experience to be accepted. Nothing new about that, it what they want not what they get.
Random rejections happen every now and again, I know a teacher here that was rejected a couple of months ago for not having a tesol cert while the same office accepted and approved applications from at least 5 others that also lack the cert.
If you have something that says it now a strict requirement then it would be cool if you posted up the links so we can check it out.

There's a big difference between the kind of teaching certificate that teachers have needed up to now and a CELTA or Trinity TESOL.

Now, I personally feel that the CELTA is the bees knees, and it annoys me that wet behind the ears backpackers go off for a weekend and cut a certificate off the back of a cereal box, and hardly anybody in China can tell the difference. I'm justifying this ridiculous & insulting overgeneralisation in retalisation at the Senor's anti-CELTA hippie comments.

I would love for China to be able to insist on CELTA level certification, but I doubt that the majority of teachers here have it, and China (or at least the English Firsts) need more fresh Foreign expert meat, not less.

So, Senor, where have you seen this new requirement? Are you sure it's not just the same 'teaching certificate of some description' stipulation.

Still waiting for confirmation that I got in, but the CELTA course in Shanghai will set me back 15,500 kwai.

A cost for a one month course is over $1500 USD or 10,000 RMB. Obviously, I don't want to spend that much money to listen to some ESL hippy with a Master's Degree spout out hopw to teach a class, when I have done this job for over 10 years and have taught people from babies to adult professionals.

Senor, this is a subject that you seem to have visited on several occasions.  Your post over at another China forum back in 2003 got me thinking back then (no, I don't keep notes, I just have a good memory for what other people may call useless information).

In 2003 I was in China teaching without a CELTA and also felt the need, as you put it in 2003, 'to get certified to teach English'.  I had a degree and was legal, but felt a bit of a fraud collecting a salary for teaching English when I really didn't know what I was doing.

When I returned to the UK I paid the equivalent of $15000 USD in sterling to some ESL hippy with a Master's degree and got me a CELTA.

Unlike you now, when I signed on to do the CELTA I didn't have over ten years of experience, but my three years of teaching in China did need some sorting out.  What was I doing right?  What was I doing wrong?  On a good day I thought I was a brilliant teacher, but I didn't really know what my weaknesses or strengths were until I had been observed by someone who knew what they were talking about; rather than by a Chinese employer with an agenda to keep me turning up on time.

The CELTA changed everything for me.  It made me feel professional.  It made me feel that I deserved my salary.

Finally, and please don't take this the wrong way, nearly eight years on from your post at the other forum...

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=5354&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=celta&start=0

...you seem to be in the same position but a little more angrier and frustrated.  The solution to any possible crackdown on teaching certificates in China is simple: stop looking for shortcuts.

I have a BA and MA (which I completed part time while working here), but I too felt I needed to iron out some problems in my teaching (I have almost 6 years experience). I decided to do my CELTA in Thailand over the winter holiday just gone. Best. Thing. Ever. I felt that for once, for that 1 month, I was surrounded by teachers (both trainers and co-trainees) who just lived and breathed English teaching, and were totally devoted to it. Compared to where I've been in China, it was awesome to be in that environment, and extremely conductive to my own learning. The trainers were in no way 'hippies' but total professionals in the field, and I valued a lot of what they taught. The imput sessions (usually in the mornings) were very practical, not just sitting ther for a couple of hours catching up on sleep. The trainers also sussed each and every trainee out very quickly, who was worth their salt, who they needed to keep an eye on. They also have meetings and talk about each and every one of us. There is no 'hiding'. I remember being quite suprised a couple of times when I ran into another trainer leaving in the evening, who wasn't my trainer at all anytime, who made comments about my lesson that day- he knew almost as much about me as my actual trainer!

Highly recommend the CELTA. You might be very surpised at what you learn.

Ten years? Doesn't that make you an ESL hippy?

I do not know if it is required or not. however, with 8 years under my belt. it may be refreshing to go get some cert. I posted about this a long time ago and have done just fine without a cert or a degree. i worry about it from time to time but then again im not teaching college courses.

a monkey can do what i do.

build confidence and instruct others on how to utilize what there learned in school for many years.

it does not require an educated fool to do this work. SAFEA or whoever they are just want to get people in here and they probably have little chance to change how things go.
but i do respect what they are doing.


Where in thailand did you get the CELTA?

I am an ESL hippy but would still conider having a cert nowadays to probably help me in the long run. the cost is alot. the time off of work is difficult to do and would it help me?

probably somewhere yet i have not seen the advantages. Sure, if you want to work at a university or middle school full time, having all the credentials will land you something really nice maybe...

but in my opinion, any Chinese person who is below the age of 30 and is older than 5 has had tons of English lessons already.  And if the school system gets wise, they could put us out of business. But, I highly doubt it.

I never enjoyed calling myself a teacher because I did not study to become this. It was an accident really.

In fact, what i do mostly are oral classes. And I've been pretty successful about developing my own methods, planning etc.

If I wanted to teach Astronomy or Computers at Qinghua, I'd better have a degree with some experience. However, I wouldn't work for Qinghua because it is not the environment I choose.

I like working professionals and kids about 13-18. And doing small groups of up to 10.

that's it.

dancing bears.

What jpd said: don't worry.  They are getting stricter about having a degree, and are now often asking for 2 years' experience, but the TEFL or TESOL qualification isn't usually required. Some provinces/cities are also specifying a lower age limit of 23 or 24.

It's good to have though, from a teaching point of view, but in China it probably doesn't make financial sense to get it if you don't really need it.

My experience is that an MA cancels out the TESOL/CELTA requirement. Had a chat with Wall Street English in HZ yesterday and the FT in charge of the place explained that, normally, they would consider an MA the substitute for any other qualifications...of course, it helps if the MA is in English or Education, Linguistics or any other language-related area...Having looked at the TESOL and CELTA benefits, I do not see the necessity for one if you work at a Uni level, but I can understand why middle/high schools would demand one.
If you have an MA, you can get pretty much any teaching job in China, however, getting the other qualifications is a good idea if you intend to teach small children.

...getting (a TESOL and CELTA) is a good idea if you intend to teach small children.

Yes, it would be a good idea to have one if you intend to teach children, but it would be a good idea if you intend to teach big people too, after all, CELTA is an acronym for Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults.

CELTA is an acronym for Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults.

Thank you, Slim.

Anyway...I thought we had long since established that certificates weren't required to teach in the vast majority of schools?   If you have a degree...no worries on getting a cert.

@RD
Do you think that having a Cert without a degree would help me?

No, Tuco, sorry to say I don't...or at least that it's very unreliable.
To work legally in China, and to get the Residence Permit, you have to be presented as a "foreign expert"...and the current reality is that you need a college degree to be deemed an "expert" as a teacher.
I sincerely hate what this does to a lot of good people, but it strikes me as a reasonable thing to expect from a teacher...

A certificate in TEFL, even a CELTA, simply does not replace a college degree.

Some schools may have "arrangements" with their PSB regulators that let them hire teachers without a degree...but your semi-legal employment in China depends entirely upon those "arrangements". This scenario was once rampant but seems to be much less common now, in the wake of the recent rule tightening.

Other schools "buy" Residence Permit access from other schools or even from non-education companies, and these will show you at a different school or even in a different occupation...and this scheme has come back to bite a number of teachers, including myself, on the butt. This avenue also seems to be much less common now than before.

A lot of the very dodgiest schools will hire people who can't get a Residence Permit... leaving you totally holding the bag regarding your legal status in China. The wrong brush with a policeman in a bad mood, and you will most likely find yourself subject to heavy fines for sure, and jail, deportation, and forcible sodomy are within the realm of possibilities.
You DO NOT want to be in this position.

I'm sorry, guys, but this is the music, and we all have to dance to it...and we can't change it. Get legal, or get out of China...for your own sake. Find a way to get that degree.

(OK, I was kidding about the forcible sodomy. Sadly, though, everything else here is serious like a heart attack. )