General Questions/Advice - Want to Teach in China

So this is my first post.

I've been looking into teaching China for a few months now - I actually graduated recently from a college in the United States but I have alot of general questions while I'm here in the United States. I looked around for my questions online and here on the board and couldn't really find the answers, so I'm just going to post them all and see what happens.

First, When I am in China how am I going to get my money from my bank account in China to my American Bank? Is there a conversion cost to make it American Dollars? How does it work? (Ps. Any best practices or advice here?)

Secondly, I want to teach English in China. Generally, I have found that they give you housing and require you to teach in the morning. Thats fine, but a critical part of my venture to China is that I learn Chinese (possibly gain proficiency/fluency) how is this going to work? Does anyone know of a viable way for me to Teach English in the Morning and Learn Chinese after class? Ps. I would like to do it through a legitimate institute, not through those free classes the TEFL schools throw in.

Thirdly, I'm looking to go teach starting in the January/February/March time. Is this a good idea or are there any particular strategies/advice anyone has for me?

Well thats it for now - look forward to reading some replies 

PS. I didnt want to overwhelm anyone - but theyre are more questions. Those were just the most compelling.

I cant give any real advice with regard to transferring money to a nominated account out of the country...Ive never done it. But from reading on other forums, it would seem that is ranges from being easy to impossible. It would be wise to contact you bank and ask them if such transactions are possible at their end...and then it might be pot luck on the bank in the actual town/city you are in. A lot of people transfer money via other sources like western union, some people (shock horror) actually use their China wages for living. You do need to consider that as wages are often low anyway. There might not be a lot to send home!

I think your idea about learning Chinese may also be flawed. It is certainly not a given that you will only have lessons in the morning. And if you do, that means finding a place that will teach you only in the afternoon! Im not sure how likely that is TBH.

Language schools employ all year round, public schools and Universities tend to prefer to employ at the start of the academic year (September time) but often have vacancies after Spring Festival which may fit in with a Feb/March start

You might be able to find a job at a Uni or college that also offers Chinese lessons for foreigners....but they might expect you to pay for them. If you're sending money home, and paying for classes, life might be tough. Even if your employer does offer lessons, Id think its unlikely they will fit your teaching schedule perfectly...you might end up taking some classes, and continually falling behind your classmates who are full time students. I dont believe many people can combine the two to be honest.

Studying Chinese formally will probably also include writing, as a result to acheive fluency and competency is likely to take some time...I would guess you are really looking at 3-5 years to be really functional in Mandarin.

Are you an experienced teacher? If not, you may find preparing for classes will add quite a few hours per week to your teaching workload...this is all time that would eat into formal study too.

I think most people teaching who study Chinese (and lots dont bother at all), view the lanuage learning as very much a part time/fun/hobby thing rather than serious learning. Of course there is always the odd person who bucks the trend, but the few people I have met in China with awesome language skills have normally studied for a considerable amount of time in their home countries, or have enrolled as a full time language student in China. I dont believe many people combine work and study and enjoy success in either endeavour.

The best way to send money home is Western Union, although that doesn't get the money into your American account. The Bank of china does account to account transfrers, but I don't know much about the process.

 Most first tier cities have language schools for learning chinese that offer flexible schedules. You may have a little more difficulty in the sticks, but the bright side here is that it is always easy to find a tutor or a language exchange partner in some of the less travelled backwater cities.

 What NNFAW said aboutyour start time. Feb/March is good, because it is just after the winter holiday. However, you want to start applying well before then, as most of the people who do the actual hiring will be on holiday then.

 Hope that helps.

Hey DC --- I'm new to the Saloon as well --- welcome!

I'm not sure if you've taken Chinese language courses in school or not...

If you want to learn some basic Chinese before you head over to the PRC, go to Youtube and check out "Chinese with Mike:"

http://www.youtube.com/user/ShermerIL

Mike teaches in his Hawaiian shirt from his garage --- he has 40 lessons (each 10 - 15 minutes long) --- he's funny as hell and really low key.  I took 2 years of Mandarin in college and Mike, I hate to say, puts my Chinese-born professor to shame.  You won't be fluent in Chinese after the 40 lessons but it might give you a basic foundation of the language (especially the tones).

Mike also has free downloads that go with the lessons at:

www.chinesewithmike.com

All the best,

Sam

Training centre jobs will usually leave you free in the mornings on weekdays.

Transferring money is no problem - it just takes time and paperwork.  The cost on the Chinese side was small for me when I did it a few times, but large in Europe in the receiving bank (why the hell do they charge me to accept my money?!)

Hi there and welcome to the Saloon
I would recommend you look into finding jobs at either kindergarten or elementary school level. Firstly, they often pay more than uni. Secondly, at that level, you won't have to do that much prep or grade essays. Thirdly, these classes would be mostly in the morning and afternoon, leaving your late afternoon and evenings free to study Chinese.
If you apply for jobs in somewhat larger cities, there are bound to be either Chinese programs at local universities, training schools which offers classes. I know there are some in Hangzhou, the gf is taking Japanese classes at one. Costs 3500 Yuan for 8 months but it is intensive and useful classes. From what I understand, they do also offer Chinese classes.
I suggest you start looking at Chinese geography, select which places you want/don't want to go, using whatever variables you want (climate, culture, social life, amount of foreigners, cost of living, access to Western goods/seafood/mountains/forests/etc), then see if any schools from your chosen areas are currently looking for teachers, send an enquiry to whichever schools meets your fancy.
Get a Chinese text book, start practicing your characters now. I recommend the tried-and-true copying out characters by hand method, then get a Skritter.com account, and watch as many Chinese movies as you possibly can.

but a critical part of my venture to China is that I learn Chinese (possibly gain proficiency/fluency) how is this going to work? Does anyone know of a viable way for me to Teach English in the Morning and Learn Chinese after class? Ps. I would like to do it through a legitimate institute, not through those free classes the TEFL schools throw in.

Obviously living in a Chinese speaking country is a good step in learning Chinese.
However, have you ever learned a language before? and "gained proficiency/fluency"?
Learning a language to fluency is incredibly difficult and takes a lot of time and effort.
Whether you go to a full time school or not is not really the issue, it depends more on you.
People who are fluent would say that to be fluent you have to live in the country and speak the language for 20yrs. I have been studying Japanese for 6yrs and lived there for 6 months. My level is "Advanced" - but that's shit. I can't understand TV or when people use idioms and slang or big words.

In saying that, Chinese is pretty simple to get your head around, 'simpler' than English. But still, after studying for a year and living in the country don't expect to understand Chinese tv or sound like a local.

Now to answer your question
Yes, you could do that if you got a Uni job because they usually only have 3 or 4hrs of work a day. Sometimes it is possible to organise your schedule and change your class times so you could always have afternoons off.
The problem is, if you are not an experienced teacher you might not get a good job like that in a big city. And the Chinese language schools are mainly in the big cities only.

In reality, learning a language is something you have to do yourself. If you have never learned a language before (seriously, not just a bit of French at middle-school) than you should probably do a basic course to learn how to learn. Then you have to take the bull by the horns. One of the reasons that English is such a failed universal language is because people just think of it as something they study at school, they do the homework and pass exams but don't really think about what they are doing. Doesn't matter much 'cause they will probably never speak to a native English speaker and even if they do, we accommodate for them because we hear our language spoken by all different accents and with all different mistakes all the time.

Well most Chinese universities will offer proper Chinese language courses for foreign students. I never had to pay for mine at University, I asked them about them and they were only too happy to offer them to me.
I wouldn't mention straight off the bat that is the reason that you want to come to China because it might put you on the back foot with some employers because they will think you don't care/want to to teach English and won't take your job seriously.
Generally speaking if you can land a job at a university that calls itself a "normal University" (example Chengdu normal university, Shanghai normal university etc) these schools often have the best Chinese language programmes as they used to be the teachers colleges and standards are usually higher than those universities that are nationally ranked.

I would also suggest a uni as the most cost effective way to save money and learn Chinese. At my uni (and I think many others) foreign teachers can go to any Chinese class for free. (As your schedule allows.)

Last semester I went to 8 hours (sometimes 10 if I had the energy) of class a week. of course I fall behind, as the foreign students have 4-8 hours a day, but it's free for me so I'm willing to go a little slow. And since I can go to any class I repeat levels I'm not so good at (like grammar), and advance in levels I'm better at (like writing).

if you did want to spend some extra money I'm sure you could hire the chinese teachers to tutor you a couple times a week. i haven't asked mine yet (as I'm a total cheapskate), but I've been thinking about it and I've heard the teachers at my school will do it for some extra cash.

And I would suggest to pick a place in the "boonies" or a small city. You are able to save a lot more money, as cost of living is a fraction of beijing or Shanghai, and there are less westerns or english things around, (as well as less foreigners to talk to) which is good if you are serious about learning Chinese. (If you can't order food without knowing some characters, you learn them quick!)

Anyway, you are clearly getting mixed advice here, but that's because China is a vast place with a lot options and people have a lot of experience.

Ask yourself what do you want? What age to you want to teach? What size city do you want to live in/ Which part of the country do you want to live in? Then try to meet your criteria as best you can. 
 

I agree with Borkya, except about living costs.  I've lived in 3 big cities here and numerous places in the sticks, and I find that rent is the only thing that is more expensive (hugely!)in the city.  If your accommodation is included, this will not matter.

We just spent a year in a tiny town and my wife reckons that staple foods and other day-to-day things cost about twice what she paid when we lived in Beijing or Shenzhen.

One other point:  in many places in small town China the people don't speak what you want to learn.

I'm going to agree with Paul and say that big cities are not as expensive as people make them out to be. The reason that people spend more money in big cities is there are so many more western things/food to entice you away from your cash. While I wouldn' say that staple foods are actually more expensive in the smaller places if you live in a certain way then rent should be your biggest concern.

There's some material worth looking at in the library section here.

See also http://wikitravel.org/en/Teaching_English and http://wikitravel.org/en/China#Work

My advice to new graduate would be to carefully consider the programs listed at
http://wikitravel.org/en/Teaching_English#Governments_of_destination_countries

Those are designed for new grads and are government-run so safer than looking for work yourself, let alone going through recruiters. As far as I know, China does not have such a program. Hong Kong, S Korea and Japan do, though.

This is all great stuff! Thanks so much to everyone including the people who gave me links and valuable/insightful/anecdotal advice. Although I have a little problem with a statement I have been hearing recently from numerous sources, not just the saloon.

The statement is, "You wont have much money to send back home while working in China"

How is this true?

From a purely logistical standpoint, having my housing paid for is something that I'm looking for. (It seems like most schools offer free housing) Also, I keep hearing about how cheap everything is. I even had someone give me a quote that with food, cell phone, going out on the weekends and health insurance that it cost them about 100 USD.

So how is it that everyone keeps telling me, "China is so cheap!" and that my housing is paid for (+ a salary between 800-1,200 as a teacher added on to free housing)
and then
other's say "You wont have much money to send home"

Can anyone help me split hairs / make heads or tails of this one (Besides the regional differences answer - I know Beijing is more expensive than some smaller city in the styx)

Here is my other question..  

There's a certificate that advertised on Dave ESL cafe - http://www.orienttefl.com/. It costs like 150 for a TEFL certificate (that I can get online) I talked to the representative and he said that the course takes two weeks if you work on it consistently. So it seems a pretty reasonable investment.

Does anyone have any qualms/advice about this particular certificate? I know that just having the certificate gets you more money although is this one thats advertised through orient TEFL just not worth it? Will it be looked down upon (in China) if I've gotten my TEFL certificate online?

Thanks - you guys are awesome and all helping me so much.  

Yo DC!

Welcome to The Saloon! Helping people like you get good reliable info is a big part of what we're about.
If you spend some time using our Search function, and going back to some of the older posts on our boards, you will find a wealth of good info already in place to help you.
And you seem to be getting great advice from our China veterans...

As for that online cert...don't bother. Don't waste your time or money. It won't teach you much that's really useful, and it will be of little to no help in landing a job in the vast majority of schools. Your college degree is all the qualification you really need.
The only certs really worth getting are things like the CELTA or Trinity/RSA...and these are only worthwhile if you're pretty sure you're going to make teaching EFL as a long-term career.

Again, if you search/dig you'll find many discussions of TEFL certificates that are still perfectly valid.

Re: not having much money to send home.

 It really depends on your salary, lifestyle and ability to pick up extra work. If you are making 4000 a month and living a very lao bai xing (genuinely Chinese) existence, then you can probably only send about 1000 (160$ or so) home a month. That's still not bad (I paid off my line of credit back home doing this), but it's not mega bucks, either.

 On the other hand, if you can pick up some tutoring/editing work on the side and make a monthly salary of 6000 or so, you should be set. Provided you can make about 3000 a month in private work, you can mostly live on that, send half your monthly salary home and save the other half for travel, ect. That's about 500 a month going home, which is pretty darn good.

 Those that say you can't save money living in China tend to blow their money frivolously at ex-pat bars and foreign restaurants. It CAN be done...it just reuires a little self discipline.