Thinking about teaching English in Shanghai? I’ve been doing it for a few months; here are some observations. This is not meant to take the place of doing your own research -– if you are serious about getting a teaching job here you probably already know where to look -– and it won’t tell you what the best schools are. Rather, I want to give a flavor of the sort of thing you should expect and what you should be looking out for. I came here completely fresh –- not only had I never been in China before, I had never taught before either. I got my job, with one of the bigger schools in Shanghai, pretty easily: I did a CELTA course, was interviewed in my home country and then by phone from Shanghai, and got on a plane. The whole process, from starting the course, took under three months. Many people do it faster than that.

The opening weeks passed pretty damn quickly. There was accommodation to find, forms to fill out, maps to read. Classes to take over. Five days after getting off the plane I was teaching a six-hour day. I had the requisite nightmare kids class, which still remains by far the worst class I have taught. By now I feel like I’ve been teaching for years.

My experience has been pretty good. I love the job. I love, almost without exception, the students. I think they consider me a decent teacher; I’m pretty sure that whether they do or not they like me personally. (The job would be unbearable if it were otherwise. I’d have quit by now rather than keep teaching people I don’t like.) You’ll discover that it’s not that difficult to find work as an English teacher here, no matter what your experience level.

For now, the market is booming. There’s plenty of competition and schools are opening every day. Even teachers who don’t have particularly glowing recommendations from previous schools find work. Here are some things to keep an eye out for when looking for a job:

• What do you know about the school? If the only evidence you have that the school even exists is one internet ad, be very wary.
• Always check TEFL websites -- Dave’s Internet Café and tefl.com are good ones -- before committing to anything. If teachers have been badly treated –- and stories in China abound, though less so in the big cities –- they will let other people know. If nobody has heard of a school, it may be small, or new, and may be perfectly alright. On the other hand, it might be dodgy, and you don’t want to find that all the promises made to you have evaporated by the time your feet touch Chinese soil.
• With the more established big companies such as English First or Wall Street, I can’t guarantee you a pleasant experience, but you are not going to be financially cheated.

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Try to find out if your boss –- i.e. academic coordinator, director of studies, the job title varies –- has been there long. Other teachers in the city tell me that having a new person in charge of you every couple of months is stressful and can lead to schedule chaos. Make sure the school pays for your return fare here. Generally you will be asked to buy the ticket yourself in your home country -– make sure they agree in writing (i.e. email) that the price you quote them is alright. Standard procedure is for the school to pay you half the cost in your first pay cheque, and half when you complete your contract.
Also, make sure that if they don’t provide accommodation (they are less likely to in Shanghai than in other parts of China,) they will put you up for free for at least a fortnight when you arrive. Shanghai landlords often ask for one or two months rent as deposit, plus up to the first three months rent in advance, so you may have to find a fair bit of cash at once. 

It’s definitely worth checking if the school will advance you some salary, interest-free, to help you out. It was something I hadn’t considered and I would have been in trouble if the school hadn’t been obliging about it.Make sure the school commits to take care of, and pay for, all visas and legal documentation.

You may be asked to get a standard tourist entry visa in your home country and then change it once you’re here – this is fine and perfectly legal, though don’t mention that this is what you’re doing when you’re filling out forms. Keep the receipt and get that repaid in your first pay cheque. By the time I had visited all the offices, filled out all the forms, done the medical and so on I had made at least five separate journeys to various parts of the city.
Make sure in advance that the school will always send someone to accompany you and tell you what to do -– and in practice fill out most of the forms for you. You shouldn’t have to pay any money for any of this.

Most contracts are for a year, though shorter ones do exist. You’ll probably have a probation period during which you can be let go pretty easily. You’ll also lose the second half of your airfare (NOT the first half). Be aware of this and have a fall back plan, even if the fallback plan consists only of the phone numbers of other schools in Shanghai. Your working documents will probably tie you to the school you first join, but if another employer wants to hire you they should be able to change them without too many headaches.

Again, there is nothing illegal about this. Once you’re here, keep on top of the financial side. Make sure you know what you’re supposed to get. Every teacher in every school I know tells me the same thing, which is that you can’t expect overtime to be automatically paid or pay slips to be correctly calculated. Nobody I know feels there is any attempt to intentionally cheat them, it’s simply a combination of incompetence and differing work cultures. Be polite but firm. 

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This is not a good place to be anxious about complaining. I haven’t had any big problems but other people have.This may seem obvious, but think about why you’re going to Shanghai. If, like me, you don’t intend to be a career teacher but are using the job as a way to get out here pretty easily, then once you’ve found your feet you should start looking into other options. This is not to say you should break your contract –- I don’t intend to. But try to put yourself in a position where you have options once a year’s up and you want to move on. If you want to keep teaching, fine. You’ll find that if you have a year’s experience and a good recommendation you can get paid a bit more and pick and choose your jobs.
When you’re trying to find your feet you’ll find that students will be incredibly useful to you. If you get on well with them, they’ll be incredibly solicitous and flatteringly interested in you. Use this. Let them know if you intend to look for other work in the future in Shanghai. Find out if they can help you. They’ll be happy to if they can. I find the students -– and perhaps I am lucky in this, I can speak only for myself –- are great. (The adults at least. Kids can be hard work – often bright but spoiled and difficult.) They’re motivated, smart and more open-minded than I’d expected.

I’m careful about certain subjects, i.e. sex, politics (Taiwan, Tiananmen Square, Tibet), race, but if they come up they come up and there’s no problem with it. I certainly don’t pussyfoot around things and the students have no problem stating their opinions or disagreeing with each other. If we are discussing a controversial topic, I am very clear about saying “Many people in the West think . . .” not “I think” – after all, the idea is to have them practice their English, not change their minds. And I wouldn’t presume to tell them what to think anyway.

Then there’s the staff room. You’re likely to have an interesting mix of ages and backgrounds. There will be a fair number of people who don’t want to be teachers for the rest of their life but want to do the job well and professionally while they’re here. Generally teachers are very professional – but everyone I know confirms that TEFL teaching also attracts people who would have difficulty surviving in a normal job. Some of them will be great fun because of this; some of them may be insecure bores. You’ll hopefully make some close friends; you’ll probably get on well with almost everybody.
The downside of this job is that it only takes one misfit to bring the whole mood down and a staff room is a tough place to be if there is bad feeling. A good boss will be able to see this and move the person on.

There’ll be lots of turnover, which has its pros and cons. You’ll say goodbye to friends; you’ll also be well rid of people you don’t like.Get to know the local teachers, if your school has them. Be nice to them. You’re going to need them. They’ll help you with all the small stuff that is made difficult by the language barrier – calling the landlord, paying bills, explaining what the ayi is trying to say to you. And they’re great for practicing your Chinese on. You’ll already know that TEFL teachers don’t get paid a lot. Obviously we’re a great deal better-off than millions of Shanghainese who aren’t working in flashy big jobs. 

However, plenty of Chinese people will be making more money than you; and all the laowai who have proper jobs will be able to buy and sell you. It’s pretty easy to eat well and go about your daily life pretty cheaply, if you don’t need a daily fix of Western food. But if you’re a drinker – and teachers here do drink a lot – you’ll have to watch your money. Bars here generally charge Western prices, which will make your salary disappear pretty quickly if you go for a couple of drinks most nights. A big night out can set me back for a couple of weeks.

There is hope though: every bar has a happy hour, generally offering 2-for-1 type deals, and you’ll master techniques for cheap drinking pretty quickly. There are also a few cheaper bars – generally they’re not great, but they do the job if you want to start there before going on to the nicer places. Teachers tend to drink on Maoming Rd rather than the pricier Hengshan Rd or the tackier Julu Rd -– but anywhere you go in town you’ll see them -- scruffy people who look like they need a good night’s sleep and are probably talking too loudly.

As you can probably tell, I’m very happy to be an English teacher in Shanghai. The good days outnumber the bad ones. If you take the job, but not yourself, seriously you’ll fit right in at any school. And if you’re good you can move up very quickly. There are lots of teachers here, but the market’s far from saturated. There are plenty of opportunities if you’re ambitious, whether as a teacher or in a different field. If you know why you’re here and you have some idea what you want, you’ll do fine.