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12-12-2018, 09:50 AM
Quote: (12-12-2018 03:34 AM)66Scorpio Wrote:
As with most jobs, the better paying ones go to those with the better qualifications. Beijing passed regulations a few year back that you need a 120 hour TESL and two years of experience. The course runs maybe $1500 and takes a month full time. The higher paying ones elsewhere usually want a teaching certificate and experience.
Teaching other subjects in English rather than English itself generally pays better, but they still want a TESL and perhaps a teaching certificate and experience.
Saving $10k a year is easy in theory. Even at a low end salary you can find a place that will give you a room on campus, free food at the cafeteria and a WiFi connection. If you like your alone time and have a project to work on, you can go into hermit mode and then bank your entire salary, but that's sort of a waste to go half way around the world and then not do any travelling. If you are in a good location on the bullet train line, then it is cheap to travel but airfare is about the same as anywhere.
If you are only looking at one or two years to save, go work in the oil patch. Teaching English is a great way to travel but you probably won't start making decent money until you have those two years of experience.
And the problem with saving is that one of the bonuses of living in China is the cost of living somewhere between half and a quarter of what things cost stateside, unless you like to buy (real) designer labels, eat steak dinner, and have an apartment with a full sized kitchen and bathroom.
If you are looking at building location independent skills or business, it can be ideal. When I have my lesson prep and marking out of the way I am only otherwise working less than 20 hours a week, which is typical for primary or secondary schools. OTOH, some want you to keep "office hours" a few hours a day, even if you gave nothing to do. Private training centres kind of suck because you are in class 40 hours a week, no weekends off, and you are paying your own living expenses.
Yeah this is an issue for actually credentialed teachers. The high end private schools overseas nowadays all seem to have a disclaimer that you need 2 years of public school work. Thing is unless you're on an Indian Reservation (or you have a specialty like Math combined with another hard subject) then you probably won't get those 2 years unless a near-miracle happens or your Uncle runs the hiring board.
AFAIK - a famous YouTube LaoWei86 has a Master's Degree in Engineering. Couldn't get great work in USA (granted his age was around the Great Recession) and he couldn't be successful as a Professor nor running his own academy. So now he just runs a motorcycle shop (aimed at expats in China) and of course does his YouTube begging stuff.
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12-12-2018, 01:12 PM
I posted this on another thread but OP if you want a junior dev job in tech you are going to need to be working onshore now.
You can do online learning and etc and apply when you get back, but your github better be pretty impressive then. Companies do not care much if you freelanced or not, but just saying you did coursera python modules will not cut it.
A good way to spin it is to say you had your own web development agency.
Also, I'm not sure what projects you had but saying you designed 2 wordpress themes for blogs isn't enough, unless you are looking at designer positions instead of developer positions.
Good luck.
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12-12-2018, 04:30 PM
Yes, any dev job is better than no job.
If you want to PM me your github(if you have one) or go more in depth as to your portfolio/projects I/we could give you feedback as how to better position yourself.
Also, as others have said already you are young and entering the job force 1 year later isn't a massive loss. Consider that if you are going to take off and see and world for a year.
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12-12-2018, 05:28 PM
Teaching in China isn’t viable anymore. Things are heating up every month between Western countries and China, and ‘incidents’ seem to be occurring every other month now. I have a feeling they’re going to start targeting foreigners at random and arrest them for political motives. They just recently arrested a former Canadian diplomat. Lots of people are leaving these days. I don’t see how any Western teachers actually feel safe teaching there now.
Japan pays peanuts and mostly only hires Filipinos now.
Teaching in SEA (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand) is risky. Pay isn’t particularly good. Schools like to stiff teachers and conveniently ‘forget’ to pay them. Most jobs are revolving doors for backpackers and are dancing monkey garbage.
Taiwan also doesn’t pay well. I don’t even think they’re in need of teachers.
I guess South Korea is still a valid option.
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12-12-2018, 08:38 PM
The paying on time issues and laying about benefits happens a lot in South Korea and probably does in Taiwan too. Unpaid overtime is a huge issue in teaching in general (even for highly paid public school teachers).
For instance a lot of Korean Hagwon owners won't pay into your pension and will try to get out of the airfare too. So an income on paper ($1,500 - $2,000) that isn't high to begin with is smaller in reality.
One reason turnover is so high is people eventually realize they would make more money back in the West (especially if their income is at least $10+ a hour).
Honestly if someone wants to be an English teacher in Korea then the safest best is to get into EPIK - EPIK is a government ran program and there's very little chance they will screw you on pay & benefits. And my understanding is in EPIK you're a human voice recorder and shouldn't have to do any lesson planning nor marking. But the thing is most EPIK positions are in 3rd tier communities (I'm talking like hours from a major famous city. Sometimes they can even dump you on a remote island lol).
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12-12-2018, 08:50 PM
BTW - if you have a cushion / substantial savings then you're probably better off figuring out how to make money from English Teaching online. At least teaching Online nobody can dick you around on things like authentication / Apostle fees, visa fees, airflights (which potential bosses probably won't reimburse), currency conversion & remittance fees and so on.
Still I'm not entirely sure what's a safe reliable place for online teaching. In Georgia I went through a good number of brownouts / no water / no internet periods. Philippines is supposedly like that too. I think just Thailand and Taiwan are cheap countries with reliable infrastructure.
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12-12-2018, 11:10 PM
I taught in both South Korea and Japan. If you want to save money it's definitely S. Korea. I worked in a public school and got free lodging (studio apartment) plus meals and the pay was 2.1m won which is about $1871 USD per month. If you don't want to work full-time, lesser hours you can work at a cram school or hogwon. For Korea you need a undergrad degree, clean criminal record and these days you might even need a teaching certificate. Food and everything is cheap as chips, I remember a 30 minute taxi ride I only paid 4000won for. Because I didn't do anything else I ended teaching English under the table for $40-50 per lesson, this is illegal but many do it. Korea also has the fastest internet and some of the tastiest foods out there. Might be a culture shock, I strongly recommend reading up on Dave's ESL cafe forum before you dive in. Saving 10k is very doable in a year. My fondest memories are eating out at restaurants every day, getting my ass whooped in Tekken at the arcades and getting laid more than I ever thought possible.
Japan is basically the opposite. You won't be able to save shit. The English bubble here popped ages ago. You'll be teaching at shitty cram schools for something like 6-800$ per month, have to pay your way. Food and rent is expensive and there's not much left after expenses. Of course, it's Japan and everything is better and more convenient but you will be broke. The best part of Japan for me was hanging out with American lifers, drinking pineapple flavoured beer outside 7/11 and arguing politics. This one American dude was from Alabama and called himself a communist. What I would give to have friends like that again.
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12-24-2018, 02:49 PM
Quote: (12-13-2018 11:29 PM)[email protected] Wrote:
Quote: (12-13-2018 09:45 PM)Kelent Wrote:
Quote: (12-12-2018 11:10 PM)[email protected] Wrote:
I taught in both South Korea and Japan. If you want to save money it's definitely S. Korea. I worked in a public school and got free lodging (studio apartment) plus meals and the pay was 2.1m won which is about $1871 USD per month. If you don't want to work full-time, lesser hours you can work at a cram school or hogwon. For Korea you need a undergrad degree, clean criminal record and these days you might even need a teaching certificate. Food and everything is cheap as chips, I remember a 30 minute taxi ride I only paid 4000won for. Because I didn't do anything else I ended teaching English under the table for $40-50 per lesson, this is illegal but many do it. Korea also has the fastest internet and some of the tastiest foods out there. Might be a culture shock, I strongly recommend reading up on Dave's ESL cafe forum before you dive in. Saving 10k is very doable in a year. My fondest memories are eating out at restaurants every day, getting my ass whooped in Tekken at the arcades and getting laid more than I ever thought possible.
Japan is basically the opposite. You won't be able to save shit. The English bubble here popped ages ago. You'll be teaching at shitty cram schools for something like 6-800$ per month, have to pay your way. Food and rent is expensive and there's not much left after expenses. Of course, it's Japan and everything is better and more convenient but you will be broke. The best part of Japan for me was hanging out with American lifers, drinking pineapple flavoured beer outside 7/11 and arguing politics. This one American dude was from Alabama and called himself a communist. What I would give to have friends like that again.
Thanks for your advice, I appreciate the perspective! I've heard that in Japan it's easier to get jobs outside of the ESL market with degrees/experience, like with Computer Science or music production or something.. Similar to how things work in the EU I guess. When you were in Japan did you meet any foreigners that went a different route to get into the country?
With Korea, how did the culture change when you were there, if at all? I've heard that due to the military presence and things the military does foreigners from the West aren't viewed in the most positive of lights. Let's say someone wants to go to Korea for 2 years but they don't want to work ESL, or they want to change industries, can you speak to how would that work? I hear about a lot of foreigners on Youtube (particularly black Americans) who go abroad to work in the entertainment industry, or foreigners from Russia/the EU who also work in non-ESL jobs but might have started out with ESL.
I checked out the Korea ESL forum just yesterday and it seems like the landscape changed in the past 8 years. The government is a lot less welcoming to ESL teachers and public jobs are all but gone unless you work rurally. It's more competitive in the cities but the pay seems much higher (people kept saying 2.4m won/month is the standard and if you accept less you are being played).
I've rarely heard of any foreigner that gets into either country through other means unless they had a highly specialised skill. I'm sure there are but I'm not on those forums. I know Japan is starting to accept highly skilled immigrants for permanent residence but I'm sure those are highly competitive.
Foreigners in both countries have not-so-great reputations. At best they are seen as English teaching utility robots and at worst they are seen as a public nuisance. Not much has changed there.
Most foreigners don't stay. It's fucking lonely being a minority in a land where nobody speaks English. The only ones that stay don't have much to go back to or they've wifed up something good. Everyone comes to make some money and leave eventually. There's not much room to move up without PR/citizenship. When you go back to your home country your ESL experience is seen as a blank year. The consensus is that careers are built at home and ESL is just a stepping stone.
You can be successful in Korea/Japan. I'm just of the opinion that if you can make it there you can probably make it anywhere.
Also, the money you make is not taxable by America since you are making less than 90k.
Just do everything and see what sticks.
Korea released statistics on the E-5 visas and it was only something like 15,000 (or was it 30,000?) were in Korea as English Teachers. Meaning there's more Russians in Korea (most of whom are likely prostitutes or gold diggers) than western English Teachers
Meanwhile South East Asians and South Asians are probably 1+ million in Korea now. I met many who were working in factories (surprisingly at pay that wasn't far below Hagwon rates and included free housing albeit dormitory) and there's supposedly a ton who are brought in on marriages and to work on farms.
So it's pretty clear that Korea doesn't want western white immigrants that much. They prefer South East Asians and turn a blind eye to Russian women.
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12-24-2018, 02:53 PM
Quote: (12-13-2018 11:29 PM)[email protected] Wrote:
I checked out the Korea ESL forum just yesterday and it seems like the landscape changed in the past 8 years. The government is a lot less welcoming to ESL teachers and public jobs are all but gone unless you work rurally. It's more competitive in the cities but the pay seems much higher (people kept saying 2.4m won/month is the standard and if you accept less you are being played).
Thing is you're forgetting inflation. Gimbap was probably 1,000 KRW back in the early 2000s and I can find DaveESL posts back then saying people were making 2.1 million. Nowadays the Gimbap roll is 3,000 (sometimes 5,000) but people still come to Korea for 2.1 million. So it's like taking a pay reduction of 5x.
In essence English Teaching is kind of a lowest common denominator in terms of pay. If you look at Latin America a lot of people actually volunteer to teach kids there. The same will eventually happen in Japan and Korea in the distant future too.
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12-25-2018, 02:39 PM
Is there any reason to think that going over there for a year or two to teach English couldn't help transition me into something more skilled like Software development or something? I don't want to live there for a decade, but it seems like a very vibrant city compared to others in the region and a lot easier to live in than Singapore financially.
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12-25-2018, 03:26 PM
If you want to never have to live in the Anglosphere again, then yes. For better or worse, English is the international language of trade and that is not going to change within our lifetimes. Businessmen in Iran who do business with other businessmen in Estonia communicate with each other in English as do scientists in Indonesia when sharing their findings with other scientists in Sri Lanka. English proficiency is not only for non-native English speakers to communicate with Anglo people and consume our increasingly awful media. It is also for them to communicate with each other within professional, diplomatic, and other contexts. Because of that, there will always be a demand for ESL teachers, especially native speakers, for at least as long as any of us are alive. Just don't undercharge so you don't drive down the salaries in the industry.
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12-25-2018, 03:36 PM
Quote: (12-12-2018 11:10 PM)[email protected] Wrote:
getting laid more than I ever thought possible.
C'mon man, that right there is the stuff we're most interested in. Tell us the stories.
Pussy ain't for pussies...
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12-25-2018, 03:41 PM
Quote: (12-25-2018 02:39 PM)Kelent Wrote:
Is there any reason to think that going over there for a year or two to teach English couldn't help transition me into something more skilled like Software development or something? I don't want to live there for a decade, but it seems like a very vibrant city compared to others in the region and a lot easier to live in than Singapore financially.
Teaching English won't help you much in Software Dev unless perhaps you plan to go into Software Sales in that part of the world. You can make contacts and gain an understanding of the local culture(s) which can come in handy if you plan to stick around there for a while.
But look - at your age, (I'm assuming early 20s), a year or even three off to just travel around and explore isn't that big of a deal at all. Looking back I wish I had someone when I was your age to tell me this.
Just make sure you retain the discipline for hard work be it in your career, women or whatever. It's easy in some of these places (from what I hear) to fall into the "take it easy" mode for life and if anything that's the biggest risk of all. The upside is you'll come away with amazing memories for life and you'll be a much more well rounded person as well.
Good luck.
Pussy ain't for pussies...
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12-26-2018, 12:29 AM
If you are going to teach English in China, get your CELTA and hook up with a high school. The better gig is to teach something else IN ENGLISH. There seems to be a demand for science and economics teachers, and they tend to pay better than a straight ESL position. Private training centres don't pay better unless you are in a first or second tier city and have quals and experience: they also want you to put in 40 hours a week with no weekends off.
In contrast, a high school will give you about 20 hours of classes, if that. Some will demand "office hours" but many will leave you to your own devices. That gives you a lot of free time to work on your own projects. As long as you are on the bullet train line you can visit other places inexpensively.
Tensions are running high between the governments of China, Canada and the USA but that hasn't percolated down to me. Some of the students have been following the news and are aware of the arrest of the Huawei CFO but otherwise, no one has said anything to me.
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02-15-2019, 11:21 AM
I lived in Taiwan in the past and taught English here back when the financial collapse happened. Nowadays I'm close to financially independent, but earning some from my blog and rental income, and side hustles.
But I blog about Taiwan being a great place to go when you're close to FIRE. I created a free guide to
teaching English in Asia which is heavily focused on doing it in Taiwan (because that's where most of my teaching experience is) for anyone interested in it or my blog. My blog is kind of a hybrid of traveling, side hustle, fire and complaining about office life.
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02-15-2019, 11:24 AM
While this might not totally fit in here but what are your experiences when giving private classes? I could teach people German, French and English (well Luxembourgish too but ya'know...)
I usually try posting stuff on local webpages and distribute flyers in some posh or recent upper-class areas.