Get PAID for Teaching in China

[Hypiereon]

I am a Foreigner living in ChengDu, and I have been teaching English for over three years now. Anyone who doesn't know -- LISTEN UP!! I was getting 3,000 Yuan per month when I first arrived and didn't know Jack about contracts. I thought I was getting a pretty good deal. Most first year teachers think this way. Now, I get no less than 5,500 Yuan per month for a 12 hour work week plus all the other benefits (ex. air travel -- 10,000 Yuan per year).

Don't let their griping and complaining about how much foreigners get paid versus what they get paid dissuade YOU from getting paid. Feel free to e-mail me and ask for my "Bargaining Points" as well as a sample contract from the school I am now working at. The "Bargaining Points" is written in MS Word Format so I can attach it and send it to you, or you can simply ask me to copy them to a reply -- THEY include all the things you should watch out for -- (like the fact that no contract I ever heard of inludes a "Personal Income Tax Benefit" where the school pays for taxes on income over 4,800 Yuan per month. Get caught with your pants down on this one and just smile as wide as you can while you bend over.)

The only way the system will change is if everyone (meaning all foreigners) starts demanding the same thing and starts saying "NO" to the ridiculously low offers out there.

The best scenario for anyone wanting to work in China is to get the most money you can for the least hours, whatever that might turn out to be, and then to farm yourself out hourly to other schools. If you don't do it yourself, the schools will find a way to do it for you and in a way that they get the majority of the profits. I was doing this for 125 Yuan per hour when I found out that here in ChengDu, 175 Yuan per hour is the norm. Start at 200 and let them bargain you down to 175. In all, my situation has turned out to be very profitable. I live in a 225 sq meter apt. and pay all my own bills while living off campus. Last month I made 12,300 Yuan working for three different schools and doing part-time tutoring work. Part of it was due to my availability to other schools on an hourly basis because of the low hours of my original contract.

This level of involvment also requires a more experienced indivdual who really knows their city and has made some-few relationships to be able to make it work out properly to his/her own advantage without gaining the ire of the wrong people. It is a little risky at first, but once things are done properly in the Chinese way it is rather simpler than it seems.

MOST IMPORTANT IS TO SHARE THIS INFORMATION!! HELPING OTHERS HELPS YOURSELF!! If you have ANY questions at ANY time, feel free to e-mail me at hypiereon@hotmail.com -- I'd be all too happy to help. ALSO, if you are unable to download the attached files (Recent Contract and Negotiating Points) at the bottom of this page, then feel free to e-mail me and I'll reply back with the documents sent via attachment that way.

As I said, below you can download the most recent contract I signed. Please note, when you read this, that the lines in BOLD text were the changes I made to the original contract. Sometimes I overwrote what they had, other times I added. Other sections were entirely my own additions resulting in the contract lengthening somewhat. In all, there are still some things I feel like I should have added - like getting paid vacations for foreign holidays (paid leave for Christmas and Thanksgiving for example) - but will have to remember to add those later in the next contract. These are not mentioned in my original Negotiating Points, but then again, living in China and not getting paid leave for those two holidays is not THAT big a deal anyway.

One last piece of advice -- Being able to make such changes usually requires a face-to-face, so don't expect too much if you're bargaining over the internet or the phone. So, that said, you can sign whatever contract you want, but make sure it has a clause that allows you to resign with two weeks or even one month of notice. When you get here, shop around!! You have a contract, so relax and start getting tough with schools once you're here. You'll be surprised at what you can find late in the game.

Basically it works out like this. Schools need teachers, so you sign with one just to get yourself over here -- and then once you are here you try to find a more desperate school that is willing to pay more to put a foreign face in the classroom. (This is very easy because there really aren't enough teachers to go around - but schools don't really know who will and won't be here until the semester starts, once the semester starts and they have no foreign teachers they are FAR more flexible with their contracts.)

You now have two options: 1) Put in your notice and leave for the other school OR 2) Inform the school of your intention to leave if they "can't" (won't is more like it) match the other offer. If you leave, make sure you leave politely explaining it is just in your best interest, but that you'd be willing to "fill in" until they can find another teacher. Your "fill-in" per hour rate is anything from 125 - 200 Yuan per hour depending on how much they think of you. They'll scramble to find another foreginer - if you can recommend another foreigner who you've "educated" about contracts all the better. If that foreigner happens to be as educated as you and demands more money to change schools, the whole system WILL begin to change.

Most of all, say "No" quickly to low offers, explaining to them that you are saying no because their offer is so low. The more schools start to hear the word "no" and the reason "offer is too low to start with" then they'll be more motivated to either change the original offer, or get more flexible. Believe me, they will find the money if they really want the teacher -- so make sure you're getting P A I D !!!

Best of luck to you!!!!

[gfell]

Some good feedback there hypiereon! Perhaps you may want to attach your MS Word document for others to download.

China can be a great country to teach in, but you should always beware of schools paying below a fair amount.

Teachers will always accept a low salary at the start when first arriving to a new country. A low salary is better than no salary. And many schools do take advantage of newbie teachers on the block.

[Joey]

Good stuff hypiereon. Thank you very much.

Let's all say "NO" to cheap teaching rates in China. Once this starts to happen, schools will start giving us more money. Am sure most schools are rich enough, but just don't want to part with their money to keep teachers happy and look after them.

[Hypiereon]

Thanks for the positive feedback from everyone who has written me so far. The point to rememebr here is that we must all start spreading the word on this information. Something I thought of recently is that a lot of schools seem to be hitting a ceiling on offering 4,000 RMB per month, and I asked myself why this number for a starting offer?

The reason, it occured to me, was that the Personal Income Tax (recently raised to 20%) kicks in on amounts over 4,000RMB. If you don't get paid more than that, then they don't have to mess with it. If you do then they have to either bring it up and make you pay it, or they will just quietly pay it themselves. Either way, if they keep you paid below 4,000 RMB then they don't even have to fuss with it. They could pay your more, it just involves this extra headache they'd rather avoid.

Again, this is not a good enough reason to keep from bargaining for more money. Letting them know of your knowledge of the Personal Income Tax and that you expect them to pay the tax on amounts over 4,000 RMB and that you fully expect to get paid more than 4,000 RMB should help move them along.

(((((P.S. Recently, the threshold for the personal income tax has also been raised. First, they raised the tax from 10% to 20% on amounts over 4,000 RMB; then, as of January 1st of 2006, they raised the limit to 4,800 RMB. All this means is that now you keep up to 4,800 RMB before the 20% tax kicks in, and the tax still only counts on amounts OVER the 4,800 RMB limit. So if you have a contract for 5,000 RMB, only 200 RMB is taxable at 20% which means there is a 40 RMB tax on a 5,000 RMB contract. If you write it into your contract that the school pays for the tax, not you, then you keep all 5,000 RMB and the school has to pay the 40 RMB tax.)))))

[ESL Teacher]

If a teacher earns 4000 RMB or less per month, then the schools avoids paperwork with the government. Perhaps a teacher can go full-time with a school for 4000 RMB per month, and bargain this salary with lower teaching hours required. That way, the teacher can source other part-time teaching work.

So the whole idea is to increase your hourly rate!

[Hypiereon]

Sorry, but until just today I realized this post had been reading "3,000 Yuan per year" and should have said "3,000 Yuan per month." Either no one else caught this, thought it was true, or never bothered to mention it and just chalked it up to fast typing, a creative recruiter or an insane foreigner. Sorry it took this long for ME to catch it - which only happened after I posted it on another site today. Now, I'm having to backtrack and make that exact same correction on all my other posts. Sorry for the confusion if there was any. "3,000 Yuan per year!!!!" (good grief )

[REIANDY]

Actually that is NOT entirely true...I make far more than 4,000 (which is what they pay the other teacher who work at my school) but what they do is they put 4,000 under my First, 4,000 under my Middle and 4,000 under my last name to avoid paying anything. I thought it was kind of tricky but as long as they don't get me in troble they can do what ever they like.

[Hypiereon]

First of all, welcome to this portal. Second, hope you stick around. Third, that sounds like a pretty awesome deal you have going.

So you mean to say you're making 12,000 RMB per month?! That is so cool!! Are there any other details you can offer? Are you working for a private business / crash school or a public university or what? I'd really like more information on this. Whatever you could provide would be helpful!

[Yungsilo04]

Best ESL info on the net right now . . .

[gfell]

Yep, I think Hypiereon has contributed a great deal of very useful information. We all love you Hypiereon!!