Why EVERYONE Should Read This
If you are thinking about taking a
job teaching English in China, my strong advice to you is DON’T DO IT.
Just don’t. Look for such a job in Vietnam or Thailand or Japan or Spain
or the Czech Republic or really just about anywhere else in the world. I
say this because teaching English in China has become that corrupt,
that horrible, that exploitive, and that risky.teaching jobs in China for foreigners
Our international lawyers have always gotten a steady stream of emails from English teachers in foreign countries who are in trouble or not getting paid. Though these matters are invariably too small for us (or just not the sort of work we handle), we do want to help to the extent we can. That “help” usually consists of an email providing “fly-by” legal or career help or even emotional support. We view helping these teachers as a bit of a public service.
In International Education: The Emails We Get, we explained how our international lawyers have inadvertently found themselves on the front lines with this, even though we have never made a single cent from representing an English teacher anywhere in the world.
A couple years ago we wrote a four part series on establishing an international school in China. In part 1, Establishing International Schools in China: The Basics, we discussed the complications foreign parties typically see when trying to start a school in China. In part 2, Establishing International Schools in China: A Deeper Dive, we focused on what it takes to start a School for the Children of Foreign Workers. In part 3, Establishing International Schools in China: A Deeper Dive (Continued), we discussed Sino-Foreign Cooperative Schools and Chinese Private Schools. In this, my last post in this series, I look at future trends for international schools in China. In Part 4, Establishing International Schools in China – Future Trends, we wrote about some of the distinctive issues foreign schools face in China. We also sometimes write about the legal issues stemming from teaching overseas. See e.g., Teaching English In China: Be Careful.
Many of our lawyers and staff attended international schools or are sons or daughters of teachers or professors. I spent my junior year of high school at Robert College in Istanbul, a year studying Spanish at LAE Madrid, and 8 months studying French at the Institut de Touraine. All three are amazing schools and these were some of the best years of my life. My father taught English Literature at a liberal arts college for 36 years. Our law firm has a long history of representing universities and international schools on their international legal work, ranging from helping them set up in foreign countries to licensing technology they’ve developed to foreign companies.
We went on to talk about how our international lawyers try to do their best to give responses that contain actionable advice, based on the limited time and information we have and the below reflects how we typically handle the four most common categories of foreign teacher emails.
