Teaching in China

The semester is winding down and depending on where you’re teaching you might only have a month left. Some people are going home for the holidays but many either can’t afford it or simply don’t want to. If you’re in the latter group then are a few options available to you over your vacation. You can always travel, however, if travel doesn’t appeal to you and you don’t mind teaching over the break then you might want to seek out a winter ESL camp. It’s a great opportunity to make extra money, especially if you’re on a contract that doesn’t pay you over the vacation. If you’re thinking of finding a job at a winter language camp there are a few things you should consider.

1. Winter camps can be very intense
Often these camps require teachers to teach 8 classes per day with additional responsibilities as well. Sometimes the money looks good at first, but when you’re miserably busy every day for a month the money suddenly doesn’t seem worth it.

2. Winter camps can be poorly organized
In addition to bombarding teachers with endless hours of instruction, these winter camps are sometimes poorly run (e.g. teachers aren’t given any resources, guidance, set schedule, etc.) This can add to teacher frustration as well as the effectiveness of the camp (assuming this matters to you).

I don’t mean to scare anyone away from taking on a winter camp position. There are plenty of great jobs out there to be filled. I’m just laying out some things to consider and look at carefully before getting involved.

Below are links to job postings for ESL winter camps in a few different cities around China. Happy hunting!

Wu han
http://www.esljobsworld.com/esl-jobs/asia/china/winter-camps-for-the-esl-teachers-14922.html

Zheng Zhou
http://www.teachabroadchina.com/travel-in-china-forum/esl-jobs-in-china/winter-camp-english-teacher-required-in-zhengzhou/page-1/post-737/

Shang Hai
http://shanghai.ixpat.com/classifieds/37002a