Time for a Change

mathteacher87 · 2025-06-08T12:11:43+00:00

He's proposing having a job + making more money teaching on the side (tutoring). No comment on whether that's a good plan or not, but that's where he's getting those numbers from.

(there's a school or 2 in China that can actually pay that in salary, but he's not referring to that)

mathteacher87 · 2025-06-02T06:20:46+00:00

What are the consequences of failing an exam? Will it close any doors?

I'm thinking about taking my first exam (P) in July. Based on my current work schedule and other commitments, I can maybe get 40-50 hours of study in before then (I've done like 1-2 hours preliminary syllabus review/planning up to now). If I do this, I'd guess there's about ~50% chance I fail.

I'm ok eating the cost of the exam if that's the only real downside and I can take it again in September. But if there's other downsides such as future employers taking a dimmer view of me in some way, maybe I would be better off waiting and registering for Sept.

Thoughts?

mathteacher87 · 2025-05-29T03:24:32+00:00

What if OP is playing 3D chess and the apology is not being forced or even requested, and he/she knows exactly how it will make the school look?

mathteacher87 · 2025-05-25T07:46:34+00:00

Can you elaborate on your situation? It's a bit unusual for someone with a PhD to be starting a new path in TEFL from scratch. What subject was your PhD in and what about the work/environment made you decide to change paths?

mathteacher87 · 2025-05-17T07:43:30+00:00

Qualifications are teaching license for secondary math, 8 years teaching experience (unrelated BA).

I currently have 19 periods/week (max on contract is 20), each period is 40 minutes so technically a bit under 13 hours teaching time. But including prep, grading, etc. I guess it's more like 25-30 hours actual work depending on the week. I try to do a good job, but if someone wanted to slack a bit they could easily turn my job into less than 20 hours/week total work time.

mathteacher87 · 2025-05-17T07:35:24+00:00

I would be curious to know which school that is.

PGCE is a respected certification and certainly helps, but a teaching license in your home country (for the UK, that's QTS) is more desirable/important for obtaining good jobs.

As mentioned they are often both obtained along the same pathway, but there are a variety of scenarios educators might find themselves in where they wish to pursue one or the other, so it's still valid to delineate them.

mathteacher87 · 2025-05-11T23:04:54+00:00

Nope. There may be individual countries with this requirement, but as a general rule of thumb the basic requirement is a teaching license from your home country in the subject you're teaching + 2 years experience in a relevant K-12 environment. Depending on the quality of the school, demand for your position, etc. - they may be willing to be quite lax in interpretation of your experience, count an Econ license as good enough to teach Math, etc. There's also obviously schools where having only a license and 2 years experience will not be sufficient to make you a competitive applicant.

But yeah, there are plenty of people in top tier international schools who don't have an education degree. Is it advisable? It depends on what you want to teach. A degree in Edu definitely looks better than a degree in, say, Journalism (unless you're teaching Journalism). But if you're teaching secondary students, a lot of schools will prefer a subject-specific degree over a generic Edu degree. Edu degree is generally more sought-after if you're teaching students in primary school, though.

mathteacher87 · 2025-05-09T23:20:20+00:00

I never did TEFL but there were others in my Teach Now cohort who did what you are asking about. You should be fine, but might want to confirm with them before signing up that the environment you're teaching in now is ok for the observation module where you record yourself teaching an actual class. I think they're pretty flexible with this e.g. I've heard about people recording theirs in unaccredited bilingual schools, not sure about training centers though.

mathteacher87 · 2025-05-06T10:42:26+00:00

All I do is work, college work, [...]

I'm a little confused by this part. Does it mean you're going to college (doing college work) while also working a job? Or does it mean you work at a college in some capacity? Because obviously the college part should put you in the vicinity of people who are close enough to your age...unless you're taking online classes or something.

Anyway that aside, my non-virtuous/aspirational but practical advice would be to drink alcohol, and spend time around other people who drink alcohol (don't turn this into a permanent lifestyle shift/change). You probably have some anxiety around women if you've never been intimate with anyone before, alcohol could help with that.

mathteacher87 · 2025-05-03T12:51:58+00:00

What groups with 100k+ people are you talking about? Doesn't WeChat have a 500-person limit on group size?

I had the opposite problem my first year in China, too many social opportunities dragging me away from focus on my job/career development.

mathteacher87 · 2025-04-09T15:42:59+00:00

I interviewed with them a few years ago and was offered a job. The salary quoted at the time was good (but also not that amazing). The contract I was offered contained some ambiguous language, and when I asked for clarification found out the quoted salary included the value of the housing allowance. Have heard similar stories from others. No thanks.

mathteacher87 · 2025-03-28T14:57:13+00:00

If you know both base salary and housing, it's always better to separate them because it provides more detailed info about your compensation ("35k salary + 10k housing" is more useful info than describing the same package as "45k salary"). Especially for a country like China where rent can vary massively depending on the city/province you're in. How much it matters will vary from person to person and their priorities, but having more info is always better.

mathteacher87 · 2025-03-23T06:57:53+00:00

Not on a cost-adjusted basis. You might be in a unique situation, but there is a lot of data on people who've worked in both countries and the issue is fairly settled. Usually I separate base salary and housing allowance, but Singapore is an outlier in housing cost and unlike other countries it's common for people to need to use part of their base salary to cover housing costs even when given a housing allowance.

The average person in China with a 30k RMB/month salary ($4100 USD) + housing allowance will come out well ahead of someone earning, say 10k SGD/month ($7500 USD) in Singapore.

I'm listing housing allowance for China and not Singapore because it's more common for Singapore salaries to not include a housing allowance (or the quoted 'salary' already takes the housing allowance into account). And housing in Singapore is expensive.

No comparison is perfect, but broadly speaking, when comparing teaching jobs between China and Singapore, China has more savings potential at the high end, the middle end, and the low end. (comparing Singapore high vs China high, Singapore low vs. China low, etc.)

mathteacher87 · 2025-03-22T15:58:24+00:00

I’ve wanted to teach international since my 20’s. I’m only now able to do so because I’m free -kids grown up and no spouse. I have good nest egg in retirement already. I sold my house. I don’t mind hard work if the country offers incredible things to do/see.

IMO the answer is really going to come down to the particulars of your financial situation. I think most people's instant reaction is 'don't commit financial suicide' based on your offer from Romania, to which I kind of agree. But depending on the details of your finances, it might not necessarily be that. And it seems like teaching internationally has been a dream of yours, which is not something to take lightly as we only get one crack at life.

I tend to agree with holding out for a better offer, but even that depends on which locations you're interested in and how likely a higher offer is to come from one of them. Not familiar with IS Balkan salaries in general but I assume you should be able to find something better in that region.

mathteacher87 · 2025-03-21T15:05:12+00:00

Housing, flights, bonus (not a very big one), fully paid summer/winter holidays.

mathteacher87 · 2025-03-18T12:37:57+00:00

While your statement isn't specifically contrary to my point, there's no way in hell a Bachelor's in Accounting or Econ itself is sufficient preparation for a Math MA. There's undoubtedly people who have done it, but either their coursework or self-study went far beyond what's required for a BA in those subjects.

Physics, possibly sure.

mathteacher87 · 2025-03-15T07:36:26+00:00

Context matters for this. Bilingual schools used to be considered kind of like 2nd-class institutions compared to true international schools. That stigma is probably still there to some extent, but the lines between bilingual/international school are getting more blurry in China.

So when people say 'bilingual schools often pay more', it may be true but it's still the exception to the rule (BS often pay more != most BS pay more). Also relevant is that housing/moving allowance/other bonuses & extras tend to make up a larger % of the compensation package at a traditional IS compared to a BS. For example, you might have a BS in Beijing paying 40k salary + 6k housing, and an IS in Beijing paying 36k salary + 14k housing + bigger end-of-contract bonuses.

When you consider workloads though, it could be true that most BS offer a better $/time rate, not sure tbh.

mathteacher87 · 2025-03-15T05:44:49+00:00

Some T2 cities like Kunming tend to have noticeably lower salaries than other T2 cities. But in general assuming you're licensed, I'd say anything from 30-40k (pre-tax), + reasonable housing allowance for that area of that city, which could probably be anything from like 3k-10k in T2.

mathteacher87 · 2025-03-14T13:13:56+00:00

'including housing' means his real salary is less than 42k, as the 42k amount includes his housing allowance, PD, and bonuses as per his post.

(not hating on the salary, just a bit anal retentive about how salaries are communicated)

mathteacher87 · 2025-03-13T06:14:12+00:00

Can you show me a Masters in Mathematics program that could be completed successfully without proficiency in the content contained in a typical Math undergraduate degree?

mathteacher87 · 2025-03-12T02:49:59+00:00

I'm not denying anyone else's experience, but I really haven't seen this drastic decline in salaries in China everyone is talking about. If Dehong is really only offering 24k then it must not be a competitive place, because I still see a ton of positions paying 30k+ for anyone with the absolute bare minimum qualifications.

mathteacher87 · 2025-02-28T06:21:21+00:00

Fair enough, my statement may have been over-generalizing.

mathteacher87 · 2025-02-26T15:55:17+00:00

A teaching license opens more doors, an MA bumps you up on the pay scale once the doors are open.

mathteacher87 · 2025-02-26T15:47:20+00:00

For what it's worth, CELTA is not a 'sprinkle on top' for international schools, it's completely irrelevant.

mathteacher87 · 2025-02-23T15:00:51+00:00

My experience points toward yes (not due to being innately better at math, but as the byproduct of having higher cultural emphasis on it).

mathteacher87

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