Younovo InJoy Education. What You Should Know Before Applying.

This is all based on my own personal experiences so far.  Experiences may vary from person to person. (http://www.injoyedu.com/)

What follows is what I think recruiters should (but likely won't) tell foreign teachers during the video interview before hiring them.  So what will they tell you?  They'll tell you whatever they think it is that you want to hear to get you to sign-up with this company as quickly as possible - particularly if you're a native speaker, because from what I've heard recruiters get a nice big fat bonus in their paycheck for hiring native English speakers (although I have no way of knowing whether or not that's true - it's just what I've heard).

When you first arrive you’ll be picked up at the airport by your recruiter and be taken to a  two-star hotel (https://youtu.be/db-7NZsTEFk - Maybe not this exact hotel, but one similar.) nearby the office. You’ll spend about two weeks in the hotel, but because space is limited and new foreigners are always coming, after that two weeks you’ll be moved into an apartment with at least one other foreigner.  It’s possible but very unlikely that you’ll get an apartment to yourself.

As for work, you’ll spend about the first two weeks sitting in a small training room watching videos.  

There are three types of videos:

1.      Other teachers’ demo lessons.

2.      Other teachers teaching actual classes.

3.      Children’s songs. 

Time spent in the training room is unpaid and the first two weeks are obligatory.  If after two weeks they still haven’t found you a full-time job, you will only have to come to the office as required (for example, if you need access to their printing facilities or something like that).  In this time they will do their best to find you some substitution or part-time work.  Keep trying.  You will get a full-time job eventually (most likely at a kindergarten or a training centre).  Note that in some cases it may take a few months before receiving full-time employment.

After a few days you’ll be asked to make a short demo lesson to present in front of some of the InJoy staff (and other foreigners that may also be present), after which you will receive some feedback.  Please adjust your demo according to the feedback and try again later.

Once the staff are satisfied with your demo you will be taken to a school (most likely a kindergarten or a training centre) where you will deliver the demo again.  Depending on the school, you may deliver the demo only in front of school staff, or perhaps in front of a small class of students.  There will be a short interview with the staff either before or after giving the demo.  If you get the job you will be informed within a few days.  Unsuccessful applicants will not be informed and will have to continue at the office as usual.  Keep trying.  You will get a job eventually (most likely at a kindergarten or a training centre).  If you are offered a job that does not align with your preferences you have the right to decline, however it's strongly recommended that you take the job anyway, otherwise it might be several weeks – possibly months – before finding you another job, which would be detrimental to your finances.  The sooner you accept a full-time position, the sooner you can start being paid a full-time salary.

While it’s true that they have everything from kindergarten to university available, please keep in mind that you’ll most likely be matched to either a kindergarten or a training centre because they are privately owned, looking for new teachers year-round, and generally don't have holidays, which means in many cases you'll get paid year-round, unlike public schools which have both winter and summer holidays (Younovo InJoy Education pay by the hour, calculated to the exact minute and not a penny more, which means if you don't work, you won't get paid).  To increase your chances of being matched to public schools such as high-schools or universities you should arrive either just before February or just before September, because once session has started it will be much harder to match you to a public school.  But again, you'll most likely be matched to a kindergarten or a training centre.

Kindergarten's here in China generally teach from ages 3 to 9, with training schools teaching up to ages 16, and may also have private classes for adults.  Class sizes vary from anywhere between 4 and 20 students (and in some cases maybe even 30), whereas public schools can potentially have class sizes up to 80.  No that's not a typo, and yes you read that correctly - eighty.

Teaching in China - Relinquishing My Luggage (temporarily)

NOTE: The level of English at Beijing International Airport is embarrassingly sub-par for an international airport.

The plane had landed and I wandered off the plane in a daze along with all the other passengers.  The Beijing international airport is less than ordinary. It's boring and dull and not a clock in sight.

I finally reach the part of the airport where the customs officers stamp you in, and I add myself to the end of one of the queues (that all ultimately lead to the same place).

I see to main officers, a cranky man, and a pleasant looking young girl.  I pray to God I get the girl, and thankfully she calls me over while Mr. Cranky Pants is still having some trouble with some other folk.

She looks at my passport, seems pleased, stamps it and I move on.

I wait for my luggage ... and wait ... and wait ... and wait ... I go to another belt and wait.  I'm harassed by some young luggage worker asking for money to help me find my bags.  I just tell him I don't have any money and show him my empty wallet and he leaves.

I ask someone about my luggage, and eventually get pointed to lost and found, where they track the number on my luggage, and tells me while it's on the right flight (Hong Kong to Beijing) with the right airline, it's on the wrong plane - the one after the one I was one.

I leave my details and the address of the hotel I'd be staying at for the next week with them, and they say my luggage should be here in around three hours, and I could wait if I wished.  I decide not to, and go and meet the people from ImmerQi that are waiting for me at the airport StarBucks (along with a few other interns).

I explain my situation, and again am asked if I'd like to wait, or move on to the hotel when the time arrives, so I decide to move on to the hotel.  When there, I inform the ImmerQi staff of my situation and given them the details the airport's lost and found gave me and they say they'll take it over from there and inform me when my luggage arrives.

Around twenty-four hours later, I'm notified of my luggage's arrival, and am called to the hotel lobby to come and collect it.  You can't believe that amount of relief I felt at that time!

Teaching in China - Learn Before You Land.

Part of what I was looking forward to when I went to China was weekly two hour lessons, provided by the school - lessons which the school was contractually obligated to provided, might I ad.

How awesome would it have been to order your favourite meal from KFC, or have a chat with a street vendor, or asking something of a store clerk in conversational Chinese?  Or be able to ask directions if you got lost.  You get the idea.

Anyway, I'm sad to say those lessons almost never came, and when they were offered it was nothing more than the school offering us students to teach us.  The few lessons that did come were from students whose English wasn't good enough to understand what we were asking.

So my suggestion to you, if you're ever either foolish enough or brave enough to take on such a venture as teaching English in China with few qualifications, and literally no practical teaching experience, I highly, highly recommend you learn as much of the language as you can before you leave.

I knew I was heading to China with more than enough to time to learn some of the language, but I was so stressed by the whole situation (and what other things were going on in my life at the time) that I wasn't thinking clearly enough to just learn something.  Anything.

Anyway, below are three titles you can check out for learning Chinese, if it's something you're interested in.

I'm personally a big fan of the Pimsleur method of language learning myself.

Enjoy.

- Ian.

              

Teaching in China - Don't Drink the Tap Water.

Excuse the inappropriateness of the following comment, but ...
Do you know what it's like to have diarrhoea almost every day of your life for three months, straight?

I do!  And all because of having lived in China.

In China, if you want to drink tap water you MUST boil it in a jug first (even if it's just for brushing your teeth), and I did, but believe me, going to the corner store and buying bottle water was by far the more sensible choice.

The particular area where I was sent in China is famous for its love of spicy foods - something that I personally hate (again, another reason to do your research and not put 'no preference' on your application form).

The school was ... school food, if you get my drift, and yes, it was provided for free, but ... ugh!  Chicken legs?  No thank you.  Spicy tofu and carrot shavings?  Well ... certainly not as bad as chicken legs, but still ~

So Daniel and I often frequented the nearby KFC, having little more than chips and a drink.

We did eventually find a family restaurant "BOB Bar and Restaurant" or something like that, which served small pizzas ... spicy pizzas. -.-;  Can you imagine a spicy Hawaiian Pizza?  Having experienced one first hand myself, I don't have to imagine it.  Although all in all, it was actually quite tasty.

On our last day there, the head English teacher shouted us to a goodbye lunch at the family restaurant, and I ordered a fruit pizza, thankfully not spicy - not that I remember, anyway - and I honestly couldn't believe how delicious it was.

Believe me, there are probably few who can appreciate just what it is to have a normal *ahem* movement ~

There was nothing better than coming home and having a locally made, juicy all-Australian hamburger, beetroot and all!

Whew.

- Ian.

P.S. Again, sorry about the inappropriateness of some of this post.

Teaching in China - Getting Overpaid (although not by much).

Being interns we were paid at a rate of $500AUD (give or take, depending on conversion rate), and were told if we stayed on (which I didn't), we would be paid at a teacher rate, which I think worked out to about double, so $1,000AUD.

Daniel and I were paid half cash-in-hand, and half directly into our bank accounts.

After the second payment Daniel brought it up with me that he thought we were being overpaid, and because the school was giving us the same amount in cash that the placement partner was giving us into our bank account, it ended up that we were being overpaid by around $100AUD/month, making a total of $600AUD/month.

We kept our mouths shut, and I partly wondered if it was intentional to make-up for not being at the school as long as other interns around the country, and that would bring us up to the same level of pay as them, but Daniel did the maths, and we still came off short.  I double checked with my own maths (not that maths was a strong point of either myself or Daniel), and yep, after all was said and done, we'd still come off short.

As part of the package, when you finish your teacher, you're paid a bonus pack (which I believe is equal to one months pay + a bit extra) and Daniel was utterly livid when he realised after our usual pay date for our last month, we hadn't been paid for it or received our bonus money.

He contacted our liaison for the company and filled him in on the situation, the confusion being that the company paid the school, expecting the school to pay us that lost lot of money entirely in cash, and the school not realising.

Anyway, after it was all sorted, we not only got our final months pay plus our bonus, but a little extra on top 'for our troubles' (of having to sort out the clerical error and who owed us what).

When the head teach came to pay us, he separated the pile of money in roughly the middle, and handed half to me and half to Daniel, insisting that we count it there and then.  He was pleasantly surprised with himself when he realised he'd split it exactly in the middle and given us both the exact correct amounts.

~*~*~*~

I've since spoken to at least one of the other interns, and he said be broke-even with the pay he got in regards to the cost of the TEFL course, the various administration fees he had to pay to do the internship and his flights.

While I did come home with some money to my name, I definitely didn't break even by any stretch of the imagination.

Be bold, brave, daring and adventurous.

That is all, thank you very much, good day.

- Ian.

Teaching in China - The "No Preference" Mistake.

When I applied for my job in China, three of the questions were:

Where would you like to teach?
What age group?
What English level?

which to all three I made the mistake of answering 'no preference'.

I left my fate in the hands of God/The Universe/Whatever you want to call it and if there was ever a mistake to be made, that was it.

I got sent to Xiangnan Experimental Middle School in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere; a low socio-economic region in the Hunan province in the south of China.

The children were poorly (and I mean poorly) behaved, some students had better English than some assistant teachers (and that's not saying much), and Daniel (the other foreigner with whom I was placed at the school) and I were never told anything about when tests/assemblies were held.

If you watch this video:

"From the School to the Bridge and Back Again"

You'll get a general idea of what the area is like (and hopefully, why not to go there).

If you've never been to China before, stay calm and just do some research - do a lot of research.
Do as much research as humanly possible. I didn't, and it was a mistake.

Research into where the best places to teach in China are, which work places will treat you with respect, where the best cities are, and so on.

In hindsight I would've probably made the following choices:
Shanghai.
Teenagers.
Upper Intermediate.

Although at the same time, after having taught at a middle school (ages 11 - 16, roughly), I actually don't mind teaching pre-teens so much.

The company that sent me there, ImmerQi, no longer send interns to that location (as is my understanding).

So in short, know yourself well enough to know in what type of a place you'd like to live while there, what age group you'd like to teach (I'd never taught before in my life, so I didn't really know) and what level of English you'd like your students to have.


Be bold.  Be brave.  Be adventurous.

That is all, thank you very much, good day.

- Ian.

Teaching in China - What a Crazy Dream I Had.

Before I get to the dream, let me just firstly say that I've been at my placement school for a week now, and a a part of me had been regretting the decision to choose 'No Preference' for where I was placed in China, what age group I taught, and the English level of the learners I would teach.  I'd even contemplated being asked to be moved to a different school.  Facebook friends have all told me just to 'hang in there', which I'm trying my best to do, but after I laid on the couch in my room early this afternoon, I had a dream that made me realise...

Sometimes it takes the most vivid dreams in our deepest sleep to show us just how much it is that we need to 'wake up'....

I was looking at the piece of paper which had my placement on it and noticed that it had two, the first being a shorter stay than the second, so I went along with all the other TEFL interns who were leaving the day that my shorter placement had finished, and we all got onto to some weird crazy suspended bunk beds.  Where are we? I wondered to myself.  Are we on modified shipping containers to be shipped out around China? Then, a familiar type of shunting feeling - we were on a train.  We were at the very back, and looked out the large window as we watched the town disappear in the distance.

My mum started talking to her sister (my auntie) and my (deceased) cousin, Stuart, about her placement - Wait.  What's Mum doing here? She always said she'd 'wring their little necks' if she ever became a teacher.  And yet there she was, quite calmly talking about where she was going to be placed and that she hadn't yet started.  She also mentioned that Joanne, my sister, had willingly missed the train, and she had some washing to hang out. What? I was then struck with an image of my sister hanging out some washing on a windy day.  How strange.

As I listened to my mum talk, I started to realise something - I'd read my placement sheet wrong and wasn't supposed to be on that train at all.  Is it a one-way trip, or will there be stops where I can get off and go back? The train made a few stops and I panicked more and more with each passing stop, desperately trying to talk myself into getting off the train and go back when I suddenly burst into tears.  "I miss those kids, I really miss them" I say in a panicked blubber.  "I don't actually like most of them, but there's a few really good kids there that I'm really going to miss.  I have to go back, I just have to!"

I woke up suddenly, slightly shocked and ultimately relieved that it was nothing more than a dream; a dream I contemplated the deeper meaning of after having awoken from it, as I do now typing this, coming to the conclusion that it is trying to tell me one thing above all else: "Wake up to yourself, Ian.  Wake up." (Or, you know, something along those lines, anyway). ;-)

What do you think?

- End.