What you might want to know

T. Wilson 2015

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• Knowing what you really want

• How to know when you are receiving a decent offer

• How to read between the lines…

• How will your culture and their culture mesh…

• What types of conflict to expect and how to succeed

• Recognizing people types and their expectations

• Knowing the best time to leave or endure

• How the world works and how you fit in it

• What to expect when you return to your home country

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Since the Magna Carta: English, Dutch, and Northern Europeans have slowly marched toward

political and gender equality - …in North America this is

inherently evident in our upper and middle class structures

• For the sake of differentiation and

quantitative understandings I will

paint prospective applicants in

different categories in the hope of

assisting future job seekers to

understand themselves, their

expectations, and the best possible fit.

Out of all the sizable western

industrialized nations the USA is

the only country that doesn’t

separate out demographic

information by social classes…

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Who you are…

• Where did you come from?

• Where are you going?

Where do you want to be?

• What social atmosphere did

you grow up in?

• What are your strengths?

What are your weaknesses?

• What is your style?

• What do you prefer…

Your expectations…

If you know who you are then your expectations are easier to discover and find.

• What are your public expectations?

• What are your private expectations?

• What is the most common and rational way to get to where you want to go?

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Who are they…

• Where did they come from?

• Where are they going?

Where do they want to be?

• What social atmosphere did

they grow up in?

• What are their strengths?

What are their weaknesses?

• What is their style?

• What do they prefer…

Their expectations…

If you know who you are then your expectations are easier to discover and find.

• What are their public expectations?

• What are their private expectations?

• What is the most common and rational way for them to get where they want to go?

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Traditions and Power…

• Traditions and who gets to make the decisions shape the educational direction and structure of a region or country. Education opportunity rigidly sets your future in most of the world.

Cultural Expectations…

• Cultural Expectations so rigidly

effect education in countries

where the testing system has ten

to twenty centuries of history

and the writing systems take

four hours study a day for

twenty years to master them

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Knowing what you really want

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Everyone is different and we come from different backgrounds

There is a teaching job overseas that will fit your personality

• What is the social structure of your family and community?

• How will a ESL teaching job fit into attaining your career goals?

• Do you have a teaching degree or an English degree?

• Will this be just a six months to one year commitment or are you

open to a longer term of employment as an expat?

• Are your future career goals in education or another field?

• Do you have friends teaching abroad whose experiences have

made you interested in a similar career path?

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• Do you live in a large city or in the countryside? Is your home in the inner city or in the far outlying suburbs or in a small town? Have you regularly ate a variety of ethnic foods at home or at local restaurants?

• Is their a lot of use of force either with money or power within your family or community?

• Often the inner cities, the backwoods areas of the old slave states and other areas where gender equality has not reached reality in the USA and Canada often reflect the mentalities that you will find very prevalent in developing, third world countries, and under authoritarian regimes.

• Teachers that come from these areas often tend to use more authoritarian means to socialize and relate to their peers. They also can easily and quickly find like minded expats and citizens when abroad.

• Do you live in a community or family with more northern European influences where equality, egalitarian, and lets get it done right the first time influences are the ideal?

• The plus with these social traits is you will slowly find others who also have these same ideas and grounding abroad even if they themselves have very authoritarian dynamics in their families or social history.

• Your long-term footprint and friendships will be ten times bigger and better than your authoritarian, insensitive, or might equals right peers. Always look for opportunities to branch out and meet people not immediately associated with your work environment and their ring of influence.

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• Does your family focus on gender and social equality or is their a heavy authoritarian or I have the rights to do this attitude that defines how power is appropriated and how the resources are administered?

• The nicest thing about living abroad is you get the opportunity to meet other people who are very different than you and you will often find well balanced and fascinating people who come from very different histories and/or societies than your own.

• Your family structure and the conflict level that they allowed or were subject to will effect your tolerance and coping methods when faced with conflict or irregularities while living abroad.

• It is important to remain flexible… but it is also important to know yourself and what you need to remain healthy and balanced in a new environment and culture. Always have an exit plan and a second or third option because people with other options are viewed as more interesting and they find it easier to think rationally and remain relaxed when things are chaotic.

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• Educational history indirectly and directly affects ones outlook on life because it has indirectly opened

or closed doors in your family’s and community’s past. Your future history and your children’s future

history will be effected by your education choices and opportunities today.

• Your family’s and community’s educational history has directly affected your way of thinking and

whether you can relate more to the struggles and cultures of the working class or if it is much easier

for you to relate to people who have longer higher education histories.

• While it is not the deciding factor in your future it affects your options, your realm of thinking, the

types of people that your social barriers may be lower towards. People with first generation higher

education histories might find it difficult to relate to people who have third and fourth generations of

higher educational degrees and long histories of community decision making power.

• People from all walks of life can have friendships, learn from each other, and work together. But in

international and expat relations it is very important to deduce yours and the other peoples ability to

bridge these differences and to have common ground. In the western world and in the eastern world a

group of people with fake or very low quality degrees will not under normal circumstances find

themselves in good healthy working relationships with very high qualified people doing the same job

that's legal access point is having the appropriate degree. When working abroad you need to find a

working environment where by far the majority of your co-workers have a four year degree or can

work respectfully with co-workers who have higher degrees than themselves in a professional manner.

• Teaching English Abroad in China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan typically requires you to be a

legal resident of the USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa. 11

• Knowing your expat co-workers, their respect levels, their social standing, and educational history is

important …commonality and the ability to build commonalities without inferiority complexes is very

important. Peoples inferiority complexes and on the other hand over-confidences greatly effect social

structures and ethics in multi-cultural relations within expat communities abroad. If you’re the only one

in a work situation who is truly respectful of others and have the higher education that is far superior

to others in the group you probably wont find peace and a good long-term work environment there.

But since this PowerPoint is focused towards English as a first language speakers with four year

degrees this automatically puts you in the top ten percentile among teachers and citizens abroad

when it comes to curriculum competency, understanding egalitarian professional social structures and

educational quality.

• If you are a four year degreed English as a first language speaker you may discover that the one

factor that splits the expat community the most is that of education. This is not because you are unable

to bridge the gap but because the other expat who isn’t teaching ESL legally, may or may not have a

real degree, and they also come from a culture where the social barriers between classes are

unsurmountable. They cannot or will not fully relate with you on the basis of social or religious noise….

• If you are feeling a little inferior or over-confident about your educational or community history

remember that being genuine and trustworthy are the most prized qualities among USA and

Canadian residents living abroad. You will find that when living abroad normal expats stick together

like glue and that minor awkwardness’s, political differences, regional nuances, country of origin, and

odd habits are overlooked if the person is considered trustworthy and not quick tempered.

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• Will a teaching job overseas lead into the next step in your career goals? Or is it a stepping stone to a different job abroad or just a filler year or two…?

• Do you have future career goals in education or another field?

• While I was living abroad other expats were quick to say that if you stay to long you won’t be able to use it as a stepping stone toward your future….

• One thing to think about is that the first year is just a stepping stone and that it should be used as a step toward going back to the North American job market or as a stepping stone to a better job in the country you are teaching in.

• Some people get married to a national and either you can save money for your future together or you have your parents or their parents to fall back on for a future transition.

• If you are thinking of starting a business you might consider the resources of your family(s) because getting money from an investor usually means that they make most of the decisions (even the day to day) and you need to keep coming up with idea upon idea to continue to show your value even though you are the one who did all the work. Position, power, and money are not divided in Confucianistic thinking because they don’t have any historical or current experiences that show this to be true.

• The legal environment needs to be considered when planning a business. In China you will need close political connections and a two year make your money plan because of the fast changes and high rents. In South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong you have a stable legal and investment system but high rents and deposits. Other countries have their own mix of legal, political, monetary, rents, deposits, FDI rules, regulations, and other things to consider. It takes a lot more money to start a legal business in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, or Japan than it takes to start a similar business in the USA or Canada.

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• What do you expect from a teaching job abroad?

• Is it just going to be a fun year after your recent college graduation? Do you have aspirations to quickly learn the

language so that you can be a translator or continue your higher education there? Do you expect it to be easier

than living in your home country?

• Do you expect that everyone will like you? That relationships will be easier?

• Things will be similar to how you interacted with the foreigners you met in your home country…. If you were a

giving person here then you will feel that you can receive from a giving person there. If you were a judgmental

person here you will find judgmental people there. If you tricked the foreigners in your home country you will find

similar people there. If you are kind here you will find many kind people there.

• The one thing that will most likely be different is the large quantity of people from which you can find similar

people as yourself. You will stand out and it will be easier for you to connect to maybe a more sizable group of

people similar to yourself… you will have more choices but they typically won’t under qualitative inspection be

different than what you could have in your own country. Just that there will be more opportunities likely in jobs,

travel, connections, and other things –but these will be similar to what you could get at home if you gave the

opportunities at home the same effort.

• In other words travel abroad might help you with your shyness, your confidence, your number of similar

opportunities, and gives you multiple chances to get what you could get at home. These opportunities all come

about with you putting forth the directional and change your location effort.

• The speed and the concentration of opportunities are different abroad but there is also the variable of time and

culture. After a year in a country you have a better understanding of things around you. Also different things and

relationships have different speeds. Some good things take a long time to develop and then some things take a

better understanding of the culture to realize. You will have a higher concentration of good and bad choices in

front of you. 14

• Are you good at travel and trips? Have you been abroad before?

• Have you spent six weeks or more in a new environment where you needed to make new friends?

• The nice thing about ESL teaching or other curriculums taught in English jobs is all your fellow expat teachers and often some of

the national teachers have been abroad for an extended time and have been in a similar situation as yourself. Also it is not

uncommon for high school or university students to have homes, provinces away from their school.

• Are you extremely social? Are you a groupie? A homebody? A partier? A Scholar?

• Are you introverted or extroverted? In living abroad it is both comfortable and uncomfortable for you no matter if you are

introverted or extroverted, because you will at times feel as though you are alone and also always not alone. Success comes

down to perspective and management of your feeling, emotions, and needs.

• If you need to have a closer relationship with others, then consider the options of communal living and working for a school that

has a lot of expat teachers with similar backgrounds as yourself. The drawback from this is that often with less independence

there is also lower pay, more work but the same pay, more office hours, and/or people less qualified than yourself.

• Everyone who is somewhat connected to their new environment deals with culture shock… The first mood changing major culture

shock often happens around six weeks into your stay where you realize that the country your in has a lot of problems and that

some things are not improved by explanations of why they are the way they are. If you were born and raised in the USA or

Canada you are more than likely predisposed to the idea and action of why don’t we try to make it better for everyone and

learn from every experience by planning ahead and thinking of ways to improve because competency leads to advancement.

• Sorry but most of the world is a hierarchy and in some countries narcissism and selfishness is a way of life. But there are always

places where you can advance to a better job and move to a position where you can actually change things for the better. But

you need to think of things in a more hierarchical manner like after the first year when you move to a different company and

school and get that better paying job. Or after you get a title and more responsibilities… you might say I will do this big special

project if you will give me that empty separate office and a new title for doing this project. Remember that position (tittles),

power (authority), and money (resources) are not as independent of each other as in your home country.

• Look for ways to improve your resume like titles, certifications, special projects, and connections. Don’t pad your resume in your

home country but remember when you look at resumes from nationals in other cultures they often have a little more air than you

are used to at home;) 15

• Are you funny and entertaining? Are you more serious?

• Teaching children in Korea or China requires you to be a little entertaining especially in private language schools… this can be learned but it takes some

people a few years to get good at this. If you are a more serious person find a more scholarly position like teaching adults. There is always a good job

even if you are serious or funny… people with higher educations often tend to be more serious than fun.

• Are you spontaneous? Are you more methodical?

• If you are thinking about working abroad you should be a little of both… everything can not be perfectly planned and most things need some preparation.

Private training schools often take little education to get into and they can take little or no preparation time.

• Are you looking for a teaching job at a university?

• Universities in China often pay very low while universities in Korea pay decently… while both countries have social barriers toward upward advancement

for foreigners. Often it should just be used as a stepping stone back to your home country if you want to see a tenured posit ion, employment after age 45,

or a retirement option.

• Are you looking for a job in a language school or at a testing center?

• These can be rewarding jobs but they often have a high turnover which gives you a chance to make a little extra money if you need to pick up a little more

income.

• Legality is grayer and less defined in some countries and the training schools with fewer political connections are sometimes raided without warnings…. In

smaller cities everyone is happy with having the opportunity to learn from any qualified foreign teacher. Also there is less competition among schools

outside of large cities, along with lower pay, better food and air.

• Do you want a job at a kindergarten, elementary, middle, or high school?

• There are many of these jobs that go unfilled every year. The schools usually want a solid one year commitment and you should always check to see if they

have been blacklisted. The best jobs in China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan also come with round trip airfare and better quality schools will give you

two round trip tickets a year.

• The better schools take a year or two solid prior experience to get into. If you are only offered 6000 CNY a month plus a paid for apartment just say no

unless it is a rural school in the central or western part of China and you really want a rural opportunity. Often you can arrive in China on a tourist or a

business visa and secure a job, foreign expert license, and residency permit by shopping for a job on location.

• South Korea has standardized salary minimums and apartment requirements along with two or three months lead time to get your paperwork finished prior

to arrival (because background checks in the USA can take two months to complete).

• S. Korean, Japanese, and Taiwan schools are monitored by the government and are heavily fined for not giving you your full wages.

• Contracts in S. Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are a legally binding contracts… contracts in China and other countries carry varying degrees of power given the

province, school’s status, location, and school’s reputation. If you’re having problems getting the right documents and your visa is not tied to the school

consider if you can go to a larger school in a medium or larger sized city where they can get your paperwork done quickly and easily.

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• What have you told your family, acquaintances, and professors about your expectations teaching abroad?

• Are they accepting, supporting, and helpful in their recommendations and conversation? Do they know

anything about the subject?

• Do they understand or are their responses and facial expressions unhelpful because they don’t have the

paradigm to process why you might want to take a chance in a new culture or environment?

• Do they have too much of their own noise in their head or are they predisposed towards the non-

contextualized stories they have heard? Sometimes people can’t get past their own bad reasons they have in

their head to rationally think about how they can help you process your options. Sometimes you learn more

about other peoples problems instead of them giving you help finding a good forward focused plan and

realistic expectations.

• It is important to have a public aspiration as to your expectations about teaching abroad because it gives

you a context to expand upon, investigate, and use critical analysis for and against it.

• If you are not getting adequate or reasonable feedback you might investigate more online reading like

blogs, advertisements, The USA State Department’s publications focused toward ESL teachers, and the

multiple teacher forums available on websites like Dave’s ESL Café.

• When you return to your home country your relatives, acquaintances, and friends will want to hear about

your experiences. You will have a lot to say but it is often best to have a short answer and a long answer.

Most people are just looking for a one or two sentence synopsis when you return and likewise when you are

planning on going your public expectations should be rather short.

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• Likewise your private aspirations and expectations are also very important. Your expectations about culture, relationships,

opportunities, and the ability to try and see new things. Often people don’t have adequate opportunities to express their

expectations and get good feedback.

• Do you want a second chance for a new start? Do you want to meet people that can relate more to your international and

career dreams? Are you just bored-to-death in your current environment and you don’t want to see yourself making the

same mistakes as the people around you?

• Living and working abroad is a good experience for most people. But as I said before you should always have a backup

plan and have already investigated your new job and a few others in the country your moving to. Networking and having

a return ticket are the same things that you would consider if you were just going to move a city away in your home

country… so do your homework to have a better experience and to know when the opportunities in front of you as you

live, travel, and teach are great, good, average, or bad.

• Likewise as I also said before: Some good things take a long time to develop and then some things take a better

understanding of the culture to realize. You will have a higher concentration of good and bad choices in front of you.

• Often people in other countries are much more direct about things. But then they have their memorized saying that are

directly supposed to mean something that they expect everyone else to know (and they call using these hundreds of

memorized sayings as being indirect). Generally the higher educated people in larger cities (there are more rude people

in large cities while people in smaller cities are more polite) focus on being more polite (because traditional higher

education culture is polite) and try to communicate their meanings respectfully so you can understand them. Most often

seemingly rude people in eastern societies already know they are being rude and their problem is usually nationalism or

they don’t feel worthy (they cut corners) of the social status they are demanding. Also most of the world is a hierarchy and

people are respectful to people more educated or having a higher class (social status)above them and much more direct

toward the people they consider below. This is very different than the ideals of middleclass North American society where

equality and concienciousness are most important.

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• It is good to understand the process and to develop an action plan. When seeking a job abroad pursue two or three

jobs in the same country so you can compare the jobs and decide which is the most promising for you. This will also give

you a backup plan and an independent social network as you correspond with the personnel and foreign teachers

associated with your different employment options. There is a good job that you can enjoy and have satisfaction in but,

you need to do some of your own research and build connections to discover the best opportunity.

• As you build relationships with several different schools or recruiters you will be able to make a more informed decision

because you will be able to deduce which organization has a better quality network, better jobs, better schools, better

students, better housing, happier teachers, and a decent level of integrity.

• Often elementary/primary schools are the only compulsory education required outside the western world …which

translates that most middle schools, high schools, and universities focus on profit or high salaries, status, and retirement

plans which are concentrated to reward those who own shares or have an vested interest in the school business. Image is

always valued above quality so you will need to develop an understanding of image qualifiers and know your honest

value as a person and intellectual. Don’t settle for peers that are backbiting “prima donnas” unless you are too.

• Avoid the bait and hook strategies of a recruiter or school. It they don’t put forward a decent amount of time, money, or

effort toward you at the beginning don’t expect them to follow through at the end. Either they have the track record to

prove that they are an awesome place to work or they need to meet you consistently at least halfway.

• Set up a timeline that you can measure your progress toward the job you want that is consistent with normal expectations

while taking into consideration your education, country of origin, target job, age, and then log your progress. This will

give you a timeline perspective to judge whether the school is slow, incompetent, timely, informed, excited about you, or

if you are just a stop gap option for them. Often the low quality school drags its feet to save a few bucks while the well

managed school knows that when a qualified teacher is on location the education quality takes a major uptick and the

money will flow while the enrollment grows. Parents want to see a qualified English as a first language teacher at their

children’s school but, sometimes this process/goal isn't pursued by money skimming inferior feeling administrators.

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Know when to ask for more money or for an increase in perks and benefits

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• Understanding and Comparing Jobs in China…

• Living Cost and Comfort Level Differences in Chinese Cities…

• The Business and Image Side of Education in China

• Understanding and Comparing Jobs in Taiwan…

• Understanding and Comparing Jobs in South Korea…

• The Business and Image Side of Education in South Korea

• What are your Future Job Options, Advancement, …in S. Korea

• Understanding and Comparing Jobs in Japan…

• Understanding and Comparing Jobs in Southeast Asia…

• Why did you want to pursue a job in Asia?

• Buckling down and pursuing that goal!!!

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• There are five different kinds of Education jobs in China • 1. The countryside or rural adventure job for those who don’t easily get lonely with the upside that you will be cherished.

• 2. The government school job which varies according to the school’s ranking and the local governments charity.

• 3. The private school which will make the owner rich and politically connected… relationships are very important.

• 4. The private conversation school, kindergarten, or test preparation school – forget the perks, what’s the pay?

• 5. The local, regional, or national university that slides along on its image – 99% of these are low paying.

• Saving $1000 a month towards your future or to pay off school bills should be easily possible for jobs 2, 3, and 4. Think of this basic formula when considering an offer: Monthly wages of $1000 USD plus 1.5 times the monthly rent of a great apartment in your target city will give you the minimum you need to save $1000 USD a month and to have an excellent standard of living and dining out in that city. This wage level should be attained in 14-16 teaching hours a week. Your personal two bedroom apartment in a smaller city or a convenient classy efficiency apartment (within 10 minutes walk from your job) with a balcony in an expensive city should be provided free and furnished. A higher rated school and/or more hours taught should equal even higher wages and more money to save toward your future.

• Private off campus housing is just the very basic way the school can show that you are valued and an asset for their school. If you came from a top 100 university or satellite campus in the USA your quality of education is equal to a top ten Chinese university. Likewise if you came from a top 200 university you will rate in their top twenty. Expect the same level of respect as they would give a Chinese national teacher who came from a similar rated university.

• Schools that charge higher tuition/fees usually budget for more English as first language teachers. It is never really about do they have enough money to pay you, it is more about do they respect you enough to pay you an honest wage for being an English as a first language speaker with a four year degree. China functions as a modern Confucianist state similar to the structure of a historic feudalistic state where everyone gets their cut of the pie. Your position (including image, education, and relationships) defines how big of a cut of the pie you will get. A higher perceived position gets a bigger cut and someone with a lower position and less connections will always receive a very much smaller portion that the person above them.

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Knowing if you want to proceed in a direction or make a slight adjustment

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• One important thing is to retain your emotional composure when dealing with citizens of eastern countries because often a good person will act skeptical of you at the first few initial meetings even if they might really like you. This is because they have less control or understanding of universal facial expressions and culture specific body language postures. But you can see their direction by some less direct body language and that they try to facilitate more time to get to understand if you are a consistent, respectful, conscientious, and a semi-moral person.

• Like everywhere else in the world your friends will introduce you to their good friends, family, and take care to make sure that you have a good experience.

• Actions always speak louder than words… a reasonable unpressured promise and its fulfillment is respectable.

• If work or lodging promises are progressing to slowly reconsider your options and whether you have time to go with your plan B because these societies work on a push hard and get the important things done fast.

• While many good friendships might take months or a year to materialize there are always the occasional citizen and peer who can easily see who you are because of your commonalities and offer a refreshing friendship.

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• All Confucianist based societies and authoritarian influenced societies have a large focus on keeping face and looking like they are a coherent and like minded group. They are anything but like minded and in agreement… hierarchy and opportunity have much more to do with ones position than ability or competence. Since the owner or leader makes most of the decisions it is important to find a position where diligence and reasonable labor are cherished and financially compensated with a smile. Not sticking your head out to far in public and having a long-term educational goal are often richly rewarded in Confucianistic cultures and you will find friends who's families have demanded quality and balance so that the child can attain recognition by their own accomplishments.

• In the short term pushy and rude people seem to get ahead but where competence and relationships are valued good people stand out and perform better than impatient ones.

• Pleasing people who didn’t attain a position by virtuous ways is problematic and they are only respected by similar people. While good and bad people are all mixed together in hierarchical and authoritarian societies, the good people work hard to stay under the radar and help other good people to be successful.

• Asian societies as is demonstrated in the yin yang symbol tolerate a lot more bad in their societies but at the same time they think its influence should be focused downward, away from their families and friends.

• The first choice countries to pursue a higher education degree are the USA and Canada because quality, accreditations, stability, and regional/nationalistic inequalities are not encouraged nor flaunted.

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