English training centers in China always warn you of this!
Most everyone is familiar with the common jobs for foreigners in China such as teaching English in a private English training center or university, managerial or technical positions in a multinational company, owning export companies, etc. However, there are lesser known, somewhat clandestine jobs occasionally available for foreigners not often talked about… until now.
An expression often heard in the USA, and probably other English speaking countries, is “A Trained Monkey could do your job.” Obviously, this phrase means the work requires little skill or ability other than being a warm body performing some simple job. Such jobs could be a factory worker performing some repetitive assembly on a production line, simple computer data entry, sweeping streets, etc.
It was not until I moved from Shenzhen to Chengdu in November 2008 that I heard this term “Trained Monkey” applied to foreigners teaching English in China.
My new contract with one of the well known adult English training centers across China commenced early December 2008 in Chengdu. The monthly salary and expense allowance was about 11,000 RMB which was certainly decent money then and even now. Actually teaching salaries in China have decreased over the last five years since my arrival. In most cases, this is due to the abundance of available skilled and experienced foreign teachers of all ages escaping hard economic times in their respective countries.
One of my fellow teachers Lee was a very likable, intelligent, skilled and mature twenty-five year old with a professional demeanor. For over two years, he had a steady live-in Chinese girlfriend who worked at our schools nearby shit adult English training center competitor as a sales/course consultant. All this is to set the stage for what was to soon occur.
Christmas was quickly approaching and the Chinese staff was preparing a Christmas party which, as usual, involved some entertainment provided by staff performances. One of these Chinese staff mental midgets came-up with the bright idea the foreign teachers would perform some skit speaking CHINESE!
Lee went ballistic. “WTF is this David!” he said.
“This is an ENGLISH school where students are supposed to be learning English!”
“You’re right Lee” I said.
“I won’t do it! I’m not a Trained Monkey!”
Long story short, we all rejected this hair-brained or half-baked idea and refused to be truly Trained Monkey’s, but they still mostly conducted the Christmas party in Chinese.
This was the first time in China I heard the term Trained Monkey applied to foreigners teaching in China, however, it made perfect sense as it largely relates to what is expected of foreigners teaching English to students of all ages.
The shit adult private English training centers care more about the money than the quality of the teaching. The requirements are basically simple for most foreign English teaching jobs, but somewhat more stringent now than five years ago. If the individual is from one of the P.R.C. designated native English speaking countries, has at least as B.S. /B.A university diploma, TESOL/TEFL/DELTA teaching certificate and, more recently in many cities or Provinces, at least two years teaching experience.
The exceptions to this are very rural areas where they will literally hire an English speaking monkey or human from ANYWHERE or any country, OR, the A+ teachers with an education degree or a university degree in Chemistry, Math, IT or some other discipline. The A+ teachers can usually be found in the international schools or top universities in China. Since they are specialized, they command much higher monthly salaries often as high as 25,000 RMB.
However, forget the P.R.C. requirements for a moment. There is an “intangible” requirement not usually advertised by schools. The teacher must be very ENTERTAINING, or sometimes advertised in code words like “Energetic”. Yes, that’s correct… a Trained Monkey.
Nobody wants to be bored in any class, but most adult Chinese students want to be “entertained”. Forget the fact learning any language requires hard work and STUDY. This pervasive thinking is why many of these adult students, or their parents to be more correct, are paying big money to learn English because they slept through two to three years of English at their university.
These private English training centers are more concerned about sales and retention of customers, sometimes mistakenly called students, and less about how much or what they learn. Me and most foreign and Chinese teachers I have been associated with in the past WERE professional and sincerely wanted the students to learn not only English, but also culture and maybe even benefit and learn from some past professional, business or life experiences.
Trained Monkey’s, AKA foreign English teachers, are abundant in China, but, lurking in the Chinese business jungle are the elusive Kings of the Trained Monkey’s I’ll tell you about next.
Most of the time I see monkeys they are sitting around jabbering to each other slack-jawwed or picking fleas from each others fur!
You think monkeys can take over the role of the zookeepers and survive?
The real reason that the zoos can operate is because they have the psyche of the visitors worked out...a little bit of popcorn and fairyfloss, a few young girls to do the dance, a ringmaster and a troupe to performing monkeys!
Maybe a few have a gorilla or two, that cause a bit of a change for a while...but these are eventually hounded into a corner by the stupid babbling monkeys or hit over the head by the ringleader when they are unawares.
Until the visitors stop being impressed by monkeys, and want a 'live jungle touring experience' then you will have the monkey show and organ-grinders.
Churn and burn, churn and burn, churn and burn...
Bring on the next barrel of monkeys!! They are expendable cheap plastic toys after all!
As one friend said to me "If they are white and seem to speak English they can get hired."
It is very frustrating for parents and for kids who want to learn to speak English well. So when they find someone with excellent English language skills who can actually teach they are treated like Gods and not like monkeys. And they are very well paid on an hourly tutoring basis.
I have 10 language exchange friends in Beijing. 8 of them are recent University graduates with very good English language skills but they want to improve. One is the Deputy General Manager of a large manufacturing company and the other is the owner of an international construction firm. And they are helping me to learn Chinese. It is a lot of fun. And they are helping me to build my network of friends in China.
Except for me my family are almost all professional teachers, including many of my in-laws. Some are in primary schools, some in secondary schools, some at the university level and some now in administration and responsible for hiring teachers. They unanimously agree that a good teacher is one who knows his stuff AND who can entertain his students while teaching them.
I'm not strictly defending having teachers without proper qualifications, but if I was a Chinese parent with a young child learning early English, I'd be a lot happier having an English speaking high school graduate who could keep my kids happily learning simple English by entertaining them as their teacher than a boring "qualified" teacher with a Masters degree in Education who was putting them to sleep.
Of course someone who was both qualified and entertaining would be ideal, but if I had to choose which one I wanted to teach my 6 year old how to say and understand "See the rabbit." I'd take the unqualified entertainer every time. At least my child wouldn't come away thinking "English. I never want to learn English. It's so boring!"
Now, if I, as a large happy man, decide to dress up in a Red Suit and give presents to my students at a Western Festival to 'educate them about differences in some foreign cultures' then that is useful. But it is my choice.
If you think how these places make money - blatantly ripping off students (and we all know Chinese parents will pay anything to have their child 'win' at school) with second-rate materials, not caring if the students actually learn anything, as long as they have some cut price 'trained monkeys' to deliver stuff then that is how they operate (aka Tanshui's first comment) - there is no integrity or quality or customer service in the 'churn and burn mentality' that they have.
To them, both the students and the teachers are highly exploitable commodities - while they grow rich praying on other people's insecurities while offering lowest possible service and delivery cost.
Individuals may be able to get higher wages - but it is often not their sole source of income, or source of visa...you also have issues like being unemployed for long periods over holidays and having many cancellations of classes that makes it a fickle income stream... and everyone wants to pay lowest price!!!
If you want to be a puppet in the play - step right up gentlemen... but there are others who have tried to point out the pitfalls and been 'rubbished' about it... including last year...we haven't heard from this person in a year - and even he was commenting about new teachers as 'fresh meat' in his last post.
Gentlemen - I think it is a great idea if, as part of our Chinese New Year Celebrations, you disrobe and run naked down the road to show everyone how white your arses are!!! Why?, because I think it would be funny and show people you are actually humans and not 'apes from overseas'.....do it ok!!!
Would you do it??? Because I said so??? Shit, it would be entertaining!!!!
Or would it???
Thank God she’s not!
I vehemently defend the premise early childhood and primary students worldwide deserve the BEST, most experienced, skilled and FORMALLY educated teachers with credentials. Young minds are the most impressionable and have not yet fully developed their foundation or basic skills of reading, writing and math.
Furthermore, teaching is a profession with standards, like any profession whether an attorney, surgeon, pilot, police officer, etc. I like physicians with a personality; however, I’ll take a highly skilled no-personality physician any day over a less skilled entertaining one. Just cure me!
I thought I was rather clear I was referring to shit ADULT private English training centers in China, or other countries for that matter, that have customers instead of students.
To this day, I turn-down offers in China to teach children of all ages, although I meet the P.R.C. MANDATED requirements. A person MUST know their limitations and I certainly know my limitations and experience level with regard to teaching early learners. Unfortunately many people do not and learn their lessons the hard way when they are refused Work Visa’s.
My hat is off to the Chinese and foreign teachers, or schools, that meet the P.R.C. requirements to teach and don’t try to take shortcuts to “Live their dream” trying to teach purely with On the Job Training (OJT) or ignoring P.R.C. laws for working in China.
Yesterday I couldn’t spell TEACHER, today I ‘R one! Really?
I don't have the patience to do it well. I don't offer the students the things that they need from their teacher.
I'm happy to assist children with homework, happy to develop training programs to meet the needs of children - but I can't teach them well enough in a classroom environment.
I have been 'forced' to teach children in the past - and I have been disappointed and disappointing...so now I specifically contract that I don't teach children...and it loses me work, big money actually!
The profession of English Teacher is looked down on in China - by Chinese and by other foreigners living here - it is seen as an 'easy way' to stay in China. In fact, it is seen as non-professional, anyone can do it!
But, this is far from ideal and hopefully this is changing with Visa standards and the influx of more professional and caring teachers.
The reason being, teachers are a major guide to children's futures - what they say and do can help children to exceed expectations or languish forever.
We all have a story of a teacher who helped us, or a teacher who hated us! Hopefully the ones that Chinese Children (and adults aspiring to do better in life) meet are the former, not the latter.