Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, PRC. State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs,
Department of Cultural and Educational Experts Affairs [SAFEA] Regulations
state:
"An ordinary foreign teacher of language shall have earned a
bachelor or higher degree1 and professional training on language teaching as
well as some amount of language teaching experience."
ACADEMIC (requirements):
1. Your university degree can be any subject or Internationally
Recognized Certificate or Diploma in Education, Business, Management or related
fields that are considered acceptable substitutes for a university degree.
2. TESOL, CELTA or similar Training Certificate [preferred, but
not essential]
3. Previous experience in teaching ESL or EFL, a great asset, and
may substitute for TESOL/CELTA Certificate.
LANGUAGE (Defined):
English Five
English Five, means nationals from British Isles, Australia,
Canada, New Zealand or United States who speak clear and clean English, whether
British or American, with good enunciation and diction that is not unduly
influenced by the vernacular, colloquial and other parochial nuances.
Mother Tongue
Mother tongue, by definition, means that the person was raised in
a family whose only first language is English.
Native Speakers
Nationals from former British possessions in Africa and Asia, and
other countries that have adopted English as their official language do not
necessarily qualify as English Teachers. Although the official language of a
country may be English, most often at family level local languages and dialect
are spoken as Mother Tongue and this impacts heavily on the spoken English.
Nationals from European countries, other than the British Isles,
may be suitable if they can clearly demonstrate spoken English with very minimum
of accent, this normally applies to persons who were born or raised from an
early age in an "English Five" country.
Other Comments:
Over 90% of all English teachers in China are required to teach
"Oral, Spoken or Conversational English", which requires the teacher have a
strong conviction to teach, excellent communication skills, sound understanding
of English grammar and idioms, rich personality, and very good sense of humor.
Being somewhat philosophical also helps.
Please understand that China has one of the highest per capita
literacy rates in the world and that English is a compulsory subject in nearly
all schools. Teachers coming to China will find their students at secondary and
university levels well versed in English grammar and possessing excellent
writing skills, often superior, age for age, with western societies.
Foreign Teachers do not need to know or understand Chinese, but
they certainly should have a thorough knowledge of their mother tongue.
