[muddykins]

Eurasian - mix of european and asian blood. i'm filipina/chinese/british. wonderful little mongrel.

i agree with Jay, i've worked with a bunch of other NETs that are really quite useless at teaching. i'll admit when i can't do something, for instance, i have real difficulty teaching students any older than 13 [mostly because i'm only 17, but still!] because they've been drilled with all the technical aspects of English just to pass the exam, not to really speak it fluently.

to actually answer your questions, Wandi, i've been working as a NET since i was 15, one-on-one tutoring at first, now i'm 18 in two weeks and i've been taking on classes with 15-20 kids at once. the pay is fantastic, but again, take into account i'm just a kid myself. XD i'm getting $350 an hour. XD

there are a lot of jobs posted on jobsdb.com under the education section - just send in your CV and such, they say they want experience and degrees but it does depend on your personality and if you get on well with children. some classes are good, some classes are hell.

[squid]

Originally Posted by muddykins

i've been working as a NET since i was 15,

It is amazing that you were able to earn a degree and a teacher qual. by that age. Excellent work.

[muddykins]

^ no need to be jealous. XD fancy pieces of paper don't instantly make you good with young children.

[Raiqi]

When I worked in teacher recruitment, we were told only to hire Chinese faces if we couldn't find anyone white. (grr)

In my experience so far, if you have a Chinese face it is a disadvantage at first - you wil be tested more and treated with suspicion at first. However, most schools appreciate quality so they get over the ethnicity issue after the first week or so. Also if you are a confident professional you tend to get a lot of respect. Having said that though, quite a few Cantonese speakers have pretended that they do not understand Cantonese in their workplace. Makes it difficult to keep a straight face at times...

Working privately I have also found that parents tend to try and talk you down in price a little harder if you are not white. Or try and converse with you in Cantonese if their English is not as good. You just have to be firm and insist on the English.

The 'parents only want white' excuse drives me crazy as I am sure that most parents (really!!) care more about quality then they do about ethnicity. So far I have only found one family that was so desperate to have a white person that they turned down several people who were not white but had full qualifications. Schools are all dependant on who they get passed through and what their principal cares about the most.

[squid]

Originally Posted by muddykins

^ no need to be jealous. XD fancy pieces of paper don't instantly make you good with young children.

Actually, I was joking...I assumed that you had not earned a university degree and a teacher's qualification by the age of 15.

If so, more power to you. fantastic.

If not, then in my opinion you were not a "NET".

cheers

[gilleshk]

NET just means native english teacher so it doesn't exclusively refer to the government scheme although that's probably the most common use...

[huash1]

Hi All,

I am currently in California and am in the process of moving back to HK. I am a HK permanent resident with US passport. I have lived in the states for about 16 years, 5 yr in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, 6 yr. in Detroit, and 5 yrs in California. Since English is my 2nd language, teaching as a NET is out of the qustion for me. So I am thinking if I can not find a position in my field (logisitcs and accounting), worst to the worst, I can teach foreigners Mandarin or Cantonese as I speak both fluently.

Do most of the schools you guys working for offer Mandarin classes?

Just curious, anyone from the U.S. and the particular states I mentioned above?

[huash1]

Just posted the above message and all of a sudden, in a second, I saw my rating light turns red. What's going on? What did I say to offend anyone? I do not understand how the rating system works here, anyone?

[huash1]

Sorry, never mind, it was from another thread. BTW, does anyone know how to delete or edit a post. It seems that the "edit" function is only active for the first few mins after posting, but then it's gone. Am I doing it wrong?
=====================================

Originally Posted by huash1

Just posted the above message and all of a sudden, in a second, I saw my rating light turns red. What's going on? What did I say to offend anyone? I do not understand how the rating system works here, anyone?

[dansande]

Hey there, I'm from Indiana and I teach English here in HK. There are jobs for Mandarin teachers and I have some contacts who are always looking for Mandarin teachers but the pay isn't very good unless you are lucky enough to get a corporate training job. You may be better off teaching English; if your English is nearly native that is good enough and I know some people who would hire you. PM me if you want more details.