You know what that means: It sucked.Īs a disclaimer, I will say that I loved my students more than you can ever imagine. You might notice that I haven’t mentioned much about my work environment yet. My recurring expenses totaled 4,050 yuan (~$625) per month.ĮF China also doesn’t reimburse you for your flight up-front.Rather, it pays you monthly installments of a set, 8,000 yuan ($1,200) employee transportation allowance that doesn’t come close to covering the actual cost of a round-trip ticket from anywhere in North America or Europe to China. Instead, I paid about 3,000 yuan (~$450) per month in rent, and 700 yuan, or $100 in utilities. I spent 200 yuan ($30) per week on groceries, 50 (about $7) on lunch at work and 100 ($15) filling up my Metro card. In other words, my take-home pay was only 9,880 yuan per month.ĮF does not provide you with an apartment or compensate you for yours. Allow me to explain.įirst of all, China taxes expat employees in this income bracket at a rate of 20%. The EF English First salary is enough to live well in Shanghai or other large Chinese cities, but it isn’t enough to both save and spend. The BadĮF offered teachers a salary of 12,350 RMB (or about $1,850) per month as of November 2009. My liaison Apple met me at Pudong Airport and escorted me to the four-star Rayfont Nanpu Shanghai Hotel, where EF had prepaid a two-week stay for me.īefore Apple left, she provided me all the materials I’d need to start with the company the following Monday, including instructions as to where to meet her colleague, who’d be taking myself and my future colleagues to orientation. EF paid all associated costs.įurthermore, EF’s “welcome package” was excellent.
The school provided me with a work permit, medical examination and a chaperoned transfer to the office where I had to submit my paperwork. These school sometimes even cease operations without prior notice.Īs promised, EF promptly reimbursed me for expenses I incurred during the application process, such as obtaining my online TEFL certification and Chinese “Z” work visa.Įnglish First also facilitated the conversion of my work visa into a residence permit. By contrast, many smaller English school pay teachers late, or not at all. Overall, English First’s strong suit is that it has money, which it uses to make sure teachers’ bare necessities are covered.Įnglish First was always on-time direct depositing my salary into the Bank of China account the school set up on my behalf. I like to start with the positive whenever I can, so I’ll begin by telling you what was good about my experience teaching English in China with EF. Continue scrolling to read one of the most candid EF China reviews you’ll find online, or click here to read more about teaching English in Asia more generally. Although English First Shanghai is far from the worst place I’ve ever worked, little about the company separates it from any of its multinational competitors. I hope this isn’t too good to be true, I thought as I clicked the “Send” button.Īs you can probably guess, it was indeed too good to be true.
I didn’t hear anything for the first several days after submitting my application, but within 48 hours of EF’s response, I had a job offer and placement in Shanghai. It explained in crystal-clear detail what I could expect from the application process, upon my acceptance as a teacher, after my arrival in China and on the job. Unlike the majority of ESL job postings online, language school English First’s website was organized, informative and beautifully-designed. I’d actually been browsing jobs teaching English in Japan when I saw a sidebar ad that read “Teach English in China.” I clicked it and arrived at the EF China home page. I applied to teach with English First China in August 2009.