{"id":3775,"date":"2021-11-30T02:04:14","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T18:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/Can-I-teach-in-China-with-just-a-TEFL"},"modified":"2024-08-11T17:28:24","modified_gmt":"2024-08-11T09:28:24","slug":"can-i-teach-in-china-with-just-a-tefl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/can-i-teach-in-china-with-just-a-tefl\/","title":{"rendered":"Can I teach in China with just a TEFL?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is a TEFL certification required to teach English in China? When looking for a job as an English teacher in China<\/a>, it’s important to understand what they’re looking for<\/a> and how it affects your prospective compensation. As someone who has taught English and lived in China for over ten years, I’d want to share what I’ve learned with you.<\/p>\n

\"Can<\/p>\n

How Can I teach in China with just a TEFL?<\/a>?<\/h2>\n

When you start searching for teaching<\/a> employment in China, you’ll rapidly notice two things:<\/p>\n

Everyone wants to “assist” you in finding work, and…<\/p>\n

China has certain fundamental standards for all international English instructors.<\/p>\n

The TEFL Certification, which stands for “Teaching English as a Foreign Language,” is one such prerequisite.<\/p>\n

It’s general known that one of the finest ways to tour China on a budget is to teach English (or, at least, it was until COVID!). What could be better than being paid well to live in another country?<\/p>\n

So here’s the dilemma:<\/p>\n

Is a TEFL certification required to teach English in China, or is it just a good idea?<\/p>\n

If you’re serious about teaching English overseas, you should definitely look into the TEFL. However, depending on your circumstances, it may or may not be essential.<\/p>\n

Is TEFL Required to Teach English in China?<\/p>\n

The answer is simply…possibly.<\/p>\n

Allow me to explain.<\/p>\n

Most high-quality institutions that recruit foreign instructors require new hires to have a university degree. Not only that, but these institutions go above and above by demanding some form of teaching certification.<\/p>\n

Schools that do not make it a mandatory prefer to motivate new recruits to get TEFL certification by giving a better wage if you are qualified.<\/p>\n

So, unless you have a certain school in mind or are looking for the greatest<\/a> possible income, the quick answer is:<\/p>\n

No, you do not need a TEFL certificate to teach in China.<\/p>\n

However, the need for a degree is somewhat different.<\/p>\n

What about a university education?<\/p>\n

Before I continue, I’d want to point out that circumventing China’s university degree requirement is significantly more difficult.<\/p>\n

To get a work visa in China, your institution will need to register you as a “foreign expert.”<\/p>\n

This is not possible unless you have documentation of a university degree.<\/p>\n

Do I Need a 120-Hour TEFL Course or a 300-Hour TEFL Course?<\/p>\n

If you’ve decided that acquiring a TEFL to teach English in China is a good idea, the next question you’re likely to encounter is:<\/p>\n

Is it necessary for me to do the 120-hour TEFL course, the 300-hour TEFL course, or anything in between?<\/p>\n

Does it even matter when it comes to teaching English in China<\/a>?<\/p>\n

It’s almost comical how many different TEFL courses there are. You may take a 20-hour classroom course, a 300-hour online course, or a combination of the two for a total of 120-140 hours.<\/p>\n

\"Can<\/p>\n

It’s incredible!<\/p>\n

The fact is that the Chinese government doesn’t care how many hours you’ve finished as long as you have a TEFL certificate.<\/p>\n

That’s correct…<\/p>\n

…unfortunately, it doesn’t really matter.<\/p>\n

People take more than the basic 20-hour training to better prepare themselves for teaching. This is particularly true if you want to teach at a university, where the level of instruction and questions will be higher than in, say, kindergarten or elementary school.<\/p>\n

The typical approved TEFL course should cost between $150 and $400 USD, depending on the medium (classroom vs online) and the amount of hours (20 vs 120).<\/p>\n

If you locate anything for a substantially cheaper price on the internet, you should be suspicious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is a TEFL certification required to teach English in China? When looking for a job as an English teacher in China, it’s important to understand what they’re looking for and …","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,21,33],"tags":[1600,60,353,306,29,34,1485,701,277],"class_list":["post-3775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china-jobs","category-hot-jobs","category-part-time-job","tag-can-i-teach-in-china-with-just-a-tefl","tag-china","tag-e-china-cities","tag-hiredchina","tag-jobs","tag-jobs-in-china","tag-teacher-in-china","tag-teaching","tag-teaching-english-in-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14789,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3775\/revisions\/14789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}