MarkyH

I am a Native English Teacher from UK and am thinking of moving to asia and want to go to HK, Macau or Shenzhen.

I have almost 3 years teaching experience, tutoring here in London. I don't have a degree though but i do have 100hrs TEFL certificates and about to take advanced certificates in Teaching Kids and Business English.

I also speak semi fluent Cantonese, will this help or hinder me and what kind of jobs are available for non degree holders?

I thought about doing a degree but at my age i cannot afford to spend another 4 yrs to have no guarantee of a job at the end of it and a load of student loans.

Any advice is most welcome. I am not so bothered about HK but probably more interested in Macau or Shenzhen, i have been to and lived in HK for a couple of stints not exceeding my visa allowance, so i know the place pretty well.

Thanks in advance to anyone with advice.

bakedbean

Hello...just to say Welcome to the forum

kartik

If u ask for info. about native English teacher in Shenzhen, go to shenzhenparty.com

I think it's helpful to know everything on the web.

bakedbean

Hi Kartik and welcome to the forum. I see you're in Shenzhen. Be nice if you can give some info on here to Marky. I'm sure he would appreciate that, as would others thinking about Shenzhen.

1986mlob

Hello
I think it's really difficult to be a native teacher without a degree these days.
The market's saturated with eager, fresh grads, and countries that discriminate such as S.Korea prefer young, N.American females.

LaughinGor

OP, are you a British Caucasian that can speak some Cantonese?! If so, wow! It's not surprising that a Caucasian can speak Mandarin fluently/averagely (incorrectly referred to as 'Chinese') nowadays but even averagely at Canto is rare. Anyway, you probably speak better Cantonese than a lot of the Central Kingdom citizens in Shenzhen because a lot are not actually from Shenzhen, let alone the Guangdong province. A large percentage of the current Shenzhen population are migrants from other non-Cantonese/Mandarin speaking provinces so using Cantonese here in SZ is a hit and miss business. There are some Central Kingdomers living in SZ for many years that can't speak even basic/accented Canto even if his/her life depended on it! Also there are still a good proportion of Shenzheners that are actual locals who are fluent in Hakka or Cantonese or both; and HK [Cantonese-speaking territory] right next to SZ, and some Cantonese-language TV/news/radio in SZ, so it beats me why some non-local Shenzheners who lived here many years can't speak it.

Sapna

I don't know if your still thinking of moving over, but ignore the person who said it was difficult to get a job without a degree. I live in Shanghai and I sometimes get offered jobs on the subway. There are loads of jobs here far more then people. The only thing is anywhere in china but Hong Kong you will have to renew your business visa ever three months. You'll need to do this in Hong Kong. It's a bit of a pain, but for the first 6 months it's only once and that's a usual trial period.