Why teach abroad?
I spent 7 months in China, teaching English in the cities of Zhengzhou (Henan Province) and Shijiazhuang (Hebei Province). I found my school through another placement agency that will remain nameless. When we arrived in China, exhausted after a 13 hour flight from New York, we were met at the airport by representatives of our school, and spent the night at a hotel near the Beijing airport. The next day, we traveled to our school in Shikiazhuang. Much to our surprise, the school representatives, who were very nice, informed us that they were unsure why we had come in July, since we were not scheduled to begin teaching in September! Our agent had decided that he could find summer placement for us at another school, but had neglected to tell us, of course. After we had been in China for a few weeks, we found out that this was the standard practice for this and many other companies. Teachers would arrive in China, expecting to have a school and apartment arranged for them, and end up havin
