I think that the reason English teacher jobs keep coming up on punters' sites is because 1.) they don't usually require much in terms of qualifications; and 2.) the job can pay for the person's mongering activities. In the honest truth though, a person shouldn't consider teaching English to fund their sexcapades.
Why?
1.) The pay for a HK English teacher is pretty low (~$30k-35k USD). This is low for a teacher in any country, and very low (to the point of being embarrassing) for an ex-pat. You'll barely be able to keep your head above the water in HK unless you're living way outside.
2.) Teaching English in a foreign country does nothing for your resume/CV. Eventually you'll be heading back to your home country (or another country) and you'll need to get a new job. Teaching English doesn't have a whole lot of skills or gainful experience that would impress an employer. And employers know that anyone can teach English with little to no qualifications.
3.) The HK Government NET program is intended for true teachers, hence their requirements for a B.A. degree in English, PGCE/PGDE and TOESL. Generally, the only people who would have all these would be someone who plans a serious career in teaching. And if that were the case, well, you wouldn't be teaching English in Hong Kong, you would be teaching regular subjects in a regular school in your own country.
Teaching English doesn't pay well in any country. That's a cold hard fact. Another poster in this thread mentioned teaching in Thailand, and my knowledge of it there is that Thais, especially bargirls who even themselves are on the lower rung of the Thai class system, look down upon English teachers. In Thailand, teaching English pays even less and isn't enough to afford going out on a regular basis. Even the ugly bargirls make more money than English teachers in Thailand.
Don't look at the job market to see where you can fit, look at yourself and see what you can seriously offer Hong Kong. For example, a Chinese friend of mine who graduated from a top American university with a business degree and had several years of management experience at a blue chip company, even she was unable to get a job in Hong Kong -- the reason being that she wasn't 100% fluent in Cantonese. Why should any Hong Kong company hire you over a local with similar qualifications? | |
