Considering Studying in China: Some Advice Wanted.

[RichS]

Hi everyone. So heres my current situation.

 

I've been teaching English in China for 3 years now, while I've been here I've studied really hard and passed the HSK6 not too long ago. I just turned 31, and I kinda began thinking what is my life goal right now? Well it certainly isn't keeping on slogging in this job I don't like. One life goal is to perfect my Chinese, another is to live in a comfortable fun city with a bit of character,  where the pollution isn't so bad. I've been in Tianjin 3 years, I feel very fond of it, but there ain't much to do and the smog gets pretty bad.

 

I've always liked the South of China, so I began thinking, why not find a beautiful city and just chill out and study for 2, 3 years. Teaching English will always be here for me, but in a few years I'll be too old to do the university thing, and China seems to provide pretty generous scholarships. I've kind of cottoned on to the idea of going to Xiamen, I've heard it's not too polluted, beautiful beaches, and a wonderful campus.

 

As for my major my first love is History, so I was thinking maybe studying History IN CHINESE would be a good way to kill two birds with one stone, Xiamen offers world history and Chinese history courses. On the other hand, maybe a masters with a more Chinese flavour would be in order, plus I'm a teacher so if I did a Chinese teaching degree that would be another way to kill two birds with one stone. So I thought Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages，Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language as a masters would also be a good choice.

 

Does anyone have any experience of these specific masters, Chinese education in general or Xiamen in particular who could give me some advice?

 

Many thanks.

[Angelina]

10 hours ago, RichS said:

China seems to provide pretty generous scholarships.

 

 

How much money are you going to be paid? 

 

 

[roddy]

The Xiamen University topic has a fair amount of info, not all of it ancient.

[somethingfunny]

Here you go.

 

And a bonus one.

[RichS]

Thanks for the responses. Does anyone have information regarding specifically the teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages?

[DavyJonesLocker]

On 02/11/2017 at 9:48 AM, RichS said:

So I thought Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages，Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language as a masters would also be a good choice.

First, congratulations on your level. Looks like you studied hard.

 

The only concern I'd have is: would you be able to find a job teaching Chinese? The market is awash with native speakers with that qualification so I think a non native would struggle to gain employment.

 

Unless your looking for a job in a country or  place with little or no native speakers. 

[Flickserve]

Should be ok as a job. I recall one of the forum members here having made a niche market teaching other expats Chinese in Guangzhou.

 

Also, high school with foreign languages departments have a mixture of native and non native speakers as teachers. For instance, French or German. I chatted with a US based italki tutor whose full time job was teaching Chinese in a high school. Granted I don't see the unemployed ones but there does seem to be jobs out there. I would agree that it probably would be harder within China itself. Although the degree leads to teaching, other different jobs could turn up.

[RichS]

With regard to job prospects, I've found that if you increase your Chinese level your naturally open doors, dunno what those doors are, but they open. I've just finished an acting job which was the first one I've ever done which I got off the back of my Chinese level. I also figure it might be a useful thing to have, not in China itself, but if I ever go back to the UK there can't be that many Chinese teachers over there.

 

However, like I said, its more just a mechanism to improve my Chinese level. There doesn't seem to be any masters programmes of just "study Chinese" and most of the undergraduate ones seem well below my level. For example if I wanted to take Chinese classes from a teacher I'd need to pay a lot of money, whereas I could take a scholarship and get hundreds of hours of being in a Chinese environment, and Chinese tuition "for free" so to speak. If I needed a bit of extra money, I could tutor the odd student or two. A lot more time to actually really study than when you're teaching 20 hours a week.

[HuayangAcademy]

You could try to study Chinese Literature or Chinese Studies at Masters level at a Chinese UNI 

 

There are lots of courses at http://www.cucas.edu.cn/

 

 

[RichS]

Thanks for the advice Huayang, but I didn't think there were any masters programmes which just "taught" you Chinese. I'd of course be super interested in a programme that just focused on teaching Chinese for students of around HSK6 level, but I don't know if such a thing exists?

 

Can anyone recommend any universities that have such a programme?