If you're ready to settle in the countryside of China, then schools won't have problem to hire as there is a shortage of English teachers.

In the big cities, where most part of the teachers wants to be, it will then be quite difficult to apply for a working visa as you will face a stiff competition with teachers holding qualifications.

As an advice, if you plan to teach English, just do some TEFL classes online and get a degree....

Yes there are plenty of crappy schools offering crappy wages that will take someone with nothing but a smile... Get a TEFL at least that opens up the next level of jobs even without a degree...

You don't want to teach in the rural areas. You barely make any money and God forbid if you get sick in the countryside. Get a degree and certification. We don't need anymore uneducated foreigners bouncing around here.

Tons of places in Cities. They won't give you a visa though. You need to sort that on your own.

i did not have many qualifications when i came to china, i went to Beijing and found a job within around 1 month...the pay was not great especially for bejing but after 6 months i applied for a job in a smaller city with a much higher salary and apartment...

while working at that second job i got myself an online TEFL certificate and then when i finished there I had one & 1/2 year experience and a TEFL...many many schools wanted to hire me after this, dont need a degree...just some time to get experience and a friendly face (most schools will prefer white, but still possible if your black)

Its all well saying getting a degree, but that takes 4 years and does not mean your uneducated by not having one as you could of taken a degree in religious education.... The law as i know says you need a degree and TEFL but there are places in China that can interpret the own laws and find a way round it.

This isn't a desirable position to be in because of the earning potential is markedly poor without qualifications and you have to get your own visa. While I did manage to land a job right here in Shanghai for 150 RMB/hour and have been made offers for 170-200 RMB/hour, I had to polish up my CV with a lot of personality and personal experiences in a way that was interesting enough to stand out from bland ones EVERYBODY else had. (Seriously, there was one guy who didn't bother to edit his CV which was clearly written for an engineering job through and through, ZERO mention of anything about teaching or kids)

Before that, I'd be lucky if anyone (that wasn't an agency simply out to bleed me) wanted me for 80-100 RMB/hour in Shanghai. I'd advise you NOT to look at teaching as a long-term thing here in China. Get experience, get TEFL or TESOL certification, get a payraise, pay your way through university and get something that will pay better.

I know this is an old thread, but it's still worth answering for people who'll be searching later with the same question.

Yes, you can get a job. Maybe even an okay one. If you look 'right'. But not a very good one and the risk of being screwed over by your employer is very high.

That's the short answer. The long answer is much more complicated. First, what exactly do you mean by 'qualifications'? The thing you need more than anything is a degree. In something, anything, doesn't matter. You'll almost always need a degree to have the paperwork done properly, and having all the paperwork correct gives you much more room to act if something goes wrong with your employer.

So, that's the real 'need'. But then you'll also need to seriously consider how long you're planning to teach for; whether this is (1) a short-term thing you're planning to leave and go back to your real life, (2) a couple of years while you save money for something major and experience a culture in depth, or (3) your brand new career.

1. If it's just a short term thing; go ahead with just your degree in anything. You'll find a job in a crappy university or a dodgy training centre and you'll be a shit teacher, but it's okay because no one will care. Most people working in most training centres know SFA about education.

I2. f you're planning to be in it for a few years, it's worth going ahead and doing a proper TEFL course, like the CELTA or Trinity Cert. They're not cheap but you'll more than earn your money back over a 2-3 year period by earning (slightly) more money in the big cities and being able to work with much more reputable employers, which will make your working experience more pleasant overall. Also, it's nice to walk into a classroom and actually know what to do.

3. If this is it, the big career shift, and you're thinking about being a teacher in foreign lands for the long term then FOR THE LOVE OF GOD get a proper university certification in the field. If you can't afford it, then save for it while doing options one or two and study by distance. A masters in education would allow you to work in one of the reputable international schools, with better pay and conditions. A master in TESOL or linguistics would help you to work in an international university joint program with better pay and conditions.

The final thing, as always, to point out that in China, your age, gender and skin colour all matter at least as much as your actual teaching skill and qualifications.

  Yup, old post but new lease of life it seems. Can you get work without qualifications? Does the Pope shit in the woods? Absolutely. My first job here was ten years ago; I walked into a school, the boss asked me if I had experience and I answered, "I have no experience, no qualifications, I am poorly educated, partially dyslexic and I think you would be irresponsible to hire me as a teacher" (this is completely true by the way) to which he laughed and asked me where I was from. "London" I told him. I had a job, a wage and an apartment the very next day.

"Just can't be so picky. Shitty truth for a shitty world"? Sorry, addressing that needs its own reply, not just a comment. That's the same attitude I hear from my other friends. They sent out 6 job applications, got 4 interviews out of those 6 and got no calls back, then gripe to me about how hard it is to find teaching work in China. I ask them: Do you know the difference between an agency, teaching center and a school? No. Do you know how to draw up a lesson plan? No. Do you know what age group you want to teach? I wanna teach kids. What age? I dunno, just kids. Do you know any games or songs? No. The difference between them and you seems to be the fact you waltzed in and got a job where their skin color and nationality prevents them from doing so.

Again, how about you give a complete picture instead of making misleading statements? Let me replace that with one of my favorite quotes that feel so right for this:

"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're with, now go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. " - Rocky Balboa, Rocky VI.

Just so you can get that it ain't just pretty words and have an appreciation for how far the deck is stacked against me:

Black.

Tanzanian (read: non-native speaker).

19 years old.

Currently studying for Bachelor's (read: no degree).

Zero teaching experience.

My only advantages? A somewhat likeable personality (I like to think so) and native-level English with a neutral accent.

And yet I believe I thoroughly earned some teaching work because:

I ALWAYS, no matter how far away the place is, show up 45-60 minutes early for lessons/student interviews and 20 minutes early for interviews. (Where I work literally panicked last Monday because it was 15 minutes to a new class they gave me--which I forgot about--and I wasn't there yet)

Spent 5 intensive weeks doing nothing but finding work.

Read 150 ads per day per website, on 3 websites.

Sent out 20-50 emails a day.

Bombed the first 3 interviews I DID get.

Read 2 books on how to do good at interviews.

Torrented and skimmed through 30GB of teaching material being too broke to buy the books I DID find in bookstores just so I could figure out what the hell to put into a demo class. (which I look back on a month later and laugh at how naive some of it is)

Watched about 10 hours of "How to Teach" videos and so on things on YouTube

Read 6 articles on how to write a CV

Read every single CV someone posted online to understand what to put in one

Redrafted my CV 13 times to make it unconventional and interesting to read (like I said, personal interests and experiences and stuffs to add meat to the CV)

I ain't saying that all that effort made me anything close to a better teacher than those with legit experience and training or it landed me the best job out there. But it sure gives me a hell of an edge above most in the same position and it DID manage to get me to beat out about two dozen other vastly more qualified people (providence, perhaps?) to get 6 hours a week and I'm competent enough to be kept around and even get offered the classes of my other colleague who left when there is no contract forcing them to even keep me there at all (Japanese place, don't fret, they got integrity).

Since I added the fact I'm employed in my CV, changes were drastic. 3 out of 5 applications get responses. 3 out of those 5 are interested in outright hiring. People want to hire me in other cities and, in Shanghai, for jobs where things like 3 years experience are a "must." I have the leisure of choice, while obviously not that of more qualified and experienced teachers, blows everybody else I know in a similar position out of the water, save for one guy. And that one guy has taught Sunday School with kids for years (read: experience), is 7 years older than me (read: no age-requirement issues) and just knows people.

Not saying I deserve a medal or even a cookie, but I just want to make it thoroughly clear that, like everything else, the limits that life forces on anyone (within an albeit very stretched sense of reason) are LARGELY a result of a lack of effort on your part. And considering this needs little more than basically thinking, reading, browsing and sending a bunch of BCC emails i.e. not climbing Mt. Everest.... yes, I can say 98% of the time its your fault if you cannot get a couple of options and one or two (relatively) great ones atleast 120-250 RMB/hour when you give it atleast 2-3 months.