Teaching English in Danang

Hello Lizzie,
If you have a degree about teaching English, I think you may apply for the job in the center of English or Singapore Internation School. There are so much centers open in Da Nang. So you are easy to look for the work you would love to do 

To answer your question:
There is always work to be had in DaNang - always people advertising.

BUT, not much advertising and a lot of people chasing the work, hence supply&demand - plentiful supply = lowish pay.
I enquired of the international schools - not a hope in hell unless you know someone (but hell has been known to freeze over).  Everyone wants to teach in DaNang and that includes proper teachers as opposed to four week trained pretend teachers.

The usual advice is to put in the hard graft in Hanoi (or possibly Saigon) and then with that experience behind one then applying for jobs in other areas becomes easier.

But of course one might be lucky - but it is hard work finding work, especially if you are wanting full-time monday to friday daytime.

I am a proper teacher (of mathematics!) and have been investigating English Language Schools.
If you want to work for the 3 largest schools they tend to give preference to those who have received their own in-house training.  If your EFL certificate does not include a supervised teaching element (6 hours plus) then it is hardly worth the paper it is printed on.  The vast majority of jobs re part-time and again, if you need the hours, you'll have to work for more than one Language Centre.  Pay rates upwards of $12.  So for an evening's teaching let us say 2 hour teaching plus prep time.  3 hours work for £24.  plus travel etc etc.  Others might be more charitable.

If there are others are others who encourage you then ask them what experience/understanding they have in the real world.  Are they guessing, do they have an agenda or are they knowledgeable?

In Danang now, there are may international schools and english center so they need a lot of foreigners teachers who are native speakers, you can find it is easy to be an english teacher here, good luck:)

Try ESL101, Jobs77.com, Craigslist, etc. always advertising, especially for the start of the new school year. AMA go through a lot of staff,

Hi LIzzie, do you mind sharing with what company you are taking your certification course in HCM.  I am looking into this as well vs. Thailand.

If you are trying to choose between Vietnam and Thailand , I would go for Vietnam , better pay , no particular worrying political wranglings etc .  Thailand is becoming a powder keg which may well be an ugly explosion in the near future, when maybe the inevitable happens, (of which I am currently not allowed to speak, get my drift). 
Add to this a total lack of respect for teachers in Gov't schools not just from the kids but fellow Thai teachers too, and you would soon realise that Vietnam would have been the better option.

I wish to say thanks 10x.  I am definitely already leaning VN but Thailand seems to be more organized YET also there seems to be a bit of a ripeness for teaching in Thailand meaning has hits its peak and is now beginning to rot a little.  I mean no disrespect for the country or its peeps.   I read lots of stuff recently posted and VN seems to still be wide open for work and visas.   I don't have ESL cert yet and I already have one informal offer to teach in the interior w/  encouragement to complete certification in near future.  I should like to point out that this school is having harder time getting peeps to work in the interior and I have an extensive business career and a college degree.  I am not suggesting the VN schools are hiring just anybody. 

As for for the disrespect thing, I sort of already expect some of that to happen since it's obvious English teachers are making more pay than the locals often.  I have worked for many years as a high tech whore and on short term contracts from 6-18 months long.  The employees of the company quite often are hostile because on per hour basis I made lot more money than their salaried equivalent and they never remember that I can take no sick leave, no paid days off, no benefits of any kind, no pension, no health care copay, can be laid off in a single day w/o cause and my average length of unemployment between contracts was 4 months since I always held out for the best paying gigs.  So I get it, been there.

Daiwill wrote:

If you are trying to choose between Vietnam and Thailand , I would go for Vietnam , better pay , no particular worrying political wranglings etc .  Thailand is becoming a powder keg which may well be an ugly explosion in the near future, when maybe the inevitable happens, (of which I am currently not allowed to speak, get my drift). 
Add to this a total lack of respect for teachers in Gov't schools not just from the kids but fellow Thai teachers too, and you would soon realise that Vietnam would have been the better option.

Tell me, have you found Vietnamese schools obsessing with grammar?

Thailand is more open for conversation? And the lesson plans - where are they stricter? I saw Kindergarten teachers write long lesson plans in VN!

Beware of time wasters. There was a center outside Da Nang. They tried to recruit me for months, then backed out the last second. Guess they did not want to amend their contract?

Some centers are shoestring operations. You better go there in person, not let someone hire you with a Skype interview. Unless you like drama and are okay with not getting paid.

hs0zfe wrote:

Beware of time wasters. There was a center outside Da Nang. They tried to recruit me for months, then backed out the last second. Guess they did not want to amend their contract?

Some centers are shoestring operations. You better go there in person, not let someone hire you with a Skype interview. Unless you like drama and are okay with not getting paid.

Same in Quang Ngai, TWICE, the first time, they must have realised at the last minute that they didn't have enough students, YET, ( feasibility studies are a rarity with VN's ).
  2nd time, I wasted hours working on a special pronunciation lesson plan, ( which I never gave them ),  then they played me along for 4 - 5 weeks, then at the date they said I was to start, they tried to tell me they couldn't employ me for another 2 months until my current work permit expired, I had my doubts about this school from the start though, they said they had about 400 students, but the only charged 300,000 VND per student, per month, and just finished building a new 4 level building, fully equipped with new desks, TV screens, a/con , etc?????
And we never did get around to finalising a salary.
But I did the unexpected, and caught them out lying, I went into the Labour office, and was told it was no problem changing my work permit. ( who you know, not what you know in VN ). Of course the school never replied to my last sms.

Some centers are stuck in "recruitment mode". It's a professional courtesy to i. be upfront and honest when they don't want to pay $ 1,000 and put the hours in writing.

It might help jobseekers to share some experiences:

You got to check them out!! One center was going broke. Nice large building, but then only 6 or 7 classes. The previous foreigner, she likely made up some family emergency and disappeared. Days with no classes? Mmm. How will I be making even $ 600 that way?! Their solution? Paying no one. Vietnamese assistants were lured with promises to work for free. (Other centers demand 5 M to get a job. Once a young woman was hired who could not answer a simple question repeated slowly 8 times. Yes, she had studied English... They hired her and put her in one of my classes, as a "student").

Another center promised $ 1,000. Upon arrival, there was a tiny new house on a dirt road. The classroom was the living room cum kitchen. Than a few kids showed up. ** The manager turned out to be the owner. He faked technical problems to avoid speaking during the Skype interview. He handed me a $ 1,000 contract but wanted me to pay a deposit of, I forgot, 10 M? Turnover was less than my salary. And there was  t a l k and he took me to a school etc. Without basic English, this lecturer at a university taught himself. ** One lesson was vocab the good teens all knew. He would mis-pronounce words and not let me do something more appropriate and fun. You cannot make this up!

Once I was given a contract requiring a $ 300 payment for ending it early. Off the internet, from some Chinese school. After 2 weeks, I was too expensive? Never got paid! But they had Vietnamese teachers for their German classes and I suspect that was a marketing gimmick. Taking photos and all. Bait and switch for the customers. And grammar all the time 


TVs? Oh yeah! Only that the center had no notebooks. My old Thinkpad had no HDMI... Loudspeakers (a $ 50 problem) were scarce. Teachers would go to other classrooms, borrow them for a few minutes etc.

Some owners just decided to buy a language center. "Popo Doo" books, horrible but cheap? Or they would sell an IELTS class to rich beginners who cannot even ask the time. Bizarre.

I think there could be a book written about Foreigners and Asian English schools.

One woman I worked for paid me a different amount every month, when I queried it, the usual excuse was that some parents didn't pay her, I explained to her a few times, that's not how it works. ( with Foreigners ).

One school played me along about a position in their new school, I was invited up onto the stage at their fancy opening for their advertising photo shoot, and then to lunch after it, where they told me they would call to get me to come in and finalise my contract the next week, but I never heard from them.

Another school had me relieving for a Filipino " teacher " while she went on holiday, originally it was for 30 hrs a week, but because my Work Permit was with another school, the owner said that I'd better work inconspicuously, ( I would have called it illegally ), and only work only the weekends , but she had hired another VN to do the other hours, after a few weeks she was talking about me staying and teaching her VN teachers when the Filipino returned, and when this other teacher was fired soon, she would give me his job, she even thanked me for helping and welcomed me to her school at the dinner when my relief finished, BUT the very next day, after working out how much TAX I had to pay on my illegal earnings??, she tells me she will give me a call in 2 months, and see if I'm still available???? lol.

Craigslist 26 Oct 2015

EIV will not pay you! 
http://vietnam.craigslist.org/edu/5282508306.html

And this one,
http://vietnam.craigslist.org/edu/5284178869.html

Hi Liz,
Do you teach at your house?
I am finding a English class but I don't want to join a E centers ( ), just a group with 3-5 members.
Please let me know if you can teach me.
Thank you!

This forum makes Da Nang look like a nightmare for a serious experienced teacher. Is it really that bad?

I am finding a private tutor. If you have any thought about that,contact me.thank you^^

Hi there,

I have no degree in teaching but I have Diploma in early childhood development, 20 years teaching, training and consulting experience in the early years sector -  is it possible for teachers without a degree to get work in schools in Da Nang?

Thanks.

ilovecoconutrolls wrote:

I have no degree in teaching but I have Diploma in early childhood development, 20 years teaching, training and consulting experience in the early years sector -  is it possible for teachers without a degree to get work in schools in Da Nang?

Is your Diploma for a 4 year Bachelor's degree?  As ridiculous as it may sound, you could have a bachelor's degree in Nuclear Physics, and together with a brief TESOL class, it qualifies you to teach ESL in Vietnam.  It sounds like if your Diploma is not a 4 year degree, you should still easily qualify if your teaching experience can be documented.  Therein lies the rub.  Everyone seems to know that you can qualify this way but I have never met or read of anyone who actually did it.  Exactly how you get the experience documented is open for discussion.

Thanks for your reply.

I have just a diploma. it is on no way linked to a a 4 year Bachelor's degree.

I have website that shows photos and a timeline from the independent work i have done in the field.

So anyone hiring me in Vietnam would have to be ok with me having no degree.

Do you think I could get a teaching job with this level of experience and education?

Thank you...

ilovecoconutrolls wrote:

Thanks for your reply.

I have just a diploma. it is on no way linked to a a 4 year Bachelor's degree.

I have website that shows photos and a timeline from the independent work i have done in the field.

So anyone hiring me in Vietnam would have to be ok with me having no degree.

Do you think I could get a teaching job with this level of experience and education?

Thank you...

First let me explain that to most Americans, the term Diploma is what you have with a Bachelor's degree or even upon graduation from high school, hence the confusion.  A two year college course would result in an Associate's degree.   For Americans, a diploma is a piece of paper with no direct tie to any particular level of education.

Your website may be sufficient to convince an employer, but it probably will not convince the officials who will determine if you can have a work permit.  For them, you will need some kind of paperwork preferably with notarized statements from at least former employers, and preferably government officials.  For people in non-teaching jobs who are being assigned to Vietnam by a foreign corporations, this requirement can usually be met by letters from the same company that they are working for.  Most ESL teachers are working for Vietnamese companies so the proof of experience falls to third party documents.  If you feel you can get such letters from your prior employers, by all means have the letters notarized and certified and translated by the VN Embassy.  As you apparently are presently located in Thailand, you could likely do it there. 

It is important to note that I am not speaking from experience as I note above.  Mostly I am logically transferring statements people have made about non-ESL work permits onto the ESL circumstance.  The best you can do is try and see.

Why not just open your own language school? The punters are there. If you are, or are married to a VN

Or is that a foolishly naive idea lol?

SongwriterUK wrote:

Why not just open your own language school? The punters are there. If you are, or are married to a VN

Or is that a foolishly naive idea lol?

You must be kidding.

I am sure you are right, but still for the forum.

Why not?

AFAIK, For small and medium English center, they don't really care about the certification/degree you have. But the salary maybe not good as you are expecting. Another opportunity  for you as a native English speaker is doing training in big companies there, As I know, many companies have English class where they hired English teacher for their staff.

Chinh_Phan's response reveals one important thing to remember about language centers in Vietnam.  They are first, foremost and always for-profit businesses, and not institutions of learning.  Undoubtedly you would not need a degree because likely a lot of the local school owners do not either.

I will let you do your own searching, but there are probably hundreds of threads on this forum about the difficulties for foreigners of setting up a business.  There are some schools that are foreign owned, albeit usually with local partners, but they are mostly headed up by long time in-country ESL teachers.  As I said you can research the maze of permits, site rental agreements, and most importantly, bribes to educational officials.   The real money nowadays is in the public school contracts and you likely could never gain access to them.  My school had one of it's principal owners spending full time on liaison with officials.   It's not impossible but unless you have capital to invest and the capacity to survive for about a year without a positive income stream, you should think very carefully and do a lot of on-the-ground research before attempting to open your own school.

Chinh_Phan is also correct that you may find an opportunity as a business English trainer.  In particular the big international chain hotels may be in need of such services for employees who have visitor contact.  The drawback is that you are then receiving wages and require a work permit.  I really wonder if an international corporation, with it's own lawyers, would risk hiring you without a permit.  Also, I suspect every ESL teacher in Da Nang has already had the same idea.  Get that documentation of your 5 years of experience first.

THIGV thank you for the detailed response. Excellent post.

If I even tried to open school it would be in my VN wife's name.

Still. Why bother with the headache? Better doing online businesd.

My thought was:  Why make a statement like that if novices have no idea what it even means????