What is your favorite travel memory?
I had a work assignment to travel to London, England. Flying into Heathrow Airport and then finding my way to the financial district through the underground was interesting, to say the least.
I was traveling alone, so I had to find out for myself how to get around and from point to point. I eventually met some colleagues and was invited to tour certain parts of the city, which was another new experience. I know there was a lot more to see and do there, so I look forward to someday returning.
I'm hoping for my next travel to a far away land to be China. I'm learning that the more I travel the easier and more comfortable it gets, as I visit new lands.
How have you changed/grown since working for your current company?
I'm always continually learning how to improve time management, organizational skills, communication/people skills, and follow-up.
I also realized that I really enjoy working directly with people, especially prospective students. It's so rewarding to match their preferences and get them a really good job offer that they approve of. It's nice to know that I helped them with their new career path, and perhaps lifelong dream to travel and teach English as a second language to young kids.
What is the best story you've heard from a return student?
This is taken from article from Agness, from Poland who teaches in China:
"I love being an English teacher in China. It's a lot of fun with kids, play games with them, introduce new words to them by using colorful flashcards, sing songs and reward them with stickers.
My lesson plan is prepared in advance, and then approved by the principal. I am given plenty of CDs and DVDs to assist me in my teaching. My heart melts to see their expressions and their face light up with joy as we learn and have fun together.
I love the salaries in China. They range, depending on teaching experience, as well as who and where I am teaching. I learn not to compare the salary in China to U.S or Canadian salary. Instead I compare the salary in China to the cost of living in the city where I am teaching and living. It's about RMB 6.000 ($984) and RMB 15.000 ($2500) per month.
RMB 6.000 is the absolute minimum for 16 x 45-minute classes. This amount of money can be offered in small towns and rural areas where I don’t need to spend much on food and transportation. Since I am TESOL/TEFL certified as a teacher in a bigger city, my salary is between RMB8.000 ($1300) –RMB20.000 ($3000) (again per 16 x 45-minute classes).
The more hours I work, the more money I get. For instance, an average salary of experienced foreign teacher working up to 35-40 hours (including office hours) would be RMB14.000 ($2300) or more.
There are always things to do during my off hours in China. Try new food, meet new people, which includes ex-pats as well as natives there. There are also so many different places to travel in China, whether by train or by plane, it's really inexpensive. I love my job and my life traveling in China and teaching English to these great kids."
If you could go on any program that your company offers, which one would you choose and why?
I would prefer teaching maybe an hour or two outside of a major city, for example, Shanghai, and more near nature, teaching kids ages 3-12, although I would be happy to teach older kids as well.
Working 25 classroom hours a week would appeal to me with the option of working an additional 6-10 hours a week and no additional office hours. I welcome the sign-on and ending bonuses, and others, as well as 1-4 weeks annual paid vacation, as well as 12 national paid holidays.
Free housing and as well as flight reimbursement also makes the whole opportunity so unbelievable. I like that they may also provide a Chinese teaching assistant, as well as training, Visa application, and also include TEFL training.
What makes your company unique? When were you especially proud of your team?
We pride ourselves on quick, responsive, and personal communication with our prospective teachers. We take the time to listen to all of their concerns, needs, preferences, wants, etc.
We want to provide a great experience throughout the whole process of qualifying them, from helping them submit their documents, which is very basic, matching them up with a school and then scheduling their interview, following up, and getting them get the job, location, age of students, salary, etc., that they love, and helping them make a decision that's best for them when it comes to this new and different, but awesome career opportunity.
What do you believe to be the biggest factor in being a successful company?
Focus on constantly getting feedback from prospective teachers about their experience with how our company worked and interacted with them during the qualification and placement process. We want to know what we did right as well as what we could have done better.
ICN Group-Travel and Teach wants to consistently be one of the top job placement organizations in the country, with our goal to be number one among our peers.