Buckland made living in China easy

If you want to travel to China, and stick around for a while, and get paid, then Buckland rocks.

Within the first couple of weeks after arriving at their training center, they help you set up a bank account in China, personally take you to the required health checks, train you how to teach English to Chinese students, educate you about the culture (and even a little Mandarin), and have you teach a practice class to a real group of students and give you feedback afterwards. After that, they arrange which school you'll be going to. After you're at the school teaching, if any issues arise between you & your school that you can't solve, they've got your back. Plus, at orientation I made a bunch of friends from all over the world that I got together with on the weekends or during school holidays.

The gig is pretty simple - teach oral English to students (ages at potential schools range from like kindergarten to 17 year olds) using games. You don't need advanced grammar knowledge or anything like that - just talk, get them to talk, and have fun! Class was a blast, and the kids are generally very well behaved and excited to see you. In fact, the discipline issues that did arise emerged from that excitement! :)

The workload is part-time (not including lesson planning), and no papers to grade in most schools. The pay is good - in fact I think we got paid like 4x more than the native teachers (not to mention the bonuses).

The best thing about Buckland is that they just make the whole China experience relatively hassle free. I heard of some people having some issues, but it's like 2-3% of teachers if that.

The only real complaint I have is that I wish more positions were located in Hainan or in the deep south of China! The other areas are still awesome of course, especially Hunan or Shanxi.

Highly recommended if you feel like getting to know an amazing people & culture. Also, the girls are really hot & cute. Just sayin' ;)