An honest account of teaching English in Beijing: Madison’s experience

I met Madison (or “Maddie”, as I know her) in the summer of 2025 in Frankfurt, Germany. We were both directing at a summer camp and got to know each other over evening chats, shared Director experiences and one beautiful, blurry night out in the huddled bars and clubs behind our accommodation.

Madison was kind enough to agree to share her experience of teaching English in Beijing, China with me. This website is dedicated to providing honest accounts of ESL teacher experiences from all over the world, so please feel free to share your experience of teaching in China in the comments!

Madison at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

How did you end up teaching in Beijing, China?

I started teaching in China in September, 2019, at a school in Beijing. My school was with a company called English First, which deals with mostly afterschool programs.

Author note: Although the English First program no longer appears to be offered, English 1 may be a similar alternative.

How did the English First program work?

Kids would come to us after a full day of classes and do their English lessons with us. We also did English classes on the weekends.

It made for a very interesting work schedule as we would have to work one weekend day, but then we would get a normal weekday off. It was a split-weekend situation, but it actually worked out really well because I was able to take midweek, midday hikes. I remember taking a hike on a random Wednesday to this beautiful mountain, because I had the day off.

I taught kids aged 3-18, with a variety of lessons from dinosaurs to the ABCs, to phonics. We also did theater and public speaking classes. It was really interesting and it was my first introduction to teaching English. It made it really accessible.

Madison with some of her students at the English First day cycling camp.

What kind of support did you receive?

As soon as I got to China, I was really taken care of. Accommodation-wise, they made sure I was in a hotel for two weeks at first. They connected me with a real estate agent and ensured I was able to get an apartment, and really just get settled. They made sure I had a Chinese phone number, a Chinese bank account, and they covered all the costs. I got reimbursed for my flight, too!

At my school, I was paired with a mentor teacher. She observed my lessons and gave feedback, and was there for me when I needed help with anything. Most of the lessons were planned for us and we did training every day on a myriad of topics: how to teach, how to get the class’ attention, how to deal with bad behavior, and how to teach things in a fun way. It was really fun and everyone was very supportive. I made friends very quickly, which was amazing.

Did the teaching program provide opportunities for growth?

Yes! I started to advance in the company very quickly. They were asking me to give demo lessons to new students, brand new students that were trying to sign up for English classes. After my first demo class, I got a sign up, which I was really proud of. Further down the road, I ended up leading the demo team.

By the time I left China, I had gone from being a beginner teacher to a lead teacher. I was in charge of our middle school program and I was mentoring new teachers that were coming in.

What was a challenge you faced while teaching in China?

Roughly five months after I’d started teaching in Beijing, COVID-19 hit (January, 2019) and our whole structure changed. We rapidly went online and we tried really hard to keep the same schedule, the same classes, etc.

Unfortunately, several teachers from our team had left just before this time during the vacation period, and got trapped abroad. Many of them couldn’t return to China and had to go back to their home countries. The time zone differences made it too hard for them to continue, so we were lacking teachers. This put a lot of pressure on the team that was there in China to take on more classes and students, and to have bigger class sizes. The online environment also wasn’t ideal. Despite all this, it was still a really great experience.

We did that for six months and the restrictions were quite strict. We had a six month initial lockdown that lasted from January to June. Every three days you had to get a COVID test done and use a special app to get into any shops, etc. Of course, you always had to be masked up. Any infected resident in your building would result in a complete shut-down for a few days until that person was safely moved or not contagious anymore. We had to get the COVID vaccine every three months or so.

When they first implemented the apartment pass (a pass you needed to verify that you lived in the building), I didn’t realise and I had a problem getting back into my apartment (one of the biggest apartment complexes in China). A woman passing by saw what was happening and helped me sign up for it, which was amazing.

What were your impressions of the Beijing community?

I realised very quickly that China has such a great culture of community and helpfulness. I have been helped so many times by complete strangers in China. They were so willing to step up and help me, a foreigner who didn’t know what she was doing, and whose first time abroad it was as well.

I remember looking at this woman who helped me with the building pass and saying, “Thank you. Thank you so much.” I was so scared and she told me “It’s ok. We have to take care of each other.” That has always stuck with me, especially when I’m abroad or out with friends. I’m always mindful of strangers and how I can be helpful to them.

What were some of the perks of teaching in China?

After the worst of the pandemic was over, travelling became a lot easier. I went on so many trips while I was in China. I went to Mongolia. I went to Xi’an and saw the terracotta warriors. I went to Guilin and saw the rice terraces. I went to Zhangjiajie and saw the mountains that inspired Avatar. I went to Sanya, which is like the Hawaii of China. Visiting Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival felt like I was walking through a really beautiful, really cold video game. I just went all over.

Guilin, one of the many places Madison visited while teaching in China.

And then of course, exploring Beijing and making some of my best friends over there. I met Sabrina and Grace, who are my absolute besties and my ride-or-dies. I’m pretty sure they’re going to be bridesmaids at my wedding. We still talk every day, even though all three of us left China about two years ago.

One of the real upsides of teaching in China is the food. It is incredible. I can’t even describe it, and it’s nothing like Chinese American cuisine. It is just not the same. It’s so good.

The people in China are so nice and so friendly, and it is actually very safe. I was genuinely surprised by how safe it is. China is one of the safest countries in the world, and I could walk home after a few drinks at 5:00 AM and know that no one’s going to talk to me, no one’s going to do anything to me.

What about English teacher salaries in China?

You will make a good living there. You get paid a little bit more than even US teachers do, and it’s more than enough with the Chinese costs of living to get by very comfortably.

When I was living in China, I was in a luxury studio apartment. I was in a loft at one point, too. You can live in really good places in the capital with your teacher’s salary. Also, the company I was with gave teachers tons of chances to grow, to get promoted, to move on up, and that really helps with your salary as well.

Did teaching English in China meet your expectations?

China really exceeded my expectations.

I went in with a mindset of “I can do anything for a year. After a year, I will go back to the states and start my Master’s or whatever.” I ended up falling in love with it. I fell in love with the program, with the job, with the Chinese community, with the culture and everything. It just made me so happy and I discovered my passion for teaching English. It was just absolutely incredible and definitely exceeded my expectations.

What about the downsides of teaching English in China?

I think one of the downsides is that you can have really intense feelings of loneliness (particularly with the pandemic in my case). If you are from the US, you are truly on the other side of the world, so it’s harder to get in contact with family than other countries.

Also, in China only 1% of their population speaks English. If you’re just out and about in normal Chinese society, and want to order at a restaurant, it can be very difficult if there’s no pictures or no translations.

Another downside is that there are often ‘foreigner bubbles’, little foreigner pockets of places that are safe for foreigners to go to. You often find yourself in those bubbles a lot, and there’s nothing wrong with that (I think it’s good to go places where you can be understood), but it does mean you’re not fully immersed in Chinese society, Chinese culture, etc. But that just comes with not being from there.

I had a friend who spoke the language more than me (he studied it in university) and he had no problems going outside the foreigner bubbles. But it can be very intimidating. And then the downside of these foreigner communities is that everyone kind of knows each other. So if your friend group implodes (like what happened to me), it causes the whole friend group to fall apart and suddenly you’re left with very little community around you. This was a big part of the reason I decided to leave after three years of teaching in China.

Just before I left, a lot of policy changes happened in China as well. There was a new government policy that restricted kids to having one afterschool activity only because kids would often go to a full class day and then two or three afterschool classes.

While this policy change was ultimately better for the kids, it limited our hours. They also got rid of weekend classes because kids could only take one class a day on the weekends. So it really limited what we could do, and it actually closed my school down. They tried to move me to another location that was further away and harder to access.

With the combination of these changes and my friend group implosion, I sensed it was time to go home. So that’s why I ended up leaving China, although I had a very positive experience with the people, the travelling, the kids, everything.

Author note: Another potential downside of teaching in China is being taken advantage of by an opportunistic employer or outright scam artist (just as there are dodgy employers in Barcelona). If you’re considering teaching in China, make sure you know how to Avoid the Most Common ‘Teach English in China’ Scams.

Would you recommend teaching in China?

Absolutely! It was honestly an awesome experience and I miss it a lot. I talk about China a lot. I want to go back one day and see my friends and potentially reconnect with a student or two. 100% recommended.