Job Discussion Forums

[southerngirl]

Greetings all

I have been teaching in Korea for many years -in both hagwons and public schools(currently at an elementary school) and am now looking at teacher certification programs in hopes of working as a PNET or international school teacher afterwards.

I'm from the USA and am comparing programs for "educator certification"/"pgde/pgce" in my home state of Texas and Australia and New Zealand.

As Hong Kong was once a British Colony, would the qualifications from Australia and New Zealand be viewed more favorably? The PNET job applications that I have seen on SCMP have always said citizens of the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. But is there any "unstated" preference for a certain curriculum?

Any thoughts, experiences or insights would be welcome.

Thanks!

[oxi]

The NET scheme has plenty teachers from all countries you mentioned. No problem

[sistercream]

But if you want to switch to an international school later, each one will have a definite preference for teachers with qualifications and experience in the system/ syllabus they use - I don't know that US qual's and local NET experience would get you anywhere near first interview stage for an ESF or GSIS post, for instance.

[southerngirl]

Thanks for the replies. What is the difference between ESF and the NET scheme? Looks like both are government run? GSIS?

[sistercream]

Government NET teachers work in schools where 99.9% of the students are local Chinese, and probably 98% have Cantonese as a first language.

ESF = English Schools Foundation, set up during colonial times for the children of British and other foreign workers who spoke no Chinese, and still gives preference to kids from non-Chinese speaking backgrounds. As far as I am aware, ESF does not hire specialist TEFLers as such; they are looking for primary class (with some specialists for subjects like music) and secondary subject teachers.

GSIS (German Swiss International School) is one of the Big 3 international schools, along with HKIS (Hong Kong International School) and FIS (French International School). I reckon there must be at least a couple of dozen more international schools by now, most of which are known by acronyms. The Hong Kong geoschools.com site will help you sort out the difference between CDNIS, CIS, SIS, KIS, DCTY, DCTK, AISHK, HKA, AIS and all the others!

[southerngirl]

Thanks for this helpful breakdown...the next thing is to decide what to apply for at the Australia and New Zealand universities............early childhood or primary............. In the States, "elementary education" is K-6