Job Discussion Forums

Marie22279 · Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 1

I'm interested in teaching preferrably at an international school, but would be willing to teach ESL as well. I have 5 years experience teaching Art and am working on my Masters in ESL. The issue is that my husband is not a teacher and doesn't have any interest in teaching English abroad. I have heard that is is difficult to get hired in an international school because of visa problems with non-teaching spouses. Is it a similar circumstance in teaching English abroad? If I can obtain a work visa, would my husband have to get a tourist visa and keep re-applying for as long as we want to stay in the country? Our first choice is to work in Central or South America, but our options are very open at this point. Suggestions/Comments?

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

In the last three years my school has hired in four couples: three with a non-working partner and only one pair where both taught. Visas for the spouse, at least here, were not at all a problem.

The three pairs with non-teaching partners all left after just one semester; the spouse was bored and ended up dragging the teacher away. However, the one teaching couple is quite happy to stay.

The problem will be what your husband does while you are working. Is he going to be doing some other kind of work or volunteerism to say busy?

tedkarma · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:46 am Post subject:

I think Is650 has hit it spot on.

Spouses, particularly non-working spouses, are a real problem for employers overseas.

How you wish to represent a non-working spouse might be a different issue. Some employers will ask that an employee work for them at least six months before their spouses are sponsered - for exactly the reasons that Is650 mentioned. They want to know if you are commited to staying or not.

You might tilt the hiring process more in your favor by indicating that your spouse would be interested in a volunteer position at the school's library or is interested in getting involved in the local community as a volunteer or ?

MELEE · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:34 pm Post subject:

We have hired some teachers with non teaching spouces, either its the spouce is Mexican, usually younger couples, or the spouce is retired. In that case we have had two, in each case the husband was retired the wife more or less newly finished her MA in TESOL and the couple was looking for adventure. They worked out okay. If I were interviewing you for a job, I'd want to know exactly how your husband planned to spend his days. That would play as important a part as my perception of your ablity as a teacher. I'd also let you know that you'd be responsible for your husband's dependent visa (he wouldn't be allowed to work on that visa), which would not be difficult to get but will be an added expense, that you will be responsible for.

danielita · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 281 Location: SLP

OP: what does your husband do? There are options depending on his career. He may be able to arrange some contract work back home that can be done wherever you end up teaching. Or, he can always volunteer with a local school or non-profit club (like Rotary). The important thing is to make sure he is active and gets out of the house.
I am currently in the situation where I have a non-teaching spouse. His plan involves doing contract work remotely as well as returning to our home country to do short-term contract work. He also makes a really good lunch for me every day and takes care of all the household stuff (like buying food, water delivery and garbage disposal), which would be more difficult for me if he weren't here.
As for the visa, he is currently holding onto his 6 month tourist visa. Migracion recommended that we wait until closer to when his tourist visa expires before adding him onto mine as an economic dependent.

D

DainaJ · Joined: 26 Jul 2006 Posts: 62

I have heard the same about international schools. In our case, I'm the non-teaching spouse and my DH is the teacher. Some of the recruitment fairs won't accept you if you're not a teaching couple - at least that's what it says on their Web sites.

I would be interested in hearing what type of workaround you find. We plan on informing the schools he applies to about my status in his cover letter. I am an EU citizen, which will be relevant if we apply to Spain, and have my own translation company. This is the line of work I have been successful in for 5 years (i.e., supporting our family) and plan to continue in remotely from whatever location we end up in, so hopefully they will look past my non-teaching status and consider us.

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Sgt Killjoy · Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 438

The impperative question is do you have kids or not? My wife is an expat teacher as well and several times I have thought about stopping my own teaching to work on web projects I have in the back of my mind and to watch our boys. With a specific purpose in mind, a break for a year or two could be just what the other spouse needs.