Job Discussion Forums

[fortytwo]

Hello,

I have couple of interviews coming up during December. I applied for international school teaching positions as middle school teacher. Even though I have taught nearly every subject, my certificate is for Social Studies, Reading, Language Arts. Couple of you may know that it is really difficult for me to even get an interview since I am not a native speaker. However, I do have US Education, US teaching certificate and US work experience. Naturally, now I am feeling a little bit nervous about the interviews. I checked the forum but didn't find much info on interviews.

I know many of you are English teachers for adults but I thought you might still be helpful. What kind of questions should I expect during an interview? Would they ask content questions? Can my accent be a problem? I do have an accent but it is definetely not heavy. I am from Europe originally. The school I am currently working with did not hire an Indian-American, an Asian American and an Irish-American because of their heavy accents, claiming that students would not understand them. I had never had a student or a parent complain about my accent but obviously I am nervous.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you very much.

[veiledsentiments]

The questions that they ask probably very much depends on what school(s) you are interviewing with...

I would say to just relax... if you made it past your current employer's prejudices, I'm sure that your accent will do fine.

It will be a benefit if you have a US passport to go along with your US degrees and experience.

And the other piece of advice that I would give is that before you accept a position, make sure that you have checked it out here because there are some VERY shady international schools with abusive managements in the Gulf.

VS

[Iamherebecause]

A lot of the international schools do employ people from a range of countries and the best ones will look at all of your qualifications, experience and skills and make a judgement based on that. I know of people from Czech Republic, Germany, South Africa (first language Afrikaans), Hungary etc who have had jobs in reputable international schools on the same pay as their NS colleagues. Just be careful about where you apply, apparently some have different payscales according to nationality or ethnicity. International schools have a real mix of staff AND students so everyone has to be used to a range of accents.

[mishmumkin]

My experience is that international schools will pay South Africans and eastern europeans less almost consisently-even the "reputable" schools will do this.

[fortytwo]

Thank you guys for your replies. I didn't have my interviews yet. They will be in December. Right now, none of them referred to my nationality in their mails. We will see. I couldn't even apply to the really good ones with good benefits because they only accept native speakers and honestly we do have some money problems. So, I just want to put my foot through the door. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy teaching but sometimes money is important especially when you have debts.

I have interviews with Regent International School (Dubai), Dubai English Speaking College, The American International School in Abu Dhabi and American Academy for Girls (Kuwait). Kuwait forum didn't have much info on the last one except they knew teachers who enjoyed working there. Any info is appreciated. Thank you again.

[mishmumkin]