Job Discussion Forums

[dalbrightsmith]

Hi,

I have the following:
- BS in English Secondary Education (but NO ESL training)
- 2 years experience teaching high school in Pennsylvania
- 2.5 years experience teaching middle school in North Carolina
- 1 year university teaching
- Juris doctorate and 5 years as a lawyer

My husband and I have decided we would like to live abroad. We have 3 children. Need to know where to look for a teaching job. As mentioned, I do have a teaching degree and experience teaching, but haven't taken any ESL or related courses.

Where would we have the best chance of finding an employer who would hire me without requiring specific ESL training?

Where could I find a job that would enable me to bring along my husband and our 3 children?

We are absolutely aware that we would be looking at a completely different lifestyle - which is exactly what we want to do - so we are not expecting a luxurious lifestyle. Just looking for advice on where to look for a family-friendly employer and one that wouldn't necessarily require additional training / certification.

Thanks!

[sojourner]

Welcome to Dave's fora !

With your teaching experience/qualifications, your best bet would be to apply for a position in an international school. Use Dave's search facility to locate previous postings re applying for jobs in such institutions. I'm not sure whether those schools supply housing for their teachers, or not; nor, whether your own children would be schooled free of charge or at reduced rates.

Re EFL jobs, you enquired as to your chances of getting one without a TEFL qualification.In China, with your qualifications you would probably be able to pick up a job at a language school, an "experimental school" (ie a privately-run primary or middle school) - or, even at a uni ! Although you don't possess a TEFL qualification, have you ever had any ESL experience back in the States ? If you haven't, you would probably still be able to land a job - but, don't you owe it to your students to be able to demonstrate some ability in the field ? Although you are an experienced primary/middle school teacher, it does not mean that such skills/experience are always completely applicable to an EFL teaching situation ! Thus, without any such experience, you should seriously contemplate doing something like CELTA or the Trinity College course (both take about a month to complete). Alternately, maybe you could sit in on an ESL class at the school you are currently teaching at (at the same time,ask the teacher if you could take a couple of lessons), or at least read some pertinent books on the subject (eg by Jim Scrivener or Jeremy Harmer).

With a law degree, as well as a B.Sc, at many unis you would probably be eligible to teach subjects other than EFL. Apart from something like Legal English at those unis that happen to have law faculties, most likely you would be asked to teach Business English.

For uni jobs in China, you could post a brief outline to Dave's "post your resume" facility.You could also ask a recruiter to assist you (though most posters to these fora appear to be "anti-recruiter", in my own case, three of the four jobs I've had in China were found for me by a recruiter - all reasonable jobs - maybe, I'm lucky for having found such a good person !). Another way to find a job is to do google searches for the various unis in your preferred provinces and then to send them copies of your resume.

With most uni jobs, you will be supplied with a furnished flat, usually on campus.In most cases they are 1 BR units, but sometimes they are 2 BR units.

You mentioned that you are bringing your three children along. What are their ages ? Have you thought about how you will provide for their schooling ? Also, will your husband be doing any teaching ? If so, then each of you would probably be provided with a furnished flat - thus, possibly, allowing for your children to live in one and the two of you in the other.

Teaching at the uni level is not well paid, but it is usually relatively stress-free, with only about 14-16 teaching hours pw (each teaching "hour" is of 40 or 50 minutes duration.

If interested in a uni job, always ask the recruiter or the uni's FAO person to provide you with the ph numbers/email addresses of current and past teachers, so as you can ask questions re conditions, etc. Also, you could do a search on the uni via Dave's search facility.

Good luck !

Peter