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CarolinaTHeels
Joined: 03 May 2011
Posts: 130
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 Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 12:52 pm Post subject: International Schools vs. Universities |
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I will be taking the GRE this year and will be starting grad school next fall. I am struggling with what degree / life to pursue.
I was/am considering two non teaching careers in the school system that would give me a pretty normal life state side. But part of me says screw that and live out my dream of working/living abroad.
So my question is if I were to go route #2 which would be a better option?
1) Getting licensed and teaching at International Schools
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2) Getting a MA TESOL and teaching at Universities
I would be leaning towards the MA TESOL University route due to it being a lot more relaxed / less work load / stress. Already found a nice 1 year 30 credit hour MA TESOL program in my state that would cost roughly 10k.
What do you guys think? |
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HLJHLJ
Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 1218
Location: Ecuador
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Do you want to teach kids or adults? Surely you have some preference for one or the other? |
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tttompatz
Joined: 06 Mar 2010
Posts: 1951
Location: Talibon, Bohol, Philippines
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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too many variables to give a decent answer.
What are your interests? Do they lie in the classroom, tend toward administration or lend themselves more to the theoretical/research side of things?
What are your lifestyle preferences? Income will play a big difference.
Work loads are different (as are pay scales).
What part of the planet would you like to gravitate to?
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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An option you might consider is getting licensed, working at an international school, and earning a Master's through the school's professional development regime, provided you find such a school.
An example - my girlfriend works at an Intl school in Mexico City (she was a licensed Ontario teacher with classroom experience. The school arranged for her to earn a MSc Interdisciplinary Studies through a US uni for only a few thousand dollars. She's now working on her second Master's, again subsidized.
I'm not sure how common that is among international schools in the world though...perhaps someone else has experience in other countries with this? |
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CarolinaTHeels
Joined: 03 May 2011
Posts: 130
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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@HLJ
Def would prefer teaching adults.
@Tttompatz
I don't really have any specific interests per say.
I will need to be able to save a sizable amount of money early on.
Is there a significant difference in pay scale with International Schools and Universities generally speaking?
Ideally I would work somewhere for a few years to save up for a house / condo in South America (Colombia). So I am guessing my first few years would be in Asia and or Middle East.
If I went the International School route I wouldnt want to go back to school in the normal fashion for anything other than a 1 year Masters Education degree. Would prob do a 1 year online program or alternative licensing program.
At this point im leaning more towards doing the MA TESOL program from Greensboro College in NC (30 hours on a 1 yr fast track program for 10K) then heading to Korea to get some experience and save some money.
University just seems like it fits me much better. More relaxed atmosphere, less work load & stress generally speaking.
Guess I would just need to weigh the pro's and con's of Universities and International Schools. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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University-aged students are not necessarily "adults" in mentality. Think about it. The first half of undergrad populations just finished high school 1-2 years ago.
Also, it will depend on where you go. Here in Japan, most university students are very immature, and in my opinion about 5 years behind western students in their maturity levels. Adults? Nope.
As for international schools, keep in mind that most in Japan will not take you if all you have is the license from back home. You will also need 2 years of experience at home first, too. |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 10:17 pm Post subject: |
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| CarolinaTHeels wrote: |
| University just seems like it fits me much better. More relaxed atmosphere, less work load & stress generally speaking. |
Not necessarily, especially if you have to create quizzes/exams, grade essays and other written assignments, design curriculum, attend seminars, participate on committees, write reports, etc. |
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tttompatz
Joined: 06 Mar 2010
Posts: 1951
Location: Talibon, Bohol, Philippines
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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| CarolinaTHeels wrote: |
@Tttompatz
I don't really have any specific interests per say.
I will need to be able to save a sizable amount of money early on.
Is there a significant difference in pay scale with International Schools and Universities generally speaking? |
There often is, especially for those who are not well experienced, published and on the lecture circuit. Since you mentioned Korea, think $2.5k at an entry level uni job vs $4k at a "real" international school.
In Thailand it is 25k THB for a uni job vs 60-100k at a proper international school.
In China 3-6k rmb at your average, government, public uni vs 10-15k (or more) at a decent international school.
Always more if you can teach something other than English (math/science teachers earn 30-50% more than English teachers.)
| CarolinaTHeels wrote: |
University just seems like it fits me much better. More relaxed atmosphere, less work load & stress generally speaking. |
LOL... Oh, to be young and foolish again.
There may be fewer classes per week and no extra curricular activities to worry about but more relaxed, less work and no stress... not at any university I ever worked at.
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naturegirl321
Joined: 04 May 2003
Posts: 9041
Location: home sweet home
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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| CarolinaTHeels wrote: |
@HLJ
Def would prefer teaching adults.
@Tttompatz
I will need to be able to save a sizable amount of money early on.
Is there a significant difference in pay scale with International Schools and Universities generally speaking?
Ideally I would work somewhere for a few years to save up for a house / condo in South America (Colombia). So I am guessing my first few years would be in Asia and or Middle East. |
If you want to teach adults, then it might be hard for you to teach at an intl school. Pay is usually much better at them though. That being said, it's hard to do something you don't enjoy. There are exceptions as for money: some unis in Asia and the Middle East as you said before.
Is it easy to buy property in Colombia?
I've taught in both and although like nomad soul says about quizzes, exams, essays, assignments, curiculum, etc, I still find uni to be easier.
And I think it's less work and less stress, sorry Tom I have to disagree with you there. The schools I worked at, we had 9 weeks of lessons and a week or two off. I spent those entire weeks off doing some type of useless paperwork that would just sit on someone's desk.
At uni, I teach one less 7 times and then 3 other lessons. I use PPT as well, so don't have to re-write everything on the board. Kids can sit still as well and don't fall off their chairs, though they are addicted to their smartphones.
Yes, I'm busy and stressed at uni, but it comes in spurts. So in a couple weeks when I have to grade 140 essays I'll be stressed, this week I'm not. I get 20 weeks holiday and 2 weeks public holidays. I have to work a bit during those, but it's a couple hours a week. I'm not sitting in meetings from 8 to 3pm and coming out of them going, how could they talked so long about so little?! Something has to be said for quality over quantity.
And I was busy and stressed during the 9 weeks as well, lesson planning, cutting and pasting papers on the school letterhead, sending it to my head teacher to get copied, her sending it somewhere else, me waiting two days for copies. Here, if I want copies, I walk to the copy machine and usually I can get them. Otherwise smacking it seems to work 
For one, there's less top down management; see my photocopying example. I'm given a couple of guidelines: two quizzes, two paragraphs, and an essay and told to do the rest on my own. In the schools I worked it was very rigid. And two, you don't have to deal with parents. That in itself is worth its weight in gold. In my experience working at a school you were sandwiched between the admin and your head teacher at the top and the parents at the bottom. And there was no way to please everyone.
Like ttompatz says the money is in intl schools, but I don't think I could do it again. Head towards the ME if you want to work at unis and you'll get similar benefits as intl schools. A friend of mine works at an intl school here, a Canadian one. She puts in 12 hour days. All said and done, I still make 12K usd more than her and I have double the vacation. In China there are a handful (like 10 or so) unis that pay like intl schools. They pay about 36K usd and up.
The one benefit that most unis, except maybe the ME, doesn't have is free schooling for kids. But for me, that's not enough to lure me back into the intl school sector. Piggy Piggy will just have to be homeschooled, or go to a decent PS part time and have tutors. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 2:49 am Post subject: |
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| nomad soul wrote: |
| CarolinaTHeels wrote: |
| University just seems like it fits me much better. More relaxed atmosphere, less work load & stress generally speaking. |
Not necessarily, especially if you have to create quizzes/exams, grade essays and other written assignments, design curriculum, attend seminars, participate on committees, write reports, etc. |
Let's not forget the old publish or perish maxim. |
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CarolinaTHeels
Joined: 03 May 2011
Posts: 130
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 3:25 am Post subject: |
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| tttompatz wrote: |
There often is, especially for those who are not well experienced, published and on the lecture circuit. Since you mentioned Korea, think $2.5k at an entry level uni job vs $4k at a "real" international school.
In Thailand it is 25k THB for a uni job vs 60-100k at a proper international school.
In China 3-6k rmb at your average, government, public uni vs 10-15k (or more) at a decent international school.
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You can still make decent - good money in Korea and the ME in the Uni's teaching 12 - 20 hours a week. Plus paid holiday ect. Id be willing to take a pay cut for those circumstances. As long as I can save 20k a year id be good. Then once I save enough head to SA. You can make pretty decent money at Uni's in SA when you consider cost of living (2-3K a month).
Maybe the best thing to do is get the MA TESOL & do an alternative licensing program. And have the option to do both.
Last edited by CarolinaTHeels on Sat May 26, 2012 3:14 am; edited 1 time in total |
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naturegirl321
Joined: 04 May 2003
Posts: 9041
Location: home sweet home
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 3:55 am Post subject: |
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| CarolinaTHeels wrote: |
| . As long as I can save 20k a year id be good. Then once I save enough head to SA. You can make pretty decent money at Uni's in SA when you consider cost of living (2-3K a month). |
Where about in SA? I know I taught in two high paying unis in Peru. They were both under 1000 usd a month. |
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naturegirl321
Joined: 04 May 2003
Posts: 9041
Location: home sweet home
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 3:56 am Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
| Not necessarily, especially if you have to create quizzes/exams, grade essays and other written assignments, design curriculum, attend seminars, participate on committees, write reports, etc. |
Let's not forget the old publish or perish maxim.[/quote]
I actually got in trouble for publishing. Takes away from work. |
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cmp45
Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 1475
Location: KSA
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 4:37 am Post subject: |
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also... parent- teacher meetings are usually added into the mix of duties at K12 international schools.
My understanding from the conversations I have had in the past with teachers at international schools in the UAE is that they work their butts off to earn their high salary.
I can only speak about my experiences in the ME teaching at universities but I believe that there tends to be less meetings, less hours, less extra-curricular involvement compared to international schools...but then again it can vary quite alot from place to place.
As nature girl stated, there are different times of the school year where one has a lighter-heavier work load.
As for teaching 'adults' at university, you will discover that many students still behave as if they were in junior highschool, at least this is the situation in the ME. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 6:49 am Post subject: |
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| naturegirl321 wrote: |
| I actually got in trouble for publishing. Takes away from work. |
University or international school? Which country? |
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