My significant other and I are looking at entering into IT. I am a 4th year ESL teacher/ELL coordinator at a public school (fully certified with a masters) and she is a 5th year SPED teacher with experience teaching elementary and middle school (also fully certified) she also has experience teaching middle school math.

We are looking at starting in the 2017-2018 school year, what is the best approach to the recruiting process? We have a pretty long list of schools we are considering/regions and the contact info/job openings etc. should we just apply directly or would using a recruiter like Search or ISS be more effective?

If we go the route of applying directly what would be the best way to let schools know we are trying to work as a couple? Should we both apply in the same email/contact with both resumes etc. or apply separately and mention in the cover letter that we are looking to work together?

Thanks in advance for any help or if anyone here has any experience going through the process as a teaching couple.

Thanks for the responses. I am glad that it looks like TESOL is a solid option since I really do enjoy working with the population and the ability to work the content in a lot of different ways. I would be targetting the 2016-2017 school year, do most of the SA schools go on the September to Junish schedule or are they the March-December schedule like the public schools in Santiago? If it is the latter when should I start contacting schools for positions?

I know the AASSA is in December would that be the biggest/best fair to go to if I am targeting SA schools?

I know that ESL positions are much rarer in international schools since the majority of the students are internaitonal students with experience speaking English but looking through TIE there seems like there is consistently a few dozen positions out there. I was wondering how difficult it is to crack into those positions specifically in South America.

For reference my work experience/resume:

3 Years working as ESL Coordinator (head of department)/ESL Teacher at a Title 1 Public Elementary School in New York City
Masters in Education/TESOL from a well respected college (brick and mortar not online)
1 Year teaching at a pre-school in the US
1 Year teaching English at a public high school in Chile
2 Years teaching Business English in Egypt

I am certified to teach ESL in NY and as a classroom teacher in NY but I would much rather work as an ESL teacher than in the classroom. With my background does it seem feasible to find a decent ESL position or will I have much more luck working in the classroom under my common branch certificate.