I'm hoping to get an idea of the best way to go about finding work in at least somewhat reputable international schools.

I'm single, female, and 36 years old. I have a bachelor's degree in child development from a state university in the US.

For the last 4.5 years, I taught English in a public elementary school in Seoul, S. Korea. It was in a very wealthy area of Seoul, and I was hired directly by the district board of education--it was not through the 3-ring circus a.k.a. SMOE. I was involved in creating curriculum that was implemented district-wide during summer and winter English camps. I don't mean to be snooty, but it was not a cram school or a private after-school program. I worked hard and created my own lessons--it wasn't a situation where I was mindlessly leading kids through set daily workbook pages. The parents were picky, and I was well-liked by students, parents, and staff. I have good references.

I really loved that job, but I left to go back to school in the US. I'm now halfway through a master's degree in elementary education. It's a program that includes a full year of student teaching and I'll receive a teaching certificate next May. Then in July I will complete my thesis and the master's degree portion of the program. I hope to find a teaching position outside of the US for fall 2013, which means that I will need to begin preparing my resume and looking at openings in the next few months, before I've had a chance to complete the student teaching and the master's degree.

Here's the thing: I won't have two years of experience in a US public school setting. Will that be difficult to overcome in my search for a job? I'm not that excited about staying in the US because honestly I'm from a state that's fairly bland and homogenous, and sometimes it's hard to feel content here amongst the average cultural and political frame of reference, especially given all that I've experienced in the past 10 years.

Should I just bite the bullet and work a few years in the US--put in my time so that I will have more experience and be a more attractive candidate to the better schools? Should I settle for a lower-tier school and try to work my way up? Or should I find a position in say, Hong Kong or the Middle East that is a public-school ESL position, much like my job in Korea, and just try to eventually transition over to the "real" international schools? My first preference would probably be to find a decent job internationally, even if it's not at an international school, and work my way up. But if not having more years of student teaching experience in the US is going to come back to haunt me later, I'd rather do it now.

Thoughts? Anything I'm not taking into consideration? Would it be tough to be able to start out at a 2nd-tier school, given my lack of experience in US public schools? Would it be difficult to transition to an international school if I only have experience in ESL positions abroad? For the record, I'm not really looking for Europe. I'm mostly interested in Asia or the Middle East, although I wouldn't turn down anything in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean, haha.

I really appreciate your input. I know you guys get these kinds of questions all the time.