Transitioning from ESL to international schools
Do NOT attempt to do your fieldwork in a useless hagwon. I can't imagine any US state accepting that as valid fieldwork. Those places are never accredited, the standards and resources are a joke, and everyone knows it. A certified teacher would not be wasting their time in a hagwon when s/he could at least find work in a bilingual school or a real international school or practically anything else.
One of absolute requirements for fieldwork is that the school must be accredited by a valid accreditation agency. You will not find this in a hagwon. And your fieldwork experience would be a waste. You'd learn nothing useful. Find yourself a real school.
One of absolute requirements for fieldwork is that the school must be accredited by a valid accreditation agency. You will not find this in a hagwon. And your fieldwork experience would be a waste. You'd learn nothing useful. Find yourself a real school.
Comment
I cant reccommend doing your field work in a hagwon for all the reasons the previous writers discussed. However, if all your looking for is a place to put in your time so that the certification officer back at Teach Ready will click the "approved for certification" button, and they dont realize that your "English Academy" is an unaccredited Hagwon, and all you want is the certification, then thats an option.
My friend did the teacher ready program through her public school in Korea. Is that a viable way to move up the teaching ladder? If you got experience after the Teacher Ready program would it really matter where the training came from? I realize you would learn more and get more contacts from an international school, but is it possible to build a career after shadowing through a public school?
Reply
@Tyshine
For certification it doesnt really matter where the training comes from regardless of the scenario. Most states in the USA dont track separately; traditional (university prepared) teachers and alternatively prepared teachers, nor is their usually a difference in the type of class of certification. Certification becomes more important the less experience you have. If all a teacher has is their certification and their field work, then a recruiter has to ask and look closer at that training. The reason is that: 1) Teaching in itself has a lot of turnover. People enter the profession, realize it isnt what they thought and they get out. 2) Education programs dont do a very good job of regulating entry into the profession. Short of a serious criminal record just about anyone who can handle undergraduate academics can get through a teacher training program. Alt. programs are even easier. As a result an admin/recruiter has to look really closely to determine if you have potential. Thats part of the equation, in that teachers with experience have by virtue of that experience proven themselves to some degree in being able to succeed within the profession.
Your certification is shadowed by your experience, after 4 years of classroom experience its a technical/legal check on a candidates resume.
The problem with a Korean school in effecting your marketability are two fold: 1) Unless your going to a Korean IS that uses a Korean curriculum your Korean public school experience isnt going to be applicable in an American, International or British school. You wont have DIP, IGCSE, or AP experience, and those types of specific curriculum experience have significant value. That lack of expertise is going to put you at disadvantage.
2) There are issues of credibility with a foreign public school. Many pseudo teachers are ESL instructors, who try every year to leverage their resume into a real IS. This is why anything that has the hint of ESL on a resume, generally doesnt count. When a recruiter gets a resume of a western/foreign teacher working in a public school they assume you dont speak the native language and with the huge demand of ESL instructors they reach the conclusion that whatever you did on paper, you were basically teaching ESL.
Foreign teacher + Local School = ESL Instructor
That is a very, very difficult formula to overcome. even if you taught "humanities" or scince, or math or literature, the assumption is going to be that you were really just doing EAP (English for Academic Purposes).
A Korean public school would not help you move up in your career, but field work for most certification programs doesnt help anyone move up their career. Whats problematic about it is being competitive in a saturated job market, at the start of your career. Generally you need 2 years of experience before becoming entering the IT profession. Bottom tier schools do recruit and hire teachers without the 2 year experience, but most of those schools again if their ISs (even bottom tier ISs) are using a mix of a local and national/inter national curriculum, and you cant demonstrate that you have teaching experience in those curriculums, which makes you less marketable then a whole lot of other people.
For certification it doesnt really matter where the training comes from regardless of the scenario. Most states in the USA dont track separately; traditional (university prepared) teachers and alternatively prepared teachers, nor is their usually a difference in the type of class of certification. Certification becomes more important the less experience you have. If all a teacher has is their certification and their field work, then a recruiter has to ask and look closer at that training. The reason is that: 1) Teaching in itself has a lot of turnover. People enter the profession, realize it isnt what they thought and they get out. 2) Education programs dont do a very good job of regulating entry into the profession. Short of a serious criminal record just about anyone who can handle undergraduate academics can get through a teacher training program. Alt. programs are even easier. As a result an admin/recruiter has to look really closely to determine if you have potential. Thats part of the equation, in that teachers with experience have by virtue of that experience proven themselves to some degree in being able to succeed within the profession.
Your certification is shadowed by your experience, after 4 years of classroom experience its a technical/legal check on a candidates resume.
The problem with a Korean school in effecting your marketability are two fold: 1) Unless your going to a Korean IS that uses a Korean curriculum your Korean public school experience isnt going to be applicable in an American, International or British school. You wont have DIP, IGCSE, or AP experience, and those types of specific curriculum experience have significant value. That lack of expertise is going to put you at disadvantage.
2) There are issues of credibility with a foreign public school. Many pseudo teachers are ESL instructors, who try every year to leverage their resume into a real IS. This is why anything that has the hint of ESL on a resume, generally doesnt count. When a recruiter gets a resume of a western/foreign teacher working in a public school they assume you dont speak the native language and with the huge demand of ESL instructors they reach the conclusion that whatever you did on paper, you were basically teaching ESL.
Foreign teacher + Local School = ESL Instructor
That is a very, very difficult formula to overcome. even if you taught "humanities" or scince, or math or literature, the assumption is going to be that you were really just doing EAP (English for Academic Purposes).
A Korean public school would not help you move up in your career, but field work for most certification programs doesnt help anyone move up their career. Whats problematic about it is being competitive in a saturated job market, at the start of your career. Generally you need 2 years of experience before becoming entering the IT profession. Bottom tier schools do recruit and hire teachers without the 2 year experience, but most of those schools again if their ISs (even bottom tier ISs) are using a mix of a local and national/inter national curriculum, and you cant demonstrate that you have teaching experience in those curriculums, which makes you less marketable then a whole lot of other people.
Thank you PsyGuy. I suspected that much.
Could you recommended a course of action? My plan is to shadow at a real IS school so I can actually learn something. However, my application is still going to be ESL experience and an online training course. What can I do to get my career started?
What if I go to another country while working wherever I can find a position, and try to make contacts for a third tier IS school?
Could you recommended a course of action? My plan is to shadow at a real IS school so I can actually learn something. However, my application is still going to be ESL experience and an online training course. What can I do to get my career started?
What if I go to another country while working wherever I can find a position, and try to make contacts for a third tier IS school?
[quote="Tyshine"]Thank you PsyGuy. I suspected that much.
Could you recommended a course of action? My plan is to shadow at a real IS school so I can actually learn something. However, my application is still going to be ESL experience and an online training course. What can I do to get my career started?
What if I go to another country while working wherever I can find a position, and try to make contacts for a third tier IS school?[/quote]
You only have 1 course of action.
Its get a hagwon job working at night that will allow you the time / opportunity to go to a International School during the day to do all your field work (observations, interviews, student teaching, etc)
Public Schools are not accredited therefore it will not count for your field experience / work.
After completing the program you will have to fly back to the USA and take your licensing exams.
After that you will need to start the job hunt. Job Fairs, Agencies, Emails, Skype, etc.
Then you take the best job you can get.
Same course of action as if you graduated university with an Education degree. (well, same course of action in regards to the job hunt)
Brush up on your interview skills and do alot of research on prospective schools, countries, cities, and regions.
Could you recommended a course of action? My plan is to shadow at a real IS school so I can actually learn something. However, my application is still going to be ESL experience and an online training course. What can I do to get my career started?
What if I go to another country while working wherever I can find a position, and try to make contacts for a third tier IS school?[/quote]
You only have 1 course of action.
Its get a hagwon job working at night that will allow you the time / opportunity to go to a International School during the day to do all your field work (observations, interviews, student teaching, etc)
Public Schools are not accredited therefore it will not count for your field experience / work.
After completing the program you will have to fly back to the USA and take your licensing exams.
After that you will need to start the job hunt. Job Fairs, Agencies, Emails, Skype, etc.
Then you take the best job you can get.
Same course of action as if you graduated university with an Education degree. (well, same course of action in regards to the job hunt)
Brush up on your interview skills and do alot of research on prospective schools, countries, cities, and regions.
Comment
The best option is to do your field work in an IB school. It doesnt matter what grade level or subject, having IB experience will give you an advantage over other entry level teachers.
The second best option is doing your fieldwork in an actual IS using an American/AP of British/IGCSE curriculum. Not just a local school using an american or british curriculum. Beinga good fit for a school means more then just curriculum expertise, it means having experience with the student and parent demographic. If you want an IS job you need real IS experience.
The third option is as mentioned above getting your experience in as close to an IS school as possible with a school using one of the typical international/national curriculums, preferably in an accredited school.
The fourth option is a Bilingual school where you can teach your subject even if its a local school and local curriculum.
Lastly, an EAP program, at least it will get you the certification.
The second best option is doing your fieldwork in an actual IS using an American/AP of British/IGCSE curriculum. Not just a local school using an american or british curriculum. Beinga good fit for a school means more then just curriculum expertise, it means having experience with the student and parent demographic. If you want an IS job you need real IS experience.
The third option is as mentioned above getting your experience in as close to an IS school as possible with a school using one of the typical international/national curriculums, preferably in an accredited school.
The fourth option is a Bilingual school where you can teach your subject even if its a local school and local curriculum.
Lastly, an EAP program, at least it will get you the certification.
Ok so I need to find a hagwon for money, and an IB school for field work experience. I asked in another post, but might as well ask here. I am getting married and my fiance is also looking to do the same career path. What teaching specializations would allow us to each find positions? Neither of us will consider Math.
Comment
Math/Science/ICT and primary is the best combination, but primary is the typical support position. It has the most vacancies, and ISs typically save a few primary positions for teaching couples. After primary ESL is the next best subject area. A school can always add one more ESL teacher, even if its just resource language support.
[quote="Tyshine"]Ok so I need to find a hagwon for money, and an IB school for field work experience. I asked in another post, but might as well ask here. I am getting married and my fiance is also looking to do the same career path. What teaching specializations would allow us to each find positions? Neither of us will consider Math.[/quote]
One of you do Elementary. The other do Science or Computers / Technology preferably since neither of you want to do Math. Any certification will do though. Just depends on how competitive / desirable you want to be.
One of you do Elementary. The other do Science or Computers / Technology preferably since neither of you want to do Math. Any certification will do though. Just depends on how competitive / desirable you want to be.
Re: Transitioning from ESL to international schools
I realize I am resurrecting an old thread, but I was hoping that those on this thread who were considering or finishing the TeacherReady program could provide an update on their experience, success in finding employment, and if they would recommend the program?
Many thanks!
Many thanks!
Re: Transitioning from ESL to international schools
2teachers: I am almost finished with the TeacherReady program and secured a job at a Tier 2 school about a month ago, as well as had a few offers from other mid-tier schools. I did my student teaching at a bilingual school (full-time) and previously had several years of EFL experience. As frustrated as I have been with the TR program at times (their website is nothing sort of abysmal and assignment feedback can be lacking) I know that that program is basically the only way I would have been able to get a US teaching license and move away from ESL/EFL. It also helped me gain a better understanding of methodologies that have really helped my teaching. Because of that, and the fact that it did lead me to a wonderful IS job, I have to recommend it.
One thing I will mention is that, being a new teacher from an alternative cert program, I had almost no choice in location. The schools that were willing to take a chance on me had good academic programs, but were in locations that many teachers won't consider (e.g. North Africa, Central Asia, Mexico, etc.). Luckily, I was more interested in the work experience and not the location, so it all worked out in the end.
One thing I will mention is that, being a new teacher from an alternative cert program, I had almost no choice in location. The schools that were willing to take a chance on me had good academic programs, but were in locations that many teachers won't consider (e.g. North Africa, Central Asia, Mexico, etc.). Luckily, I was more interested in the work experience and not the location, so it all worked out in the end.
-
MedellinHeel
- Posts: 169
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2014 1:59 am
Re: Transitioning from ESL to international schools
Marieh,
I plan to be finished with the TR program by spring. Interesting that you secured a job without having completed the program. Did you atleast complete and pass the actual licensing exams? What is your grade level and subject area btw?
Can you break down your job search a bit more in depth? When did you begin? What avenues did you use? Did you try tier 2 and 3 schools in more desirable locations?
I thought I heard Middle East and China where decent for getting jobs as newbie teachers. I would not go to North Africa or Central Asia.
I plan to be finished with the TR program by spring. Interesting that you secured a job without having completed the program. Did you atleast complete and pass the actual licensing exams? What is your grade level and subject area btw?
Can you break down your job search a bit more in depth? When did you begin? What avenues did you use? Did you try tier 2 and 3 schools in more desirable locations?
I thought I heard Middle East and China where decent for getting jobs as newbie teachers. I would not go to North Africa or Central Asia.
Re: Transitioning from ESL to international schools
I know 2 people who have done this sucessfully. 1 has a masters in tesol. The other got 2 years after making contacts through an internship. If you can get into a school as a teacher, with a teaching degree, in 2 years you have really "broken in" and are no longer in the cycle of ESL.
I know many people that hit that 10 year limit of uni in Korea and see they are going nowhere else. As long as you keep getting a job, and can get enough privates, it is decent money. You just feel like a rat in a cage.
I know many people that hit that 10 year limit of uni in Korea and see they are going nowhere else. As long as you keep getting a job, and can get enough privates, it is decent money. You just feel like a rat in a cage.