The International Schools Review Forum

I'm an experienced ESL instructor with an MA in TESOL. I have been teaching in South Korea and now China for about 9 years, but I need to make the change to teaching in ISs. When I do, I want to teach math which I feel will make me more competitive. The problem is that I don't have certification, but Teacher Ready and Teach Now could help me with that. My question is has anyone heard of teachers being turned down for jobs or even being let go for having certification done through online courses like these? I thought that I could increase my marketability by student teaching in a DODEA school. I also read one post about some people who have had success with it, so it looks like it could be okay to do.

Thanks for your help.

Its not uncommon for upper tier ISs to avoid alternative certified ITs especially early in their careers or with minimal experience. However, this is inclusive of all ACP programs in general, not just Teach Now or Teach Ready.

Field Experience in DoDDS will not increase your marketability in IE, field work in an IS is more valuable. Aside from that DoDDS accepts few student teachers and the process is far more complicated and convoluted, and in practice is generally available too those who have a military connection.

Thanks for the info, PsyGuy.

Get the certification, get the experience and references, work your way up and you will do ok.

TD,

Make sure the certification they are offering to help you with is a state certification, one that would allow you to teach in a particular state, not a "Teach Away" certification. If it is, you would then list you are certified in xyz state, which would at least satisfy the requirement most international schools have that applicants have certification.

TR gives you a state of florida's professional teaching license. Same one college education majors get. I just finished my last day student teaching with TR yesterday actually.

MedellinHeel,

How was your experience overall?

It was great. I can not envision a more convenient, affordable, and flexible program. It is a 9th month program that has taken me nearly 3 years to finish due to procrastination, issues finding a school near me, moving to different countries, teachers leaving, etc. etc. They worked with me the whole time. Can't speak enough good things about TR and the people running it.

Good to hear. I'll be doing it next year.

I finished TR about one year ago and landed a great job at a school in Pakistan. The program is very useful and practical. They worked with me when I was doing my student teaching in China and guided me through how to find an acceptable school. Luckily, I had an awesome mentor who really showed me the ropes. I recommend you register with Search Associates once you are finished with the program and have your credential. This will not only give you access to a fair, but more importantly it vets you as a candidate to the schools and they can see your confidential references and make a more informed hiring decision. This strategy worked for me and I could not be happier with my situation. Good luck!

Pakistan? Sounds interesting. If you don't mind, what's your school's name?

Teacher Ready will put you on the path to get certified to teach in Florida. Once certified, your certificate looks like every other Florida teacher’s certificate, regardless of the path they took to get theirs.

I doubt schools will give a rat’s patootie how you get certified, as long as you’re certified - that goes double for math teachers.

Teach Ready provides a pathway to full state certification in FL.

I endorse Teach Ready, however is does have some disadvantages and drawbacks:

1) You need to be a US citizen to obtain a FL teaching certificate.

2) FL requires you take their state (the FTCE) for certification there are a minimum of three exams, and they are only available in the states, you can not take them overseas like you can with the Praxis. You will likely need to be fingerprinted while attending to your exams as well.

3) You need to have a cooperating IS planed ahead of time. You can not use a language school as the basis for your field work, it must be an accredited IS, and depending on your location if you can not secure cooperation from such an IS in your location you wont be able to complete the program.

4) Teach Ready provides you 5 days of experience in a classroom as a teacher. You are not the teacher of record, and it is not your classroom, your just a guest teacher, and 5 days is not in any way going to prepare you for the education profession. What it allows an evaluator to do is determine if you arent crazy and wont run screaming from the classroom.

The general bar to entry in IE is certification and 2 years post certification professional educator experience. Before that you are considered an intern class IT.

ISs can and do care how an IT was trained, especially an entry level IT with minimal experience. yes your certificate looks just like everyone elses, but it takes little more than a glance at a resume to determine an IT has no academic background in professional education.

"Teach Ready provides you 5 days of experience in a classroom as a teacher. You are not the teacher of record, and it is not your classroom, your just a guest teacher, and 5 days is not in any way going to prepare you for the education profession"

The easiest way around this is to get a job at a Tier 3 or bilingual school for a year while you work on your certification.

Regarding tdclark's original question: I am also a math teacher who completed the TeacherReady program through the above method. I had several job offers before completing the program, although they were mainly from lower Tier 2 schools or schools in questionable locations. I ended up at a school in Central Asia and am quite happy here. My understanding is that once you successfully complete your first contract, no one will care where your certification is from.

@marieh

Did you take the middle school math exam or the high school math exam? If you took the high school math exam, could you break down the test for me? I am studying now to take the test. Any info, insight, recommendations, opinions etc would be much appreciated.