I know that although the school advertises its salary in USD in reality they pay in Korean Won. With fluctuating currency and exchange rates that means that you can end up making quite a bit less than the advertised rate. The salaries are amongst the lowest of international school salaries in Korea.

Also, the school expects teachers to find their own housing. They provide a monthly allowance of approximately 700,000 KRW. In order to find decent housing you either have to live a distance from the school, or you have to live in a very, very tiny studio apartment near the school. In both cases you will often end up paying more out of your salary to cover the difference between the actual cost of rent versus the housing allowance.

The medical insurance is Korean national health insurance so you will have absolutely no coverage if you travel outside Korea on vacations.

As for overall working conditions at the school, it's important to note that the school is run by a group of Turkish men with degrees in unrelated fields and no real training in western education. If you happen to be knowledgeable in your field and outspoken, you may run into difficulties with the school's administration. In the school's short history, a number of qualified and experienced teachers were fired, forced to resign, or resigned due to disagreements with the administration. Sometimes this occurred unexpectedly in the middle of the school year. The teachers that fair the best at the school tend to be those that are inexperienced, or those that are willing to pander to the administration.

The overall workload and teaching schedule is somewhat less than what you would expect at other international schools, but this is made up for in the fact that the salary and benefits package are also significantly less than what you would expect from other international schools in the area.

As a side note, the school does have ties to the religious Gulen movement. Some of their views on women and the Armenian genocide are worth investigating before you decide whether you would like to be affiliated with the school.

If you have any more specific questions, please feel free to ask!

Since you really lack the two most important qualifications for getting a job at an international school, teacher certification and 2 years of K-12 teaching experience you might want to consider rethinking your timeline. Your first option would be to wait to attend a fair until you are closer to having your actual certification (January/February 2013). You might stand a much better chance at that time, but it's important to remember that you will still be lacking the years of required experience. If you really want to get a job before you finish your certification another option is to attend the Search fair in 2012, but apply for intern positions. Intern positions pay less, but they do provide people without certification an opportunity to gain valid teaching experience.

There are international schools that may hire you without certification and relevant experience, but they may not be the most legitimate schools out there. The people I know who got jobs without being certified happened to have connections with people who taught at international schools and were around when the school needed a teacher unexpectedly. Also, I can say from personal experience that working at a bottom tier international school can be just as bad if not worse than working at a poorly run hagwon in Korea.

I think everyone is sort of arguing the same point without realizing it. As far as I understand in neither Canada or the U.S. (not as familiar with the UK system) does an MA alone qualify you to teach. For example, I completed a program that led to an MA and made me eligible for a teaching license in my home state, but I would not have been able to receive a teaching certificate just by completing an MA in education. I essentially completed a full, teacher education program that included a semester of full time student teaching, as well as, completed all the separate coursework required for an MA in education.

In both Canada and the U.S. you need some sort of teacher education program component that prepares you specifically for classroom teaching. The difference seems to be that in Canada you get a degree called a B.ed. which qualifies you for certification. In the states, however, the teacher education program you complete won't necessarily lead to a B.ed degree but will allow for certification as long as it meets state requirements for teacher licensure.

I definitely agree with heyteach that having the ESL certification on top of the certification in high school English makes you more marketable. A lot of international schools have significant populations of second language learners so knowing ESL strategies can help you even as a regular classroom teacher.

I'm actually an ESL teacher for elementary students at an international school. When I first started I was surprised to walk into a department with no set curriculum. There were a few phonics books and the other teachers borrowed extra first grade textbooks to teach first through eighth graders English. Part of my job has been to develop the ESL curriculum, find appropriate assessment tools, train some of the other teachers in the department, and of course to teach. My school might be an extreme example, but you should definitely check with other teachers to see how well established the program is before accepting a position.

I definitely think it's a good idea to apply for ESL positions as well as high school English positions. Personally, though I would probably advise you not to apply for elementary ESL positions unless you have a good deal of experience working with students in those grades. If you're nervous about not having prior ESL experience, it might make the situation worse if you have to adjust not only to ESL as a subject but also to younger students. Elementary ESL requires a lot of collaborating with classroom teachers and sometimes even planning and teaching the same room. This requires that you have a lot of knowledge of elementary standards and content areas. I know some schools even ask that elementary ESL teachers have experience as elementary homeroom teachers. I know I was hired for my current position partly because I'm a certified elementary teacher as well as having an endorsement in TESOL.

I hope this is helpful! If you have any more specific questions about ESL in international schools, I'd be happy to try and answer them as best I can.

hmmm...which international schools are offering only one year contracts? It sounds a little bit shady to me as international schools generally offer 2 year contracts. I have a feeling I might know about one of the schools that you are talking about and I can say that there are many problems there and that it is not somewhere you would want to work. I wish PMing were possible on this board because I could offer you more specific advice that way.

Even without experience you can always try for an international school job. You might not land a position right away or at a top school, but you may get lucky and find an international school that is a good fit for you. Just remember to do your research about a school before accepting any offers.

[quote]Would I be better off teaching English for a year or two and then trying for an International School job? [/quote]

When schools say they are looking for 2 years of experience, they typically want you to have experience working at schools in your home country or at international schools. In ideal circumstances you could potentially use your time teaching English to make contacts with international schools in the region you are working in, but many schools don't consider teaching English towards the years of experience that they require.


[quote]Would the fact that I have traveled to France and India before and that I am hopefully going to Israel in January help my chances?
[/quote]

Honestly, I'm not sure if it will make any difference when applying to international schools. If you have lived in any of those places long term it might prove that you are capable of living abroad, but that alone probably won't help you get a job.

[quote]These are all good tips. Did you wait until specific jobs were posted, or send in your application "cold?"
[/quote]

I did a lot of research on schools in different countries I was particularly interested in and sent out e-mails to them whether or not I saw a job advertised. For places I didn't know as much about I usually waited until I saw a job posted.

[quote] The Web site idea sounds really good, but can it be kept private to send to specific people, or is it out there for all the world to see?[/quote]

If you're using a free service, then it will probably be viewed by everyone. I just avoided putting my address and other personal information on the site so that wasn't as much an issue for me. If you pay for your web space you can probably have a password added to the site so that only people you want to can access it.

I actually used the free web hosting from google. It's simple and easy to use and definitely does what I need for a professional website. I've also used office live for other pages and that was also free.

I usually e-mailed schools with whatever documents they requested in job ads or on their websites (typically a resume, personalized cover letter, and recommendation letters). In addition, I also e-mailed a link to a professional website that I made. On the site I included my resume, a short blurb about my philosophy of education, curriculum units I developed, and pdfs of evaluations I have received. I think this maybe helped me stand out a little bit, and I know I was asked questions about the things I had included on it during interviews.

Good luck!

I don't feel as though I know enough about all of the international schools to put together a comprehensive list of good schools. A lot of schools are reviewed on ISR, but some schools aren't. My advice, especially if you are particularly interested in Korea, is to apply to as many of the schools (large and small) as you can and decide on what exactly you are looking for in a school. For me, it was important that the school be non-profit, have small class sizes, a diverse student body, room for creativity in teaching styles, but everyone has different priorities. As you interview with different places you should have a better idea of whether the school will be a good fit for you or not. I know that after I interviewed at some schools I realized they weren't right for me as a teacher. Ask to have contact information for teachers and find out what their experiences have been like. Look and see if the school is actually registered as an international school in Korea or whether it has a western accreditation. Basically just do your research, and you shouldn't end up in a bad situation.
I hope this helps!

Unless a vacancy unexpectedly opens in your specific subject area you aren't very likely to find a position for January. International schools follow the regular school year and start in August/September, so unless a teacher has some kind of emergency and can't finish the school year you won't be hired at that time.

Many if not all of the larger schools in Korea hire at the major job fairs. I've heard that it is quite difficult for someone without a few years of teaching experience at schools in their home country or in international schools to get a job at the larger schools, but Korea does have many smaller international schools. Some have good reputations and others appear to have conditions that are worse than working at a hakwon. It's probably a good idea to do a lot of research and make sure the schools you are applying to are good work environments.

Also, if you're really serious about teaching at an international school you should definitely expand your search to other countries to increase your chances of finding a decent position.

If you want a job starting in September 2011, you should probably start contacting schools some time in the fall. You can also start monitoring international school ads for jobs that might start in January.

Good luck!

I think if you're really concerned about having a qualified staff and a working environment similar to one you might find at home you really should consider international schools. Teaching mostly conversational English in a public school, private school, or university in Korea or China is quite a bit different than the kind of teaching you would do in an international school or a public school at home. Although most contracts are for two years, you get vacation that you could use to go home for a visit. Of course, if you do get a job offer it's very important to ask questions about the school and ask for contact information for teachers that work or have worked at the school. That's probably the best way to research a school and see if it and the people you will be working with are a good fit. If a recruiter sets you up with a job, you need to talk to the school and teachers that work there because the recruiters themselves don't actually work at or even know much about the individual schools.

If you do decide to go for the public schools jobs in Korea specifically, there are a few things you should know. First, you can only use one recruiter to submit your application to a given program (EPIK, GEPIK, SMOE). If your application is sent from more than one recruiter it will be rejected so you should probably decide on one. Also, if you're accepted to a public school program you will not choose your school. You're simply accepted to that program and once you go through your orientation you are given a placement in a school somewhere in that region.

I'm glad I could be of some help. Most of the major boards for jobs in Korea including dave's esl cafe, hiteacher.com, and www.worknplay.co.kr and any others will contain some posts from recruiters and some from individual schools. I think you may need to use a recruiter to have a chance at public school jobs. The forum on dave's esl cafe has a lot of information about schools.

Any job offer from the public schools or private schools in Korea should at minimum include single furnished housing, airfare, 50% pension, 50% medical, and a severance bonus of one month's salary at the end of 12 months. All those things are completely standard and any school that does not offer those things is suspect. I would also think that 2.0 for someone with teacher certification is a little low. I knew people a few years ago who had no certification or TESOL who started at 2.0. Without more experience it may be difficult to ask for a whole lot more, but I would think that it shouldn't be too hard to get at least 2.1 to 2.2 or more.

Also, if you're really interested in international schools I would say go ahead and try sending out resumes and look on the websites that specifically advertise for international school jobs. It may be late in the season but it's definitely worth the effort and if doesn't work out for this fall then you have a better idea of where to look for next year.

I don't know a lot about China, but I know that if you're looking at public schools in Korea there is a specific pay scale that applies to everyone. I believe with teacher certification you might be able to start at maybe 2.2 million Korean won a month. It's definitely enough money to be able to save money and travel. You can google the pay scales for the different programs (EPIK, SMOE) and find more specific information.

Private schools will sometimes pay more than public schools, but the hours/workload is sometimes a bit more than in the public schools and there is generally less vacation time than in the public school jobs.

If you're interested in international schools, you might want to join TIE online. There are still quite a few jobs posted there and it's probably worth much more than the fee if you get a job! A lot of international schools will offer more benefits in terms of vacation time and better salaries as opposed to public schools or language schools.

My advice if you do decide to go the private language school route in Korea is to do a lot of research on your own and apply to job ads directly instead of relying on recruiters. I spent three years teaching English in Korea before I returned home to get my MA and teacher certification, and by far the worse job I had in terms of working conditions and pay was the first one I got through a recruiter! If you have any more specific questions about schools or working in Korea feel free to pm me. It's a great experience and well worth it, but you definitely need to do your research so you end up in a decent school.