How To: Become an International Teacher! (Part 1)

Ever since my time abroad last summer, I've been stricken with the infamous travel bug! The word wanderlust so aptly describes my feelings about travel...

I have a particularly wonderful professor at SDSU who has a sister who is an international teacher. She taught in the United States for a couple of years before coming to a bleak realization about education here. I've already begun to struggle with the inconsistency and ineffectiveness of things like standardized tests, tracking, and student "success". I had the opportunity to Skype with my professor's sister (with a group of other students) last semester under the guise of teaching English Language Learners. That conversation quickly turned into "How can I teach internationally?!". She uses a company called Search Associates (read more about them here). After dedicated time and research on my part, I found Search Associates to come highly recommended and have stellar reviews.

Search Associates is basically a big database of international schools and teachers looking for international jobs. Both the schools and the teacher candidates have "profiles", similar to Facebook or other social media sites. For example, my profile includes my resume, contact information, confidential references, education, prior experience, where I'm looking to teach (regions of the world), and a brief biography. Schools' profiles contain information about what kind of qualifications their school requires, salary expectations, benefits, school population, and current open positions. To access the database, candidates must register as either intern or teacher candidates. Intern candidates are usually people who have recently graduated or have little full time teaching experience. Teacher candidates are usually people with at least two years of full time teaching experience.

After conferring with an associate, I chose to register as an intern candidate. However, I still have to ability to apply for teacher positions. To register as an intern candidate, there is a $100 fee. To register as a teacher candidate, there is a $225 fee. Both of these fees are one-time and non-refundable. They both cover the registration cost of an international job fair hosted by Search Associates open only to registered candidates. About 60% of candidates accept jobs through these jobs fair, while the other 40% accept jobs by contacting schools directly through the Search Associates database and setting up Skype or phone interviews.

Before committing to interviews or especially jobs, it is vitally important that you do your research!! DO YOUR RESEARCH. In case you missed it before. While there is valuable information available about the schools on their Search Associates profile, it is integral that you do outside research. Stalk their school website. Get into contact with teachers who have worked there before. Look up information about the city/region where the school is located. Write down specific questions for interviewers about the quality of life, safety, cultural differences, and anything else you can think of- the interviewers are well-versed in talking about all the great stuff, but you need to know what it would be like to live and teach there everyday.

With such exciting and helpful resources out there, it's hard to imagine not going for it! I'll post again soon about my own personal journey to become and international teacher, so keep your eyes peeled!