The Best And The Worst Of International Teaching

Extending your teaching skills, developing cultural understanding, loving the adventure, but missing your family. That’s what teachers who have been teaching abroad for several years are telling new recruits to international teaching.

A study was recently conducted among experienced international teachers by the international school recruitment specialist Teachers International Consulting (TIC) to determine the worst and best of teaching overseas.

Teachers from 13 different nationalities were interviewed. Each teacher spent an average of 10 years working in international schools. The biggest overall effect of teaching internationally was gaining an understanding of a lot of different cultures according to 67% of the interviewees. Had they stayed in their home country, 60% of the teachers believed that they would not have significantly broadened their teaching skills and knowledge as they already have. It was generally agreed upon that they perceived their international teaching experience as a type of adventure. The negative aspect of teaching jobs overseas was longing for friends and family (37%), difficulty in developing new friendships in a new location (14%), language barriers (8%), and cultural dissimilarities (8%).

All of the respondents, at one time or another, had transferred jobs within the international school arena. Experience-wise with regards to finding and obtaining new teaching jobs, 43% preferred using specialist recruitment organisations, 26% would depend mostly on talking to colleagues at different international schools, while another 26% would use website and press advertising. Only 5% said they would now consider recruitment fairs. Overall, everyone generally were of the same opinion that the best advice to give new international teachers is to be unprejudiced and to consider teaching jobs in the Middle East or in Europe – just base the decision on the school’s merits.

The market for international schools has seen the influx of new teachers including a significant increase. According to ISC Research, the organisation that analyses developments in the international schools market, since 2000 the number of staff in international schools has increased from 90,000 to about 230,000. And this number is expected to rise with ISC Research forecasting 320,000 staff working in international schools by 2015 and 450,000 by 2020. Andrew Wigford, director of Teachers International Consulting, says, “Most of the staff would come from English-speaking countries because it is the language for learning in international schools.” Recruiters from most of the qualified and reputable international schools tend to look for teachers from English-speaking countries that are eligible based on their experience. According to him New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada, and the United Kingdom all have a particularly excellent reputation with regards to learning-focused skills of the teachers and their pedagogy.