[quote="PsyGuy"]@Walter
Because its not stupid, and your logic is flawed. walter just doesnt know what hes talking about.
English teachers have about as much demand as social studies/humanities teachers do. Its not really that complex. Yes core subject areas are the largest in a school, but the humanities (including english) have much lower turnover, and fewer vacancies, per year.
@FutureTeacher33
Gosh thats a lot of questions to reply too.
Its going to be hard for you to get your foot in the door with your family situation, no matter what field you choose to teach in. You of course have a better chance at getting into a third tier school, or a school in an undesirable area like the middle east. Really the best option for you may very well be to stay stateside for 5 years building up your experience. If you could do it at an IB school and/or in an AP program that would increase your marketability substantially. Its just so much harder and a more saturated market for those with only around 2 years experience.
You can add other endorsement and certification areas, but generally a certificate only gets you an interview. Schools want to see that you have actual experience teaching. If your an english teacher with 5 years experience and you get an endorsement in Physics, and have never taught it thats not going to overly impress a recruiter. In that situation you go into the same pile as the other newbies. They may need you, but your not going to be a strong candidate. Your best options are to stick with something you do and do well, and show a recruiter/school how those skills and experience will add value to the schools program, and benefit students. Adding complimenting endorsements for english could include drama, speech, journalism. They would increase your marketability at small schools that wouldnt justify a full time teacher. You dont really need any course hours in these fields though to add the certification endorsement. You dont need a certification to be proficient in technology, you could get a technology education certification, but you just need to demonstrate to a recruiter during an interview that you have the skills.
The bulk of marketable extra curricular activities either involve ESL or sports/athletics though. Its the drama ;teacher" that does the school productions, and the music 'teacher' that handles the recitals. The PE teacher usually handles the major sports as well. An extra curricular for an english teacher might be: School paper, yearbook, speech/debate, literary guild, creative writing club, etc.
Many teachers just do english corner or tutoring in their subject area.
Special ed (SPED) is a odd situation. In a number of middle eastern and asian cultures, those with disabilities are not provide opportunities in their culture. Usually these students are taken care of by the family or if the family has money in special schools. The vast majority of ISs are private schools, they dont get government aid, and so they are funded by tuition. Special education programs are expensive, so that means to fund them parents have to pay, and there usually isnt a demand at small schools to justify the expense. the schools that do supply SPED are typically the large ISs and the top tier schools. This means that if your a SPED teacher your much more likely to be hired at a top tier school (one that would have less a problem with your family situation), but the lower end of the market there is almost no demand at all, which means you could find yourself unemployed or unemployable. Even at the big schools, they dont do SPED programs to the standards required by the USA department of education.
Thats the thing with fine arts positions there is demand but you have to have a very special skill set. Yes, you need to be proficient in both 2D and 3D art mediums, to be a credible art teacher. You cant just get by on art history and culture. You have to be able to draw, paint, and sculpt, sorry (and it would help if you could do digital as well).
There is a demand for everything, but field like art which may have trouble filling positions, dont have a lot of demand in numbers. A small school might have only one art teacher, compared to the english department which could have 4 or more. That reduces the odds of getting hired. The major problem though in fields like art and music is that in the states there is zero demand, and without any demand, you cant get a job to build the experience you need to get into an international school. You could be subbing for a decade as an art teacher waiting for a full time position. Art, music, dance and other fine art teachers are essentially artists that need a regular pay check. If its not your thing, your not going be a very successful teacher at it.
Schools and recruiters are too busy to reply to questions that dont involve viable teaching candidates. You may be lucky and get a few brief replies, but they arent going to offer you much in the way of real consideration or building a a relationship.
You should start your job application process at the start of the year you will be certified in at the end of it. So if you are looking for a job in 2013/2014, you should start during the summer of 2012. IS recruiting season starts in November (late October).
Most ISs arent really bilingual (unless your at a specific bilingual school) the vast majority of them the medium of instruction is english. Its important to make the difference that in 'english' there is english literature (which is what I assume you are perusing) and ESL/EFL which is teaching english as a language. They are very different (though have about the same demand in ISs).
Being familiar with technology is pretty important, but at your age I have to imagine you probably already are. There are a number of veteran teachers who barely know how to use word, and check their email. They dont know how to use a projector or word, and a smart board would become an expensive coat rack in their room.
We are moving away from powerpoint and towards video as the new technology standard. educating yourself on the various Google tools, and apple iLife/iWork applications is good advice.
Teach for America and the various teaching fellows programs (programs in Texas, New York, DC, etc), are basically the elite alternative certification programs, they get you certified.
Its possible you could teach in the Peace Corp, but unless you were interested in teaching for DODEA, your preference isnt of much use in the IS market. No more then any other study abroad experience would be. Its not going to add any marketability for you.
When it comes to IB there is a big difference between training and experience. Generally training is better then nothing, but no amount of training is going to equal any amount of experience, and what schools look for is IB experience. You get experience by teaching at an IB school. It would really help you if you could do your student teaching at an IB school, and you should try for a placement at such a school if you can. Getting into an IB school as soon as possible in your career would improve your marketability. If you cant get into an IB school, getting a student teaching placement with an AP english teacher who teaches AP english classes would be the next advice.
There is an IB teacher award which is a sort of 'pseudo' certification. in my experience it doesnt add much to a teachers resume, either they already have IB experience and the award doesnt really help them on their resume, or they dont have experience and it adds very little. A number of schools offer the program as a graduate level certificate, and a few offer it at the undergrad level (there is one in the USA and one in australia). You can take them as part of a certificate program or as bart of a degree, typically in international education (George Mason University in Virginia has such a program), you can find the school list here:
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www.ibo.org/programmes/pd/award/
Your list of minors is perplexing, my comments are:
1) Computer Science: Even as a minor, you will need to have to do some programing. That means math, and do you even like programing? I sense you dont, so I cant recommend this. Im sure your school already has a computer/technology proficiency requirement, and technology changes so fast, that by the time you graduate what ever coursework you had would be outdated.
2) German, Spanish, French, Portuguese: Like all foreign languages unless you major in it, and are committed to developing and maintaining your language proficiency over a lifetime, its not going to add very much to your resume. Without using it on a daily basis, you will loose any proficiency you gain very quickly.
3) Writing, Creative Writing: Same thing and if you have a degree/major in English you will likely already have a course or two in creative writing. A creative writing minor is really just a minor that says, i didnt have a minor and wanted the easiest possible minor I could do.
4) Philosophy/Religious Studies: Every year there are a couple vacancies at Christian schools for a religious studies teacher, often part time in conjunction with another field. to really be a viable candidate they would have to want you for something else, or else you would need to be a social studies/humanities teacher as well. You could leverage philosophy into a TOK (thats Theory of Knowledge in the IB program), but again thee are only a couple vacancies a year, and are only offered to those who already have lots of IB experience, meaning you need to have taught something else before moving into TOK. Usually the Psychology teacher moves into the TOK position.
5) Foundations of Special Education: This is probably the most marketable one. As a minor youd be OK as an entry level special education teacher, and youd obtain a skill set that would help you in any classroom. Many ITs (international teachers) have undiagnosed, or unserved special needs children in their classroom.
If i understand correctly, your asking if your husbands career can afford all the expenses of your family, would that effectively reduce the number of dependents, and make you more marketable?
It may make you more marketable, but from a recruiters point of view I would say no, because i only see two ways it works:
1) Your husband gets posted overseas, and your applying as a local hire really, thats doable. The issue though is then your following your husband, and really only have the local schools to choose from, if they need an english teacher, then they may consider you, but then you dont really have a recruiting job search issue anymore.
2) What your really offering is to under cut or under bid the other applicants. At some of the third tier school that might work, but at the other schools such a strategy would work, and would cause problems when the other teachers find out (and they will). The other issue is that you would really be negotiating away benefits that have out of pocket value. Basically your dependents cost more to a school in the following categories: Airfare, Tuition, Insurance, and Housing. Airfare is the easiest, as you could absorb the cost of flying out your family yourself. Tuition isnt really feasible. where are your kids going to go to school, and can you pay tuition at the school yourself. That could easily come out to 1-2 months salary per child. Can you work for free for half the year just or the job. Insurance is the same, you need insurance for your family and you cant really do without it. Youd have to pay out of salary to the school for the premiums. Housing is the same, usually schools give a fixed amount, or provide a certain size apartment. All youd be doing is subsidizing the difference our of salary.
In all those situations what your really doing is just offering to do the job for the school at a lower salary then a comparable candidate. Even so there are some things like visas, the school cant get around, and as other posters have said, the only real message you would be sending to the school is that your desperate.
When it comes to tiers in rating a school, they are only helpful when comparing schools within the same region. So you can compare the schools in Lebanon (Beirut) to one another and there is going to be a tier one school among them, but you cant compare a tier 1 school in Lebanon to a tier 1 school in Italy, or South America and say that they are the same.
South/Central america is friendlier when it comes to families, but in general the salaries are low, about $15-$20 thousand a year. Its fine on the local economy, but it takes forever to save, and you end up leaving with very little.
Search does accept interns and many of them are paid. Its similar to student teaching, accept in student teaching you work with another teacher on a daily basis for a semester. Your kind of like an assistant teacher, and do a lot of teachers aid type things. An internship (being an intern) is a year long position where you are mentored by another teacher but you pretty much run your own class, or perform other duties independently.[/quote]
Thanks for your response! I wasn't expecting one person to answer all of my questions, but it is appreciated.
5 years stateside isn't too much longer, I may consider doing that. And that is great advice to do my student teaching in an IB school. I will look into that right away! I have an Introduction to Teacher Prep course this fall where we get introduced to teaching as a profession and complete 10 hours of classroom observation. So, I will research some IB schools in my area and decide on one to do my student teaching and observation, that way I can build a relationship with them and possibly better my chances of securing a job there!
As far as special ed, these are the requirements to be certified in my state:
8VAC20-22-540. Special education – general curriculum K-12.
Endorsement requirements: The candidate must:
1. Have graduated from an approved program in special education – general curriculum; or
2. Have completed a major in special education – general curriculum or 27 semester hours in the education of students with disabilities distributed in the following areas:
a. Core coursework: 12 semester hours distributed among the following areas:
(1) Foundations – characteristics that include knowledge of the foundation for educating students with disabilities;
(2) Foundations – legal aspects that include an understanding and application of the legal aspects, regulatory requirements, and expectations associated with identification, education, and evaluation of students with disabilities;
(3) Assessment and management of instruction and behavior that includes an understanding and application of the foundation of assessment and evaluation related to best special education practice; of service delivery, curriculum, and instruction of students with disabilities; and of classroom management techniques and individual interventions; and
(4) Collaboration that includes skills in consultation, case management, and collaboration.
b. General curriculum coursework: 15 semester hours distributed in the following areas:
(1) Characteristics: 6 semester hours. Skills in this area shall include the ability to demonstrate knowledge of definitions, characteristics, and learning and behavioral support needs of students with disabilities who are accessing the general education curriculum at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, including but not limited to, students with learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, mental retardation; developmental delay; autism; other health impaired; traumatic brain injury; and multiple disabilities;
(2) Individualized Education Program Implementation: 6 semester hours. Skills in this area include the ability to apply knowledge of assessment
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and evaluation throughout the K-12 grade levels to construct, use, and interpret a variety of standardized and nonstandardized data collection techniques; to make decisions about student progress, instruction, program, accommodations, placement, and teaching methodology for students with disabilities who are accessing the general education curriculum and the standards of learning; and to demonstrate the use of assessment, evaluation, and other information to develop and implement individual educational planning and group instruction with students with disabilities who are accessing the general education curriculum across the K-12 grade levels.
(3) Transitioning: 3 semester hours. Skills in this area include the ability to prepare students and work with families to provide successful student transitions throughout the educational experience to include postsecondary training, employment, and independent living which addresses an understanding of long-term planning, career development, life skills, community experiences and resources, self-advocacy, and self-determination, guardianship and legal considerations.
So, with minoring in Foundations of Special Ed, I do not know if I will meet the requirements to be fully certified. But then again, you did mention that the requirements here in the U.S. are not the sam for international schools. So, do you believe a minor would be enough for me to be able to work as an entry level special ed teacher internationally?And do you think it's a good idea to emphasize this to a recruiter/during an interview that many ITs (international teachers) have undiagnosed, or unserved special needs children in their classroom to make myself more marketable as a hire w/ dependants? Or would saying something like that just make them upset?
This is what the minor entails at the university I'm attending (copy/pasted from the official website):
The minor provides an opportunity to explore the field of special education and disabilities, for focused investigation of human behavior within the context of educational institutions or explorations related to possible or real career needs. Completion of this minor does not result in licensure or endorsement for teaching in the commonwealth of Virginia.
The minor requires a minimum of 21 semester hours. If one or more of these courses is taken to satisfy a general studies requirement or a major requirement, it may also be counted toward the minor.
EDUS 300 Foundations of Education
3
EDUS 301 Human Development and Learning or EDUS/PSYC 305 Educational Psychology
3
TEDU 330 Survey of Special Education
3
Selectives (select any four):•TEDU 444 Introduction to Learning Disabilities
•TEDU 531 Collaboration and Special Education Law
•EMOD 400 Characteristics of Children/ Adolescents with Emotional Disturbance
•MNRT 400 Characteristics of Children and Youth with Mental Retardation
•HPEX 431 Adaptive Physical Education
•TEDU 541 Infants and Young Children with Special Needs
And as far as my subject specialty, yes, I am pursuing english literature, not ESL. However one day, I may work towards obtaining my TEFL certificate.
As far as minoring in religious studies, I know there are other international schools that are religious based, would that minor put me at an advantage in those sorts of schools? Also, there is a minor that I forgot to mention that is Arabic studies or something like that. Do you think that sort of minor will put me at an advantage since I'm looking to secure a position in Beirut? Aside from that, being that Lebanon is in the middle east, do you think in general I have a good chance of being accepted that? Or do they receive more applicants that I may think?
When I mentioned my husband, I was not saying that! No way! There is just a misunderstanding here, lol. I am saying that if a school offers this package that is not 'family-friendly' and wishes not to hire teaches with multiple dependants because it's a burden on the school financially, then I was proposing that I accept the offer as is and anything that is NOT covered by the package, my husband and I can provide for ourselves. Like, if the kids are not covered under health insurance at the school, we can take care of that. Do you understand what I'm saying? I know we're communicating by typing so I know things can get misunderstood.
In addition to student teaching at an IB school here in the States, it sounds like I great idea to do an internship with an agency like Search. But with doing an internship, would that also be hard for me to accomplish because I will still have my family who would need to come with me?
Thanks again!