The International Schools Review Forum

I'm an American certified to teach K-8, though most of my 15 years of experience is in upper elementary.
My spouse is a Chinese national, certified to teach Mandarin, with some limited experience at international schools. (subbing, Chinese language support teaching.)

We're looking for international schools that would need us both. Any ideas?

No, not FT/OSH appointments for both of you. I only know of a handful of ISs globally that have Mandarin and they are a handful of UN ISs. Mandarin isnt a very popular language in FL globally. At the few upper tier ISs in China and Taiwan that offer a Mandarin curriculum it is only a PT course load. What she will find is some potential opportunity for some PT work with a class or two and maybe a club, with some other support work, it will still be PT.

ISs typically create vacancies and appointments for really high needs or master class ITs, primary education is highly saturated, if you were a PYP educator for a coordinator/leadership role, than an IS might create a FT appointment for your spouse.

Your spouse is likely to find more of the same work she has been doing: translation, adjunct tertiary lecturing, tutoring, private students, and PT work.

we are both PYP experienced. Me much more so. 10 years as an upper elementary PYP teacher - 4 years leading the Exhibition, 4 workshops completed.

she worked as the CLS teacher in a PYP school and has completed the "Making the PYP Happen in Mandarin" workshop.

We both worked at Concordian in Bangkok for two years. Very nice school, but for various personal reasons we would not return there.

I don't know. We are a small school that offers Mandarin. Our Chinese teacher is full time - but she just came last year and is sticking around, otherwise I would ask you to email me and point you in the right direction. LOL

It isn't only the UN schools that offer Chinese - but it is not a common language to have offered outside of China and SE Asia.

Yes, it's not just the UN schools. I was hoping people would have info on Asian schools most likely to offer Mandarin (e.g Malaysia, Philipines, Indonesia, Korea, Cambodia, Japan, etc.)

Singapore International School in Vietnam offers Chinese, and it has many campuses in many different cities.

A lot of international schools in Singapore offer Mandarin.

Another lead might be to look into Pamoja. It is an online company that does IB courses. They offer Mandarin ab initio. I have no clue of their needs, requirements, or hiring practices, but it might be something to look into.

Thank you all for your suggestions.

International School of Beijing has full-time Mandarin teachers--several at each division level and includes IB Mandarin as it's taught from the beginning through grade 12. I would assume WAB, Shanghai, Concordia (Shanghai), HKIS and a number of other schools in China would offer full-time Mandarin positions. Singapore also requires its schools to do Mandarin, so the internationals schools there would probably offer Mandarin.

ESF is an organization that runs 20+ international schools in Hong Kong. They teach mandarin in all of their schools so I would imagine that HK could also be fertile ground for you for to explore (as there are probably 50 schools there worth looking at, including the ESF schools).

A number of South Korean schools have Mandarin teachers. There are a small but growing minority of Chinese nationals attending schools in South Korea, this includes some of the ISs dominated by Korean nationals. Some niches there for your spouse, I think.

BCIS in Beijing also have several Chinese teachers who are full -time and it's a great place to work. I don't know if there are any availabilities, but check their website. You can also try the American school in Taipei.

I would also suggest that Hong Kong is worth looking at. There are loads of international schools here (I work in international preschool in HK), and most will employ native English teachers as class teachers as well as Mandarin teachers as 'floating' language teachers. As suggested, ESF might be a good school system to get into, especially if you are flexible enough to work at different locations.

there are plenty of schools in china that offer mandarin classes.
not too sure outside of china though.

however, would they be willing to do an overseas-hire contract? quite possibly but can't say for sure. you having all that experience in the PYP, especially exhibition, should get you in the door though.

good luck!

v.