I want to see lists of international jobs available. For now, it's just out of curiosity, since I think it'll be minimum two to three years before we're ready to go abroad. Is it worth it to get a subscription to TIE Online? Is there a different or better site with international job listings?

I'm trying to come up with a 3-5 year plan for getting my family abroad. I have a teaching license and M.Ed. in ESL, as well as seven years ESL teaching experience in U.S. public schools and two years in Japan (at a conversation school).

My husband has a B.S. in Business and 6-8 years computer/IT experience. He's currently a Project Manager at a large corporation but doesn't enjoy the job. I know it would help our chances of getting hired a lot if he got certified. Would we be decent candidates if he did TeacherReady or Teach Now and got certified in Tech.Ed. 6-12, Computer Science K-12, or Business Education 6-12? Which certification do you think would give us the best chances?

I assume I'm a good ESL candidate, and that's what I love to teach. But would you recommend me getting another certification in Reading? Are there lots of K-12 reading jobs (more than ESL jobs)? Or should I just concentrate on what I know best - ESL - and worry about getting my husband certified?

FWIW, we have two boys, currently four and about to turn three. We also have two cats, but as much as we'll miss them, I'm sure they would not be coming with. Our ideal location would be Japan because I speak the language, but we're willing to consider many countries outside the ME and Africa.

Thanks for any advice! I'd also love to hear from anyone who went through TeacherReady or Teach Now and was successful at getting a job internationally!

My husband is not a teacher, but if we moved abroad, he may be able to work from home - and he makes more than I do/would as a teacher. Would international schools still consider him a dependent, since he's a non-teaching spouse, even though he'd be a main source of income for us? Would most international schools be willing to hire me in this situation, do you think? I'm a certified ESL teacher with an M.Ed. and seven years teaching experience. We have two young sons that would obviously be coming with us.

We are not planning to move for 2-5 years, but I'm just thinking ahead...

She's been anxious and a control freak her whole life (or at least my whole life). It's just gotten worse since I had kids.

I don't want this thread to be about her, though; I genuinely want to know how other people's families reacted.

How did everyone's family react when you told them you'd be moving abroad (or were thinking about moving abroad)? Did their reaction sway your decision to go or not or your choice of country?

When I moved to Japan ten years ago as a single 23-year-old, my mother didn't like it, but she knew I was independent and well-traveled already, and she managed to deal with it. The rest of my family probably thought I was a little strange, but they were supportive.

Now, though, I think my mother would literally keel over if I told her I was moving my whole family overseas. She had a panic attack/nervous breakdown last week just because I had surgery and my sister announced her pregnancy within a few days of each other. She can't handle ANY sort of unsettling or surprising news, even if it's supposed to be happy news. Fortunately for her, it'll still be several years before I move overseas again, if it happens at all, but her reaction does worry me (though I wouldn't decide not to go JUST because of her.)

Is it worth going at all? I'd like to think so, but we'll re-evaluate things in a year or two when I've gotten tenure here and my husband has his B.S. degree. We live within driving distance of the UNI fair, so I think we'll go to that in 2014 just to get advice from schools and network. Hopefully after that we'll have a clearer idea of what we want to do and what we need to do to accomplish that.

I did email a friend about the non-teaching spouse issue; she just moved to Tokyo a month ago and has an ESL teaching position at what I've seen mentioned as a good school there. Her reply was, "my school has a contract piece specifically for single/married spousal monetary adjustments. For example, if I was hired and had a non-licensed husband and child, I would receive more money for housing, different allowances and of course a different insurance package."

Sounds encouraging, so I refuse to give up hope that things will work out for us. :D

[quote="PsyGuy"]
3) Maybe you just need to consider moving back to Japan and doing the ESL thing. You could be passing years by 'waiting' for an international school in Japan that honestly might never come. Honestly, it really sounds like you just want to be back in Japan more then anything else, so go.[/quote]

If it were just my husband and I, we probably would just go. But our kids will need to go to school, and I want them to go to an international school, just as I want to work at an international school. I want the schedule and the benefits an international school offers, and the ability to come back to the States during the summer for the kids' benefit.

Ideally, Japan WOULD be our top choice, because I speak the language (I'm taking JLPT N2 this December) and am raising our boys to be bilingual, English & Japanese. But we may be willing to consider other options. I do want my boys to experience life outside the U.S.

That said, I'm still wondering if getting my husband certified will be worth it, since he has no desire (that I know of) to teach in the U.S. (Admittedly, he hates his current job, but he's making DOUBLE what I make, even though I have an M.Ed. and he is still working on his B.S. It would be silly for him to give up that kind of money to teach here, unless he discovers at some point that he really does love teaching.) He'd only be getting certified to help make our dream of living overseas come true. So is it worth the time, stress and money for him to get certified just for five or so years abroad? We're not sure yet.

If he does decide to get certified (through Teacherready or something similar) in technology or business and does his field work/student teaching at an IB school here in Minnesota, would that help our case quite a bit?

I worked for AEON Amity for 2+ years (seven years ago already; time flies!). I absolutely loved it - I thought my co-workers, students, and the city were great. That said, two other foreign teachers at the *same* school hated it so much they broke their contracts and left early. One of them left for lunch one day and never came back. I think they were both really young, homesick and not prepared for life abroad, though.

So it all depends on your attitude and also on the particular school you work at. Some managers are really relaxed and friendly; others are all business and make the school atmosphere really tense.

I know there are ESL jobs out there - a classmate of mine from the same ESL Master's program as me just got a job at a top international school in Tokyo, with the same credentials and experience as me.

What does Teacher Ready actually certify you in? They list seven "lessons" on the site but don't specify (that I can see) whether you can get certified in math, reading, technology, etc. It wouldn't be an option for me, because I only want to teach ESL, but *maybe* for my husband.

To add to my first post, would my husband still be considered a dependent if he already had a job lined up? (For example, at AEON in Japan, where I worked several years ago. His current company also has an office in Tokyo, though I think it's unlikely he'd be able to get transferred there.)

It's probably obvious now that we aim to get back to Japan, though we may be willing to put in two years somewhere else if it helps us get better jobs in Japan.

My husband and I would like to move abroad in 3-5 years with our two young sons. I am a licensed ESL teacher and want to work at an international school. (I worked at an eikaiwa in Japan for two years before getting licensed.) I'm pretty sure there are jobs out there for me. The "problem," if you can call it that, is that my husband is not a teacher. However, he wouldn’t mind working at an international school in some regard, either in the IT department, as a computer teacher, or…I don’t know. What are the qualifications HE needs to work at an international school? Is there anything he can do without a teaching license?

Here’s what he has:
- an Associate of Applied Science in Computer Networking
- B.S. in Business (will complete in August 2013)
- a Cisco Certified Network Associate certification.
- six years’ experience supporting Windows XP and Windows 7, as well as BlackBerry and iOS mobile devices

Could he at least substitute teach? Do schools hire people like him to work in their business office or IT department? If we go back to Japan – or at least Asia – I know he can probably get a job at an English conversation school, but I think he’d prefer something else.

Thanks for any input.

I’ve been lurking in these forums a long time and figured it is time to actually ask some questions. I’ll post them in separate threads.

What’s the international job market like for qualified ESL teachers? Most international schools have at least one ESL teacher, don’t they? My question is more, "Are there jobs out there?" than "Can I, specifically, get a job?" I know the second question depends on a lot of factors. But for what it’s worth, I have a K-12 teaching license and M.Ed. in ESL and six years (so far) of teaching experience – two in Japan at an eikaiwa, and four as a licensed ESL teacher in U.S. public schools.

PS. I should add that it'll likely be 3-5 years before my family and I can move abroad, because of the housing market. But I'm curious and like to plan in advance.