Hello all!
I’m a certified US teacher (7 years in the States, 8 years in total) in Elementary Ed and ESL. I’m currently teaching at an international school with an American curriculum. I’m looking at options for the 24-25 year in another country but beyond the 1-2 quality American curriculum schools, most of the other schools are British, Australian, Canadian or IB.
What are the pros and cons of switching to a different school with a different curriculum? Is it challenging? Easy?
Do schools/admin have a preference when hiring someone from a different curriculum background? Thanks!
Switching curriculums? Pros and Cons?
Re: Switching curriculums? Pros and Cons?
I've found that we Americans tend to be in the minority when it comes to international teaching. Most schools are happy therefore to have Americans around because of that alone. Where I currently work the American staff I would say only make up 5% of the international teachers. Most are overwhelmingly from the United Kingdom.
I've been teaching the Cambridge Curriculum for a few years now. Honestly never found it that difficult besides the occasional spelling differences. I teach elementary school, but I imagine if your focus is in math for higher grades having to learn the metric system could be annoying, but totally manageable.
I've been teaching the Cambridge Curriculum for a few years now. Honestly never found it that difficult besides the occasional spelling differences. I teach elementary school, but I imagine if your focus is in math for higher grades having to learn the metric system could be annoying, but totally manageable.
Re: Switching curriculums? Pros and Cons?
It depends. If you are building something from scratch to fit a new curriculum, it's a lot more work (e.g. a school that does MYP but has no materials for you). But if you are walking into a fully developed yearlong course that follows a new curriculum . . not that challenging. At the end of the day the objectives are going to be mostly the same just maybe organized differently and called something else.
Also depends how important following the curriculum is to your job. For example I spent a few years teaching students in preparation for MYP eAssessment, which required strict fidelity to the MYP objectives. All of my lessons that built towards those objectives specifically were not easily adapted to something like Common Core, especially if the Common Core school was monitoring my teaching and very strict that I was teaching some specific standard on any given day. It's not impossible to adapt it just does take more effort to match up the lessons and adapt them a bit and change the instructional language to fit etc. If your school isn't watching closely . . teaching is teaching and the objectives are mostly the same at a high level, at least for my subject, so there isn't much need to change things even if you are faking it a bit.
Also depends how important following the curriculum is to your job. For example I spent a few years teaching students in preparation for MYP eAssessment, which required strict fidelity to the MYP objectives. All of my lessons that built towards those objectives specifically were not easily adapted to something like Common Core, especially if the Common Core school was monitoring my teaching and very strict that I was teaching some specific standard on any given day. It's not impossible to adapt it just does take more effort to match up the lessons and adapt them a bit and change the instructional language to fit etc. If your school isn't watching closely . . teaching is teaching and the objectives are mostly the same at a high level, at least for my subject, so there isn't much need to change things even if you are faking it a bit.
Response
Those are the major NC curriculum in IE. US and UK NCs comprise the substantive majority of NCs with CAN, followed by AUS NCs. You then have a handful of JP, SK, etc. NC curriculum. IB in some form is the most common non-NC curriculum.
At SLL IE curriculum are highly congruent with one another. Elementary is a different situation. The differences youre going to fine are mostly alignment with how reading is taught at different grade levels. UK NCs tend to be more structure focused and US NC more vocabulary. They all get there just different pathways in scope and sequence. Adopting wont be alien to you, but might seem out of place.
This is going to effect ESOL education only marginally compared to reading if youre used to teaching ESOL using a skill/ability approach rather than an age/grade level approach (as you would have in reading as a HRT).
I disagree with @AA2024 about US ITs being a minority. American ITs tend to have comparable numbers to UK, AUS, and CAN ITs combined. I also wouldnt say that American ITs are sought after in some way. They have an advantage at ASs but BSs and the like tend to have a preference for UK trained ITs. There is some cross recruiting, you find American ITs in BSs and you find English ITs in ASs.
I tend to concur with @cms989 that adopting a different curriculum is very situational. If your teaching PYP and doing the exhibition year thats more work than another grade. It also depends significantly on how seriously youre being supervised. Depending on when an ISs authorization year is and how developed their program is, there are PYP ISs that dont look very PYP and then there are those that are hyper vigilant about being PYP and the IB. If the IS just expects so see an IT doing teaching stuff and doesnt care beyond having lesson plans documented in some form, than its a lot less important what the curriculum actually is.
The pros are that as a new IT you will get some latitude in getting up to speed even if you dont need it. So youre going to get some time period of being able to claim ignorance. You will also be able to add the curriculum experience to your resume which will increase its marketability. This would be stronger if you were at senior secondary and to a lessor degree secondary in general but in primary its less valuable.
The cons are mostly going to be in the form of increased production tasks in reviewing and editing your lessons and other curriculum documents, which is just going to be time doing it and getting up to speed on what you have to do. A lot is going to depend on how strict youre IS is. If you can just take a lesson and sprinkle it with new terminology and change some of the vocabulary/terminology, thats a lot easier than having to adapt and modify the structure of your lessons.
There is a preference for leaders to hire those who are trained and experienced in the ISs curriculum. In some circumstances such as a CAN IS thats partnered with a provincial CAN DS in CAN and using their SLL certificate having CAN credentialed ITs may be much more important than a AS or a BS that doesnt utilize an IGCSE exam board (because they dont offer an IGCSE SLL certificate for example).
At SLL IE curriculum are highly congruent with one another. Elementary is a different situation. The differences youre going to fine are mostly alignment with how reading is taught at different grade levels. UK NCs tend to be more structure focused and US NC more vocabulary. They all get there just different pathways in scope and sequence. Adopting wont be alien to you, but might seem out of place.
This is going to effect ESOL education only marginally compared to reading if youre used to teaching ESOL using a skill/ability approach rather than an age/grade level approach (as you would have in reading as a HRT).
I disagree with @AA2024 about US ITs being a minority. American ITs tend to have comparable numbers to UK, AUS, and CAN ITs combined. I also wouldnt say that American ITs are sought after in some way. They have an advantage at ASs but BSs and the like tend to have a preference for UK trained ITs. There is some cross recruiting, you find American ITs in BSs and you find English ITs in ASs.
I tend to concur with @cms989 that adopting a different curriculum is very situational. If your teaching PYP and doing the exhibition year thats more work than another grade. It also depends significantly on how seriously youre being supervised. Depending on when an ISs authorization year is and how developed their program is, there are PYP ISs that dont look very PYP and then there are those that are hyper vigilant about being PYP and the IB. If the IS just expects so see an IT doing teaching stuff and doesnt care beyond having lesson plans documented in some form, than its a lot less important what the curriculum actually is.
The pros are that as a new IT you will get some latitude in getting up to speed even if you dont need it. So youre going to get some time period of being able to claim ignorance. You will also be able to add the curriculum experience to your resume which will increase its marketability. This would be stronger if you were at senior secondary and to a lessor degree secondary in general but in primary its less valuable.
The cons are mostly going to be in the form of increased production tasks in reviewing and editing your lessons and other curriculum documents, which is just going to be time doing it and getting up to speed on what you have to do. A lot is going to depend on how strict youre IS is. If you can just take a lesson and sprinkle it with new terminology and change some of the vocabulary/terminology, thats a lot easier than having to adapt and modify the structure of your lessons.
There is a preference for leaders to hire those who are trained and experienced in the ISs curriculum. In some circumstances such as a CAN IS thats partnered with a provincial CAN DS in CAN and using their SLL certificate having CAN credentialed ITs may be much more important than a AS or a BS that doesnt utilize an IGCSE exam board (because they dont offer an IGCSE SLL certificate for example).
Re: Switching curriculums? Pros and Cons?
Thanks for the replies! I appreciate the insight and valuable information each of you gave! Thanks again.