I understand all the wanting to explore the world and stuff but I just read that in Malaysia you could end up paying up to 30% tax and in Europe you don't get housing allowance plus the taxes are ridiculous.

I would think that unless you absolutely hate your country, one of the major reasons why anyone would teach abroad is the savings potential. Again, I get the cultural exposure is equally important but not to the extent that I would be willing to work to survive IMHO.

I am looking at some job opportunities and needed any info on "New Cairo British International School" like pay, accommodation, location etc?

Has anyone had a school send them some kind of “pre interview questionnaire”?

I’ve gotten this from at least 3 schools, and some of the questions are pretty invasive?

Like what’s your birthday? Do you smoke? Are you married? Are you planning to become pregnant?

Is this common? Or should I avoid those schools?

I have a younger sister who got into teaching because of me. She teaches middle school STEM. She was struggling at a terrible magnet school 9 years ago and was barely keeping her head above water. I had visited her in the States and was appalled to see her class situation.

I had suggested she look into teaching overseas where she won't need to do a Go Fund Me or Donors Choose just to get basic supplies for her science and engineering classes. Where students and their families are more invested in their education. Where she won't have to commute two hours each way every day.

She got angry and we stopped talking for a year.

I am going to visit again next month. She's at a better school, teaching engineering, but confessed that she's much worse off financially.

It is breaking my heart to hear her situation l, especially with health, transportation, and housing, while also seeing how passionate she is about inspiring kids to go into STEM careers.

How can I convince her to make the leap overseas so she no longer has to struggle just to put food on the table for herself without sounding patronizing?

Hi, where can one teach abroad to maximize savings in the next 2 to 4 years?

My cousin and her family are ready to move abroad. They're a family of 4 with 2 toddlers from Canada (of Hong Kong descent) and just feel that they could potentially maximize savings if they were to teach in places like Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Korea, etc. They're also dual citizens in HK and Canada if that make things easier. Teaching in Canada is great but tax is high and living costs are getting pretty expensive. They are hardly saving $1000 cad per month after expenses.

My cousin had been a TA for about 6 years, a year of TOC, and as a Kindergarten/Elementary teacher for about 4 years, so total 10ish years of experience. She has an undergrad from UBC and a PGDE from HKU and already licensed to teach in HK and Canada.

HK is of course one of her main targets but she's very concerned about living costs especially with renting a place for a family of 4.

They want to know:

1. Where can they potentially maximize salary and savings? Whats a salary range she should expect? (Also considering being Asian descent)
2. Where are places that are (and are not) family friend?

Thanks all

Honestly I’m going nuts. Astrill, 360 VPN, Hotspot Shield etc etc nothing works.

Anyone got recommendations?

I have seen that Westlink International School has vacancies for teachers for the coming school year. Is this a red flag that they have not yet filled these positions at this stage in the year?

Does anyone know anything about this school? It appears to have 2 sections, International and Bilingual. Is one better than the other with regard to pay, teaching load, and benefits?

Renting in Hanoi, does anyone know what the upfront costs would be? Is there an expectation of paying a deposit and a certain number of month's rent upfront?

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Any advice welcome.

Does anyone or has anyone worked for Nord Anglia in Hong Kong?

How does the salary compare to other schools in HK? Did you get a housing allowance?

Hi all. I have been made an offer in KL, Malaysia. I really need to figure out the financial viability of this offer. I’m quite inexperienced in judging these things. I need detailed advice how to calculate accurate cost of living in KL for a family of 3. What’s websites/resources do people use to calculate cost of living. Thanks in advance

Anyone know anything about this school? I know Nord Anglia gets a mixed rep so looking to see if anyone knows anything about this particular school? Should I go for it or avoid? It's in Minhang District of Shanghai.

I’m a 2nd year teacher, and starting to feel like I won’t be offered any international teaching jobs, but I have a couple interviews lined up. Is ISR worth it?

Hi I've recently been offered a teaching job in Oman Salalah and I just wanted to here people's opinions on teaching / living there. I've seen that it's a quiet place and quite naturey which is definitely my kind of vibe but I'd really appreciate any further insights!

I was starting to get desperate, but then I finally got an offer. It's at a really good school as well. They are still out there trying to fill in those roles, so don't give up hope just yet!

Hey! Anyone else do their 2 years in the UK as an ECT/NQT then successfully go abroad and work in international schools? I’d love to hear some of your stories. Feel like it’s a grand plan in my head but concerned I’ll never get round to it, life gets in the way, get comfortable in your school etc. If you fancy sharing your experience or story please do! :)

Hello everyone. Does anyone have any information on AGS in Ho Chi Minh City. They have 2 campuses, Phu Nhuan & Tan Phu. Are they a decent school to work with. Workload, Salary, Benefits, Medical? Any information would be much appreciated, thank you.

Keen to hear your experiences, or anecdotes if you have them.

Idea is basically, get a yacht and sail around. Spend a couple of years travelling, then when money is needed, season finishes, or a location is nice finds a teaching gig of some kind to support themselves.

I figure marina fees are cheaper than rent, I get to keep all my stuff in one location, freedom of movement, and I avoid being indebted under moving costs.

So, I work in an American curriculum international school (in Vietnam) as a MSHS EAL specialist/teacher.

I worked my way into this position through gaining a wealth of experience, extremely high quality references and completing my MA in a relevant field of education from a prestigious university in the UK as top of my class. (Since undertaking this course, the iQTS and additional M.Ed courses have been introduced in my home country, the UK)

The next step I would like to take is gaining my teaching licence but I'm unsure of how best to do it, so would appreciate any reccomendations from you all...

The obvious route would be something like Moreland. However, it is now not recognised in the UK (and other countries) which I might want to return to in the future. The iQTS programme looks promising, but it doesn't really allow for EAL etc.

Are there any other online teacher licensing options (as I am based in Vietnam) which would utilise my current teaching practice and allow me to progress my career when I potentially move back to my home countries (Aus or UK)?

Thanks in advance!

Has anyone who is not religious worked at a Christian/Jewish/other school? If so, how did you feel about it and would you do it again?

Being let go, twice within 12 months

I'm an awful teacher and I no longer know how to better myself.

I did my PGCE in 2020 and it was really shit,my country, has a high unemployment rate and schools seem to be rarely hiring, so I moved into customer service.

In 2022 I received a job offer for the UAE as a cover teacher for 2023. I moved and thought things were going well, due to staffing issues I was moved into Kindergarten, where I failed after a month.

I went back home, tried again, this time for the UK, I scored an English secondary teacher role for y7-y11.

After my first observation, my HOD made the decision to remove Y11 from my timetable and hire someone to support me for 3 days a week, for 6 weeks from November December

In Jan there was another observation, although I had improved significantly, there are still concerns around my teaching skills and subject matter.

I'm now being placed on capabilities after Easter.

I don't know how to be a good teacher and how to improve myself. I keep failing and I'm exhausted

There are always newly qualified teachers on here looking to break into international teaching with no experience, so I put together some advice based on my job search as someone with essentially no professional experience.

After seven months of (on and off) applying, I have finally locked down a job as somebody with no professional teaching experience. I wanted to break down my process and answer the questions that I had before I began applying.

Background: I’m an American art teacher who worked briefly teaching a summer program, but had never held a legitimate full-time teaching position. I was searching to teach any age range, anywhere in the world other than the Middle East (I have zero personal interest in living there).

I applied for 127 jobs, starting in September, and found a position in China teaching art in early March. I was offered 4 jobs in total. I applied to a wide range of schools. In retrospect, I would have applied to less, avoiding the more elite schools that wouldn't hire someone inexperienced.

When to start applying?

I began applying in September, but it was a complete and utter waste of my time imo. Very, VERY few schools that are hiring before January would ever consider hiring you. I only starting receiving replies in January, and would suggest that you don’t waste your sanity by sending out applications before December at the earliest. Perhaps your results will be different for a more in demand subject, but I can’t speak to that.

Which websites are best?

I used Tes, Teacher Horizons, Schrole, Joyjobs.com, AMISA, and the UNI Database. Search rejected me because I lacked 2 years experience. I found Teacher Horizons to be the best. They overlooked my lack of experience, and were very hands on in helping me find a job. Schrole was useless for me, the majority of the schools were just too good for my lack of experience. Joyjobs had a lot of repeated listings and cost like $40, generally don't really recommend, but it's not terrible by any means.

In total I received:

9 interviews through Teachers Horizons

3 through Tes

3 through UNI

2 through AMISA

3 schools cold emailed me. They were generally in very undesirable locations.

Keep in mind that several of these were just links on the databases that lead me to the school’s website or email.

Should I apply to jobs that state a 2 year experience requirement?

Only if there aren’t other options listed. I had a couple schools with this stated requirement interview me, but they were a major exception. Most schools with this requirement ghosted me. I would look for schools that either have no requirement or say they “prefer two years”. The latter was really common and I still got several interviews from them. If the school requires more than 2 years, it’s a completely lost cause, you have no chance.

Which regions are best to apply in?

Disclaimer: I didn't apply to any jobs in the middle east.

I had the most success in China by far. There are laws restricting hiring teachers with no experience, but it appears that many schools are able to skirt that requirement. I see a lot of people on here suggesting SE Asia for new teachers, but I didn’t receive a single interview offer from any school in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, or Cambodia, despite applying for over 30 jobs in the region. Maybe I was just an outlier? Also, I would completely write off Western Europe. Basically 0 chance of getting hired there with no experience. I interviewed with:

3 schools in Eastern Europe

6 schools in China

3 other schools in East Asia

3 schools in Africa

3 schools in Latin America

When should you accept an offer by?

This is incredibly subjective, but I decided against 3 offers from Jan-Mar because there were just some major issues with the schools that I couldn’t get over. Even though my current offer isn’t perfect, I know I need to settle for my first job. Personally I’m happy I was patient and didn’t just jump on the first school to give me the time of day. If you’re like me and sending out tons of applications, it can be tempting, but I think waiting until March opened me up to a lot more schools that became increasingly desperate. The quality of the job offers will generally go up as time goes on for new teachers.

Ignore the people on reddit locking down jobs in October and November. It is incredibly unlikely that will happen to you, so don't let it get you down.

Interview and resume advice:

REALLY play up any student teaching experience you have in interviews and on your resume. Don’t act like you’re just some college kid freshly graduated. Act as if you’re an accomplished teacher with a year of teaching under your belt. Hype up your accomplishments, reference lots of anecdotes from your classroom. I’m not saying lie, but just emphasize the teaching you’ve already done in your practicum.

If you're a college/university student, look to do teaching related summer jobs, that will give you stuff to fill up your resume, and things to pull from during your job interviews.

It can help to do some sort of professional development program on your own time! I was asked about my PD experience in a lot of interviews. Luckily I had done a student safeguarding training session for a job, so I was able to talk about that. See if you can attend some of the PD sessions for the school where you are student teaching/interning/practicuming. I listed it on my resume and a few interviewers referenced it.

Figure out your references way ahead of time! It can be a bit embarrassing, so locking them down way before anybody needs to reach out to them is helpful. Try your hardest to get professional references, not from professors.

Misc. advice:

Pay for International School Review. It’s incredible how shady some of the schools that interviewed me were. ISR is often the only place with any decent information.

Don’t use the Tes quick apply feature! Very few schools actually check it. See if they have an email listed or a link to their website application.

Schools have a tendency to ghost. The schools that will be willing to hire will likely be poorly organized and have a lot of staff leaving each year. Following up can be helpful if you get no reply after an interview, but temper your expectations

I kept a spreadsheet listing every school I applied for. This can be useful because many of the databases overlap. Helps you avoid applying for the same job twice. However, it can also be depressing. Your choice lol.

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If anyone has any questions, comment or message me! Hope this was helpful for my newly qualified teachers hungry to go abroad!

Hello there, I got certified a few years ago in NC and am working as a Spanish auxiliar in Spain currently starting to think about international teaching. My license is expiring June 30 and it's an Initial Professional License of middle school math with an ESL endorsement. Is it important to schools abroad whether your US teaching license expires?

Additional side note: the NC license requires 3 years of teaching to go from initial to continuing license...thus I'm assuming even in states with reciprocity I would need to teach a third year somewhere? (In the states) To go to a continuing license, though not certain and hard to find out without going to through the state application processes. Thanks in advance!

Everyone discusses NIST and ISB, but I could not find anything on two schools I am considering: Brighton Bangkok and Verso.

Any info on these two schools would be great.

I am a third year education student and I am doing a dissertation on the educational systems of England and Singapore. If there’s anyone who’s ever been a teacher or educational professional in either of these countries in England or Singapore I’d really appreciate if you could do my 5 minute questionnaire. Please reply and I can send you the link.

Big big thanks to anyone who’s willing to help, it means a lot♥️

Here’s the link🇸🇬💕

https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=VeArfoqCI0W15bd62ZOXhdubQlW1749FvmlxjXqaYXtUQTlBVlpDRFRON1U0UkVUVEJVS0ZFWlJEVy4u&origin=lprLink

I’m exploring different options in terms of teaching abroad, and obviously there is some appeal to the no income tax in the UAE. Compared to living in the US, and the things that come with that, did you find you were able to save more money while abroad due to the “perks” many of the schools there seem to provide their teachers?

How hard is it for British citizens who have taught at international schools abroad to get a job back home when (if) they decide to return home? I am concerned if I accept an offer, I won’t be able to get a job back in teaching in the UK. I have read online it can be hard as many schools don’t offer virtual interviews and some schools don’t even value international school experience… any insight appreciated. thanks

Hi 👋

I started thinking I might hire a career coach? I get interviews often enough but seem to bomb those? So, it seems to be my interviewing skills are holding me back… For instance, I had a pretty good school I passed the 1st round interview with the assistant principal but then the 2nd interview was an interview with the team I would be working with and I didn’t do well…)-: In this case they initially loved my 1st interview, resume and experience but I got nervous at the second interview.

I also would like assistance with my resume, and skills set. I don’t know any teachers in my personal life, but don’t mind paying someone who really knows what they are doing and is professional in their assistance?

Not sure if anyone has used one before or knows of any? Agencies? Or, even YouTube videos?

Thanks! 😊

I am 34m from the US and completing my student teaching right now as part of a BA in Education for Science for Middle Grades. So my certification is to teach science to grades 6-8. Long term I'd like to add middle school math and then eventually secondary science certifications as well. But for now, it's only middle school science.

I know the advice is to work in my home country but I'd really rather not. To be honest, I'm not super worried about getting into an amazing tier 1 school, it sounds like a lot of work and pressure. I have 7 years TEFL experience in Vietnam/SK and I loved my lifestyle, I didn't get certified in order to make more money I got certified because I wanted to teach science and have more vacation.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I'm not super money-motivated but what I do want is to:

• live in a fun city where I don't need to own a car
• don't want to work too hard, ideally I'd like to work somewhere that provides the majority of the teaching resources or at least follows a textbook or something so I'm not just creating curriculum and resources from scratch
• save at least $500USD/month although I'd be willing to not save anything if I was living in a really cool place or if working at the school was a really good career move. Conversely, I'd also be willing to live in a worse place if I was making more money.
• ideally not die of air pollution but I know thats asking a lot
• another concern of mine is that I need several years in an accredited school to turn my initial license into a full teacher license

My question is, given these priorities that listed, where should I be looking and what sort of schools should I be applying to? I know the bilingual schools in China are considered crap on here but would this sort of thing fit my needs? Or, is that selling myself short? Should I just applying to these fancy good international schools and see if I get lucky? I'm worried that they won't support me as a NQT which, frankly, I'm sure I'll need. But also sure that others have done it. Thoughts?

Can anyone help please with the process for attesting an experience letter for the UAE?

I got my two previous schools to quickly send me a Google doc with the school’s letter head, when I worked there and signed.

My new school has mentioned it needs to be attested by the UAE embassy. Does this mean it also needs to be notarised and apostilled or I can just send it to the UAE embassy to be attested?

I’ve tried ringing the UAE embassy but they’ve not been helpful.

Hey Everyone,

I am stuck in the middle of two offers and quite confused. The jobs are for teacher positions, similar salaries but ofcourse eruope doesnt offer housing. Any thoughts? I need all the help I can get.

Thanks in advance!

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