Teach Abroad Blog
Teaching abroad
Teaching at an International School – Choosing the curriculum
Here at Teaching Nomad, we receive many applications every day from many professional teachers who seek to teach at an international school in China. They’re often confused, however, by the many different curricula utilized across the country, and so we figured we’d give you a basic breakdown of the most widely used curriculums. Just remember that in order to teach at an international school in China you will need a valid teaching license.
Most international schools in China use the CIE, IB, or AP-curriculum. Schools will require teachers to be familiar with the curriculum of the school they’re applying to, so check what curriculum the school you’re applying to is using.
International School Employment in Beijing, China
Our mission at Teaching Nomad is to help make the process of finding a teaching job in China a little easier. I know from personal experience how daunting it can be when you are looking for a job in another country and how scary the whole process can be. Our goal is to help make the transition easier. We want to help teachers all around the world find great schools to work for. In addition, we personally interview every teacher to make sure that we know what kind of job they want. We never try to push teachers into jobs that aren’t right for them.
Just as we need to get to know teachers before we place them with jobs, we also need to get to know the schools. We make an effort to visit the schools we work with to get to know the staff and see the campus. We want to make sure that teachers will have the best experience possible while teaching in China.
We most recently went to visit one of our international schools in Beijing. This school is located in the Changping district of Beijing, about an hour from the downtown area. The school includes many benefits such as free housing on the school’s campus, paid winter break, health insurance and great pay. The school is great for teachers with international teaching experience and IB experience as they are now accredited as an IB institution. The campus is huge and almost all of the students from grades K-12 live on campus.
The day that we went to visit the school, all of the staff were getting ready to go on an evening outing into downtown Beijing to watch the Chinese acrobatic show. Since the school isn’t exactly in downtown Beijing, it’s really great that the school makes an effort to make different parts of the city more accessible to teachers. The school arranges a lot of outings like this for their teachers from big dinners with local government officials to trips to the Great Wall. From just the short amount of time that we spent at the school, we could tell that the teachers and staff are really a tight knit community. The school has even opened a bar on the campus for the staff to hang out and spend time in. The facilities on campus really are state of art. When we first walked up to the school, one of the first things we noticed was the huge driving range on campus for the student’s to practice their golf skills. We toured the primary school and were amazed by the quality of the art and the performances the students put on and create. After seeing the effects of the educational budget cuts in America, it is refreshing to see schools thriving with enough money to sponsor an abundance of recreational and extracurricular activities for students.
Overall, we thought this school was excellent and that it represents a great potential opportunity for teachers looking to teach abroad. The city of Beijing itself is a great place to live with an endless number of hutongs to visit, Great Wall trails to hike and Peking duck to eat.
Click here to check out just one of the great positions available!
By Sophia Isis, Business Development Specialist
Teaching Nomad is an American owned and operated education Recruitment Company based in Shanghai, China. Our goal and purpose is to help great teachers find great teaching jobs. Year round, we have hundreds of teaching job vacancies. Whether your goal is to be an ESL teacher or teach in an international school, we have a teaching job for you. You can browse jobs online at www.teachingnomad.com/job-search for the latest job openings. Teaching Nomad is here to make teaching in China easier, so please feel free to reach out and contact us with any questions or enquiries!
How studying multiple languages can benefit a child’s future
Largely thanks to the position of English as the world’s second language, here in the UK we can sometimes become a little complacent about learning second languages. After all, if everywhere you go the chances of someone speaking English is fairly high, there is rarely that much of an incentive.
However, by overlooking the need for further language skills, we could be missing out on the potential benefits of language skills. This is especially true of our children, as it has been proved that learning a second language in developing years has many long-term cognitive benefits.
Living Abroad
The Ultimate Taobao Guide for Foreigners
Click here for part 2 – Searching and Checking out on Taobao!
When I first moved to Shanghai, China to teach ESL, one of the main problems I faced was being able to find the things I needed. Being in a new country and not speaking any Chinese made it difficult to find what I was looking for. Not to mention, some of the things that I was accustomed to buying in America are not available in many stores here. This is even more true of some of the smaller, less international cities in China.
How to get out of the foreigner bubble
Written by our friends at The Dragon Trip
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. China may be a far cry from the hometown of wine and pizza, but the saying still applies – if you want to make the most out of being in an exciting new environment, make sure you immerse yourself fully in the local way of life. If you’re already in China, it’s likely that you’ve met two very different types of foreigners; there are the ones who move around the city with ease, can act as your translator whenever you are together, and generally seem to be getting more out of their time in China; and then there are those who very rarely leave their expat-friendly complex, unless they are heading to Element Fresh or Wagas. Without a doubt, any person who can muster up the courage to begin a brand new life in China deserves two gigantic thumbs up, but if you’re finding it a little difficult to fully immerse yourself in this very foreign culture, we may just have a few tips to help you along.
15 Things You Can Do In China But Not In The U.S.
Buy Beer in a bag. In many parts of China, you can buy beer by the kilogram. You walk to the store, take a plastic bag off of the beer tap, pour the beer in the plastic bag, weigh the bag and pay accordingly. Then you head down to neighborhoods that are Centuries old, or ancient imperial parks just sipping on your beer. Try doing that next time you’re visiting Liberty Bell.
