Teach Abroad Blog
Teaching abroad
Qualifications for Teaching English Language
TEFL – Teaching English as a Foreign Language / TESOL – Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages A basic first job will usually require a degree and a TEFL or TESOL certificate. There is quite a range in the types of TEFL/TESOL certificates that are available. Teaching Nomad has a partnership with a reputable […]
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!
Living Abroad
Reverse Culture Shock
One difficult part of life as a foreign teacher in China that unfortunately is often overlooked is the ‘reverse culture shock’ experienced when a teacher returns to their home country. In general, the global experience is often highly stimulating and exciting. The foreign teacher is often in a position of higher power and autonomy, and also enjoys a higher standard of life with higher levels of disposable income as the cost of living in China is relatively low. However, when returning home it is often assumed that the teacher will merely slot back perfectly into the home country and company just as it was previously.
As crazy as it sounds when talking about your home country, usually, the repatriate has to relearn an old culture again, but it is often viewed from a different and less understanding perspective then when first experiencing a completely new culture. Frequently the returning teacher is shown little to no sympathy by their peers and friends, as from their viewpoint the teacher has been incredibly lucky to have the opportunity of such an amazing experience and all the other benefits that come with the role, and they are now merely complaining as they have to come back down to ‘reality’. All of this can potentially lead to feelings of being underappreciated and sometimes a loss of direction in life. Unless a person has experienced repatriation themselves they simply cannot relate to the individual, and this lack of understanding can prove to be very frustrating for the repatriate as they find it difficult to relate the value of their international experience to their family, friends, and colleagues.
5 ways to save money while living in China
Moving to China is a fantastic and life altering experience, particularly for someone who has never lived abroad before. Seeing the world through the lens of another society, one with a radically different culture and history and a vastly different center of focus inevitably changes how you view the world and your own society back home. This makes teaching in China rewarding in and of itself. However for most of us rewarding cultural experiences don’t pay off student loans. So for those of us without the benefit of a well-padded bank vault here are some tips for saving money will living in the middle kingdom.
Five Tips To Survive Your First Three Months In China
Living in China has always been at the back of my mind since I interned in Shanghai in 2009. During that summer I fell in love with the city, the people and the adventures; I knew I wanted to come back and call this city “home”. Deciding to move was the easy part, and actually making the move was much harder than I could have imagined. Boston was my home for the past 9 years. While it was hard to say goodbye, the excitement of the great unknown helped me to look forward. I was not able to secure a job before I moved but I took a leap of faith and came on a three month tourist visa. With three suitcases, I landed in Pudong International Airport and thus began the most exhilarating yet stressful first 90 days of my life! Whether you are teaching in China or moving here for other reasons, here are five tips on how I survived the first 3 months in China:
