Teaching at an international school means many new experiences for you as a person and a professional, but what kind of teaching experience do you need? The necessary experience for international teaching can depend on many different factors, from schools to countries to personal preferences. Questions regarding prior experience (be it at home or abroad) are ones we see frequently online. As such, we will discuss what kinds of experience are best suited to help you secure a job at an international school.
Do I Actually Need Home Country Experience for International Teaching?
Do you need prior experience for international teaching? This is perhaps one of the most frequent questions we see, especially on the Reddit sub for International Teachers. There are no quick answers to this question. The short answer is yes AND no. If you’d like more information about what you need to get started teaching internationally, check out our page about basic requirements to teach internationally or schedule a call with us. Let’s take a look, though, at what’s needed concerning necessary experience for international teaching!
Yes, You Need Experience
The easiest response is to say yes; however, it is not always for expected reasons. One reason you might expect is that experience brings expertise. For nearly all professions, we’d rather have someone experienced in the role than someone new to the job. Certainly there are some limited exceptions to this, however.
Stakeholders
In many ways, sports often aspire to have great rookie players. This all depends, however, on the sport and position. Given the option between a proven veteran who can still produce and a rookie who hasn’t proven themselves, many teams opt for the veteran. However, the vetting of new players and the constant talking heads and podcasts indicate that new and upcoming players are still pivotal.
Teaching isn’t really much different. Schools have stakeholders in every aspect of their work, and students and parents are the most important among them. Our job as educators is to help students develop and grow as people and learners. Naturally, school administrators and parents want the best person for the job. Since teaching requires considerable on-the-go flexibility and change and can be very stressful, a more experienced educator is better suited (on average) to handle these requirements. Schools, especially where parents pay hefty tuition, don’t want to teach teachers how to fit in while helping them learn to be teachers.
As stakeholders, parents (and schools) pay for an experienced teacher to lead the class. I’ll use American football as an analogy. The quarterback position is one of the most, if not the most, important positions in the game. Many rookie quarterbacks do not hold onto those starting roles for over a few years. They have trouble adapting to the game’s pace and the systems or can’t rise to the level of play beyond college football. Those lead most NFL teams with several years of experience under their belts. After their first season, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes weren’t hailed as GOATs. It took several years (and some important wins) for that to happen.
School stakeholders want to maximize value, meaning prior experience for international teaching wins out over inexperience almost every time. However, there are still some unexpected reasons you might not get hired due to lack of experience.
Visas
For some schools and places, experience in international teaching isn’t in the hands of the school but rather the government. Some countries, such as China, Vietnam, and Indonesia, require a prospective hire with proven experience to acquire a visa. This means whether a school or parents are okay with new teachers doesn’t matter. It may simply not be an option for schools.
Home-Country Experience
While we’re on the topic of experience for international schools, we have to discuss prior experience and experience in your home country. Some countries require a minimum of years of experience and also require that this experience be in your home country. For many teachers, this can be a deal breaker. Many of us want to leave our home countries because the quality of teaching there is so atrocious. This means that needing that experience could drive you out of education altogether before ever having the opportunity to teach internationally.
Home-country experience is something to be mindful of as you look for jobs. We suggest double-checking with possible employers whether it is a requirement. You can also ask around, such as on the Reddit sub for International Teachers.
Settling In
This aspect of needing prior experience for international teaching is internal rather than external, like visas or stakeholders. Teaching, for those of us who have done it, can be both incredibly rewarding and incredibly stressful. For many, the first few years of teaching can often be the worst. You’re trying to figure out how to manage your classroom while balancing unit and lesson planning, grading, differentiating for your students, attending meetings, and everything else that comes with working in a school while still trying to have a personal life.
Moving to a new country is also incredibly stressful! You are dealing with a new culture, likely a new language, figuring out little aspects of your life like where to get groceries or how to see a doctor. Culture shock is a very real thing and affects everyone who has ever traveled or moved abroad (for more information, see our post on Culture Shock). You will be leaving friends and family and your overall support system behind. Yes, there are modern ways to communicate, and you will absolutely meet new (and probably lifelong) friends at work, but that doesn’t make it any easier initially.
If you move abroad to teach without any necessary experience for international teaching, you’re adding two stressful events to your life. Moving to a new country while learning how to handle your first classroom with a new employer can be overwhelming for some. Having prior experience in teaching means you know how you want your classroom to look and aren’t stressed about how to set it up. Yes, you might need to get used to the new school’s culture and worry about the time available, but generally, you know what to do. It’s less stressful for you and makes moving abroad to teach easier.
No, You Don’t Need Prior Experience for International Teaching
The harder answer for Do I need experience for international teaching? is no. As with most literally everything else, you’ll only find out an answer to your question if you attempt to answer it. Do you need prior experience in international teaching? Yes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a job without it!
We believe that you lose nothing in trying. The worst thing that can happen will be you get told, “No, we’re not going to hire you,” or “You need more experience,” in which case you’re back in the same position you were before, only with some definitive answers. We always advocate trying to get a job if you have no prior experience. I got my first job internationally, which was my first teaching job, as I was finishing my Master’s with no prior experience. Not to negate the words of Yoda, but there’s no harm in trying!
International Teaching – No Experience Necessary!
Okay, so above, we discussed how important experience is to secure a job at an international school, be it from the stakeholders’ perspective or the country to which you’re applying. This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t get a job without experience. You absolutely can! BUT there are probably going to be some caveats.
Caveats of Teaching Abroad with No Experience
If you start looking and applying for international teaching jobs with no prior experience, you’ll likely notice a few different things compared to those with experience or when you do apply later with experience. Let’s take a look.
Lower Tier of Schools
We have an upcoming post on the school ‘tier’ system, but for the purpose of this post, here’s the generalized basics of what you need to know:
- The school tier system is highly subjective and, for the most part, based on personal experience and opinion.
- Schools are generally put into three categories:
- Tier 1: Big, high-achieving schools that are rigorous (for students and teachers), with great packages and diverse student bodies, often in major metropolitan areas. They are often non-profit, independent schools.
- Tier 2: Big schools, but maybe not nearly as rigorous, still pretty good packages and may or may not have as diverse student bodies. It might be, sometimes, in less desirable locations. It can be for or non-profit.
- Tier 3: This category includes any size school and might not be academically rigorous at all. Packages are generally not well regarded, and student bodies could be diverse but will likely have far more host country students. These schools are more likely to be for-profit than not-for-profit.
Remember, these are general descriptions of school tiers frequently tossed around by teachers. There is no actual system; a Tier 1 school can be great or terrible. The same goes for Tier 2 or 3. Nothing is guaranteed by any means.
Keeping these tiers in mind, know that applying to positions with no prior experience means you’ll likely see far more action and responses from the Tier 3 and Tier 2 schools. You might get some responses from a Tier 1, especially if you’re in a hard-to-fill position like high school math or science. Again, however, remember that top schools tend to cost more for parents, so stakeholders tend to play a bigger role in hiring, whether or not you’re a good teacher and whether or not it’s actually a good school.
With lower-tier schools, you are likely to be offered less-than-great packages. Salaries may not be as high; housing may be skimped on, or any other possible package outcomes that may be less beneficial to you.
With your lack of experience for international teaching, you might also find some of the schools are ‘international’ in name only. They might be using an international curriculum, but everything about the school, from staff to students, is local.
None of these are bad, nor do they signal a bad school that will lead to a bad experience. They are just things to be mindful of that you’ll likely encounter when applying to jobs with no experience for international teaching. There’s also no guarantee you WON’T get a great ‘Tier 1’ job! You never know! If you manage to get a job, you’re already on your way to teaching abroad and will gain the two most important aspects of international teaching:
- Experience – As we’ve seen above, it’s a great help in finding different and better jobs!
- Connections—These are the biggest boons in learning about and getting the jobs you might want at an international school. Despite so many schools, the international school community is really quite small, and these connections are great ways to secure future jobs!
Final Thoughts on Experience for International Teaching
Ultimately, we recommend having prior experience for international teaching. It will make moving abroad easier. Experience not only makes finding jobs at better schools easier, but it also makes moving and teaching easier. When you first go abroad, adjusting to life in a new country can be hard. Knowing how to run and set up a classroom helps with that transition. It’s one less thing to worry about both for you and the school, and schools know this. They don’t want to teach you how to also be a teacher on top of everything else.
However, you lose nothing in applying with no prior experience. The best-case scenario is you get a job! It may not be the best school or the best package (but it could be!), but it’s a chance to live in a new country and gain practical teaching experience. The worst-case scenario is you don’t get a job, and you’re back to square one in working in your home country, at which point, you will be more experienced the next time you try to apply for a teaching job abroad.
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