Are you inspired to start up a blog about your adventures living abroad?
Our 31st blog that we would like to highlight is called “Before the Mountains”. It is written by a student teacher doing their practicum at a British international school! Check out the blog entries of this international school STUDENT teacher who currently is working at an international school in asia.
A Day in the Life of the International School Teacher
“For the first 2 months of my practical, I taught in a third grade classroom of 14 wonderful students. Yes, class sizes are incredibly small compared to U.S. standards, and every class has a full-time teacher’s assistant as well. Mine was amazing! You might be beginning to think this was a walk in the park for me, but let me introduce you to my students. I had 11 boys and 3 girls…tables already turned against me, so to speak. Only 3 of my students came from homes where English is their first language. Six of my students were still receiving daily support for English language learning. Two others received special educational support. Then, we can talk about cultural background: 4 East Asian students, 4 South Asian students, 1 European student, 2 Americans, 2 bi-cultural students, and one Canadian…”
So nice to have a small class size, but as this blogger points out, that does not necessarily mean everything is a piece of cake. It is nice though to have a full time adult aide in your classroom to help. Even better if you get lucky enough to have one of the better ones that work at the school!
It is important to remember that it is pretty much guaranteed that you will have some English Language Learners in your classroom if you plan on teaching at an international school. This blogger is absolutely correct in saying that it will be an every day task for the teacher to help make the curriculum accessible to these students. Having an aide help you make all those visuals, that you may like to use, is also quite helpful!
On a side note, we also have an article on our blog about international school teachers’ dependence on IKEA when living abroad. Check out the article here.
“On some days I was dealing with who said what bad word to whom in Korean while I was trying to make a lesson have enough visual aids to support a child who needed it. At other times, I answered countless “What does ____ mean?” questions during a lesson on whatever that I thought would be pretty straightforward. I often contemplated moving students around the room to deal with behavioral issues, but at every possible arrangement, I had to think, “How is this going to affect that student?” Usually a move of any kind would disrupt the very delicate balance I managed to hold onto. Even though the idea of a small classroom sounds nice, I think there actually needed to be more “balance” kids in the mix. There were new challenges every day of this first half of the placement, but the kids were amazing to work with. I learned that teaching is no easy task. It can make even the toughest person weak in the knees and so incredibly aware of his/her inadequacy…”
Not only do you have students whom do not speak English as their first/home language, it is true that you will also most likely have other issues in your classroom (e.g. students with learning plans, students with behavioral issues, etc.). The key to a successful international school is to think hard about what their view of being an inclusive school is and how it looks like at their school. Having systems and support in place before the students arrive is the ideal situation to strive for. Also, providing teachers with the necessary PD is important so that they can be the most up to date with using some best practice teaching strategies (ones that you would utilize at an inclusive school.
Want to work for an international school in Asia like this blogger is currently doing their student teaching? Currently, we have the following number of international schools profile pages listed in Asian regions of the world on International School Community:
East Asia: 207
SE Asia: 201
Asia: 113
If you are an international school teacher and would like your blog highlighted on International School Community contact us here.
