International teaching take 2!

Although job hunting and my interview experiences haven’t been so great of late, I am still not deterred. I am still keen to teach, and with the UK not being considered an option, the international teaching take 2 job hunt continues!

Although I’m quite excited by the prospect of a new beginning and adventure, I’m also really nervous when I start thinking about the unknown. Where could or should I go? Will it be safe? What will it be like? Will I like it? Will I fit in? All of these nervous niggling feelings are always there in the background. And I really do need to give them a good shove out of the way sometimes and not succumb to them.

Of course moving country to the unknown, even if you have travelled there before, is unnerving. But, even though I am someone who really does need to have a word with myself and drag myself out of my comfort zone, the prospect of experiencing something new and different certainly outweighs my fears. And when I think of what the alternative could be, it’s not actually so scary!

So, the international job hunting continues. TES has become my new best friend. Who I seem to be hanging out with on a fairly regular basis! I spend the next couple of weeks checking in with TES several times throughout the day.

Applying to whatever and wherever strikes my interest. Adapting my letter of motivation accordingly to match the person spec and why I am interested in working at that particular school.

I have a couple more interviews in that time also. One where I’m unsuccessful. That’s ok. Obviously not meant to be. Move on to the next one. And another that I turn down. My gut feeling wasn’t quite feeling it after the initial conversation with the management team. Also ok, move on to the next one until it does feel right!

Then of course. As it does. One day something else relatively interesting pops up as I’m checking in with my old friend TES.

So, I read the ad in more detail to find out what they want me to do to apply. My CV is good to go, and I have a letter of motivation from previous applications. I just need to tailor it for this particular position and school. Attach the two documents to an email with a short enthusiastic paragraph and click send. 

I continue to go about my daily business. Enjoying the Summer break at home and checking in with TES in between.

A week or so goes by when I get the email inviting me to a Skype interview early the following week.  

The interview is right in the middle of the day. So, at least I get a bit of a lay-in and plenty of time to try and prepare for what they may ask me.

The time from the email invitation to the interview day seems to go super fast.

As I sit at my laptop waiting for the bubbling of the Skype call once again the nerves kick in. My palms are sweaty, my chest is pounding and my breathing is somewhat erratic! I try to calm myself by taking deep breaths and having a quick last-minute scan of the handwritten notes I have scattered around me with potential answers to potential interview questions.

Suddenly, the Skype call starts bubbling and the 25 or so minute conversation begins.

After stuttering a bit and feeling like I’d messed up the first question, I think to myself that I’ve cocked it up already and have no chance of getting any further beyond this point. Feeling like I’d cocked up at the first hurdle has also kick started my nerves once more! As I’m talking with my sweating palms waving in all directions across the screen and stumbling through my answers.

But, I carry on regardless answering the further questions that are put to me. Partly because I have to. I can’t really say, ‘Sorry, I know I’ve just cocked this all up, bye’ and hang up on them. Well, I suppose I could, but that’s just not me, or particularly professional! The ‘me’ thing is to cringe and squirm my way through it and then hope we never have the embarrassment of crossing paths again!

At the end, we do the polite thank you for your time and they tell me that I will hear from them once they have completed all the interviews etc. All professional, smiley and nice when all you want to do now is close the laptop!

At this point, I am not feeling that hopeful! I just want to forget about the whole sweaty wavy hands, stuttering embarrassing predicament! So, I pack up my laptop and head out for a walk to let off some steam and to try and forget about it. I always seem to let my nerves get the better of me somehow!

The following day my phone suddenly pings with an email from the school. Before opening it I automatically assume it’s another, ‘Sorry, not on this occasion’ email.

However, on this particular occasion, I’m mistaken! The email is to invite me to the next stage of interviews and an observed lesson at the school. I can’t believe it! I’d cocked up the first interview with the first question! How have I managed to get to the second interview stage?!

In order to try and put my nerves to one side and at the same time contain my excitement, I focus on planning my 20 minute lesson. I tell myself that, if anything it’s good interview practice and also a couple of days away in a city I haven’t been to before! I’d visited other cities in the country before, just not this one!

I still wasn’t convinced I was going to get a job offer on the basis of that Skype interview!

The morning of my flight arrives and I’m ready with my passport and teaching resources, including taking my own blue tack to display certain learning resources I’d made! I really was that organised!!

The flight, although only about an hour, is terrible!

It was a really windy day and there was turbulence like I’ve never experienced on a flight before! I can only describe it as a fairground ride, and I don’t do fair ground rides – ever!

So, I just close my eyes and grab the armrests either side until we pass through it. Only, the armrest in the middle is so light. As I grab it, it flies up in the air, my hand slips off and I narrowly miss smacking the poor, old guy next to me in the face by a millimetre!

We eventually land and I’m just hoping the flight back isn’t quite as bumpy. I’m already dreading it! I can’t be doing with embarrassed apologies for almost giving an OAP a shiner!

I make my way out of the airport and catch the train to where I need to go and check in to the hotel.

I just need to chill for a bit before my nerves really start to kick in again with the realisation that I will be having an observed lesson in the morning. When I haven’t had to endure one for a couple of years now. Observed lessons didn’t happen in Spain. We were pretty much left to our own devices. Unless either one of the heads decided to pop in with a message or something gormless and trivial that could have waited until break!

So, I head down to the hotel bar and order a small beer to accompany my meal. Which, I was made to believe from the menu would be pasta shells and mixed vegetables with cheese. However, when my meal arrived it was spaghetti with cheese and a side order of cherry tomatoes! So my vegetables consisted of half a plateful of cherry tomatoes!

After that quite disappointing meal, I head back to my room to prepare for the morning, i.e., sleep!

My alarm inevitably goes off in the morning. I whisper to myself ‘Here goes nothing’ as I turn it off. Going by Google Maps, my hotel is roughly a 15 minute walk from the school. I give myself more than plenty enough time because I just know I’ll need it!

So, an hour and 5 minutes before I’m due to start my interview I leave the hotel. Minus various wrong turns down different streets, walking back on myself at one point and various worrying/stressing moments, I arrive with roughly 20 minutes to spare before the start of my interview.

I get taken into a room with three of the other candidates, who non-surprisingly, are also suffering from a bout of interview nerves!

We get chatting amongst ourselves. One girl is in a similar situation to me. She has already taught internationally and wanted to try somewhere else so this is also her second stint abroad. But she returned home for a while after her last post overseas to spend some time with family before deciding to try international teaching again. Like me, she is also worried about having left it a little late for the following academic year. However, the good thing there being that in Spain the holidays begin a good few weeks before a lot of other countries, which gives us a bit more time to find something elsewhere before their Summer holidays!

Another girl who is currently teaching in Spain and contemplating another stint abroad somewhere different before returning to the UK to teach indefinitely. But is happy to stay in Spain for another year if she doesn’t find something before the end of Summer. So, we had a brief chat about our experiences given that we both taught in Spain.

And a guy who had just qualified to teach the previous summer and who has been supplying since.

The head takes me to the classroom for my observed lesson. I’m given a few minutes to set up before the class is brought back in. All twenty of them. I sit as they make their way in and sit down. I’m observed by the head and one of the directors. Strangely, I don’t feel that worried or bothered about being observed. I honestly thought I’d be terrified and a bag of nerves.

My lesson, as requested, consisted of a year 1 phonics lesson for roughly 30 minutes. I wasn’t given any more information than that! So, I planned for a middle range year 1 ability group with a slightly easier activity, and a challenge for those that were more able or finished quickly. Thankfully, the main activity I had planned for appeared to suit the majority of the class with 2 or 3 needing to complete the easier activity.

Oddly, towards the end, the two of them began to debrief already. Discussing what they thought of the whole thing whilst I was still teaching! I reframed from earwigging! Even though I really wanted to! Just like anyone else would! But, I would have just make it too obvious and end up doing or saying something really gormless whilst I was still talking to the children! So, I wrap it up, collect my things and am taken back to the ‘waiting room’ before the next and final stage of the interview!

I’m waiting for what feels like an eternity before they call me again. I just want it all to be wrapped up and to be done with now! Plus, I also want to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the city a little before my flight back the next day! But at least it gives me a chance to analyse my lesson and prepare myself for some of the questions they may ask.

I’m taken into the director’s office and sit at their desk with the director and head sitting opposite me. From my position, I can see straight out of the window. We’re quite high up, so it’s a good view of the city. As the discussion starts I find myself getting distracted by the view and having to snap myself out of it in order to concentrate on the job at hand!

They began by asking me what I thought. So, I begin, as you do, with the aspects I thought went well, then progressed on to what didn’t seem to go quite so well and how I would ‘change it next time’. I’m glad at this point that I had all that waiting time beforehand to mentally prepare my answers!

They then went on to tell me what they thought and that it was a good lesson. Internally, I take a sigh of relief and hope they don’t notice that I’m being distracted by the view of the city once more! But, I feel as though I can almost rest easy now!

There are a few interview-type questions they ask. For which I am now focused and no longer allowing myself to be distracted by the view of the city! Instead, I am back to sweaty palms, hands waving everywhere as I give my answers. Only this time, instead of across the screen I am literally fanning their faces!

We have a brief chat about life living in the city and different hobbies we’re all into, i.e. different things the city has to offer etc. To be honest, I think they were just desperate for me to calm down and stop fanning their faces with my sweaty palms!

Then we do the professional hand shaking and thank you for your time thingy.

They tell me when I’m likely to hear from them, which ended up being two weeks before I was finally put out of my misery and offered the job!! Happy days!! A new and exciting opportunity coming my way in The Netherlands!!

So, after a, strangely, successful interview, it looks as though I’ll be packing my suitcase and heading overseas once more to begin my second round of international teaching! Lots of new adventures to look forward to and experience! And, I’m pretty sure there will be some more ‘me’ moments, especially as the main mode of transport there is by bicycle!