Europe: The Old World Needs You!

Moving to Europe offers teachers not only the opportunity to broaden their personal horizons, but also to extend their professional experience into a new arena.

There is a shortage of good quality ESL teachers in Europe, so take heart! The barriers to finding work in each of the fifteen countries of the European Union countries are different, as are the entry levels, and of course, the remuneration. For those of you lucky enough to have parents (and in some cases grandparents) from the "Old World", check if you have the right to a passport from one of these countries, and by inference, verify if this has any effect on your status as an American.

If you have the right to an EU passport you can work in any of the fifteen countries of the EU. This is a major advantage in your job search, broading your potential range of positions and allowing you to begin the job search in the US. The web has now allowed even the most obscure schools to market themselves on a global basis. Otherwise contact the embassy of the country in which you want to work; most will have a list of English language schools, and their contact details.

As a general rule, language schools are more likely to employ an EU passport holder since the school reduces its exposure to bureaucracy and the delays that can overwhelm any application for a work permit. In some cases a school will postpone offering you a contract until you have managed to get a work permit yourself. This raises the age-old conundrum of what to do when you need to have a permit before signing a contract, and the necessity of having a contract before obtaining a permit. In short, there is no easy answer. In order to get a permit, you need to show that you have a certain skill or ability that cannot be found anywhere else in the EU. As the demand for American English is increasing, your situation as an American English speaker should at least give you a start in differentiating yourself from the mass of other applicants. For those of you without rights to an EU passport, there are still a number of avenues that you can follow in order to get to your desired destination while avoiding the uncertainty of arriving in your host country without a job. In the private sector you can apply to a multinational, such as IBM, in order to become an in-house trainer, or sign up with one of the US schools operating in Europe.

The advantages of pursuing the in-house training route are that the company will arrange the work permit for you, you will probably be better paid and you may benefit from a housing allowance.

The disadvantages are that you may well be stepping right back into that American corporate environment from which you moved half way around the world to escape, with the corollary that the rich experience of your stay overseas may be diluted. The other problem is that your work permit is likely to be restrictive, and therefore the possibility of changing jobs while in the host country is much reduced.
Unsurprisingly, companies searching for in-house trainers tend to favor individuals with a track record in English for business, as well as a dose of management experience. This can limit the number of potential candidates for top-end positions but the nature of the work means that some companies will be looking for relatively inexperienced educators interested in pursuing a conservative career track, by starting as trainers before graduating on to management positions.

The other organized method to find that job is to find an American language school willing to send you overseas as an employee. American schools are pioneering the expansion of education as a freestanding industry. There are few major European cities that do not have an American school of sorts. These range from the relatively old "American School" in Bilbao, Spain, to the more modern "Wall Street Institutes," owned by Sylvan, in cities such as Paris and Geneva.

As in the US, increasing numbers of European students are going on to Grad-uate Schools, and a large percentage of the educational institutions are demanding American admissions tests. Therefore a student intent upon studying for a business qualification will have to sit the GMAT as well as the TOEFL or TOEIC. Obviously this method requires teacher training in the US as a prerequisite.

Whichever way you choose to pursue your job search, there are enough opportunities for reasonably well-equipped educators from the US to find a position in Europe, especially given the expansion of the industry, and the lack of native tongue speakers already working there.

Based in Brussels, James Beetham is European Correspondent for American Language Review.