Complexity amidst Diversity: Exploring the Lives of LGBTQ International Teachers

This paper analyzes findings from research with 23 lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer international educators and their experiences working in non-Western countries. This study documents the participants’ struggles, challenges, and triumphs of teaching overseas. In-depth interviews, as the data collection method, focus on changes made to thrive in the new country context and barriers to job success. The data reveals four key themes: (1) shifting identities in the new location; (2) belonging as a spectral concept; (3) work ethic as personal security; and (4) queer initiatives and student engagement. The authors introduce the notion of “belonging-scape” to suggest that while LGBTQ international educators faced a series of hetero/cisnormative borders, their sense of belonging to the workplace and to the community was in constant flux. Recommendations for educational administrators to ameliorate challenges unique to LGBTQ international teachers conclude the paper.

Frontiers of cosmopolitanism: Educational enclaves and the extractive roots of international schools

This article situates international expatriate schools in their cultural and political economy by drawing attention to the tensions between a cosmopolitan educational ethos and processes of social, economic and legal enclavement. Based on extensive multi-sited ethnographic research in the international school sector, we show how cosmopolitan claims of openness mirror a relative closure and ‘offshore-like’ enclavement. To do so, we build upon the notions of modularity and extractivism, which we use as heuristics to analyse social and spatial practices of defining boundaries. Gazing beyond the main foundational myth of international schools, we first outline their concomitant extractive roots. Second, we shed light on the conditions of international teachers’ circulation worldwide. Third, we examine the territorial entanglements and disentanglements that characterise international schools. Finally, we investigate the tensions induced by a cosmopolitan educational ethos whose discourse of inclusion is inevitably paired with practices of exclusion.

Teaching teachers phonetics: The design and implementation of an asynchronous online English phonetics course

It is axiomatic that one of the chief goals of an applied linguistics program is to instruct teachers in the intricacies of English language structure. Explicit knowledge of the target language can help domestic and international teachers when dealing with adult 2nd language learners. But while most programs offer courses in English grammar, we found a paucity of (online) phonetics classes. We discuss three characteristics to be included in an online phonetics course: the description and learning of the sounds of the world’s languages, the technology-based collaborative procedures to narrowly transcribe a wide range of accented English speech, and the specific design to engage a variety of online students. Particular attention is devoted to our unique collaborative online project that at once trains students in the phonetic analysis of non-native speech. The results of these analyses are contributed to the online database, the speech accent archive (accent.gmu.edu), thereby giving students ownership of a publicly available online archive. The outcomes are described, with justifications and specific methods for measuring them. This paper emphasizes that learning to narrowly transcribe leads to enhanced listening and analysis, and that peer-to-peer collaboration is vital for any asynchronous online class.

Homeward Bound: Educational Leaders’ Perceptions of Hiring Repatriating International Teachers

The purpose of this study was to determine how educational leaders interpret job applications from international teachers who are planning to repatriate. Ten rural and urban educational leaders from the Canadian province of Manitoba were presented with three different fictitious cases to screen and analyze for shortlisting purposes. The findings suggest that international teachers need to clearly communicate their work experiences and explain how acquired intercultural and linguistic competencies would be advantageous for the school community. Educational leaders should apply an international awareness when screening job applications. Recommendations for both leadership development and global teaching careers are offered.

Understanding Teacher Identity as an International Teacher: An Autoethnographic Approach to (Developing) Reflective Practice

The teaching profession in England and Wales has been experiencing a steady decline in its workforce, with a significant number of teachers making the decision to move abroad and teach in international schools. Teachers cite working conditions, institutional pressures and pay and conditions at home as reasons to seek employment elsewhere. Meanwhile, exploring teachers’ experiences of teaching abroad is a relatively new area of research. The growth of international schools from 1964, when there were only around 50 such schools, to 2017, with over 8,000 international schools and some 420,000 teachers, indicates a need to understand teachers’ personal and professional experiences as they navigate these different contexts. This research presents a small case study of how autoethnography can be used as a methodological tool to support international teachers in revealing changes in their teacher identity, as well as promoting the development of their sense of self-efficacy within different sociocultural school contexts. Through Julia Sahling’s autoethnographic study, this paper explores how teachers may be able to actively engage in critical reflective practice in order better to understand these dynamic transitions, as well as the implications of teaching in multiple international contexts.

Be(com)ing and the International Teacher

Despite the growth of international schools and the increasing demands for teachers, there remains a dearth of knowledge regarding teachers and their development of praxis within an international setting. Within the study, praxis is understood as the entire skills, knowledge and experience teachers draw upon when developing their work – a process grounded in reflexivity. Praxis moved the static understanding of doing work, by enabling work and practitioner as an ongoing process of becoming. The current study seeks to shed some light into this space. In particular, it aims to explore why and how secondary school teachers become ‘international', and the impact such development has on their praxis. It also seeks to explore how teachers, as front-line workers, position themselves within the discourse surrounding international schools as artificers of a global elite driven by a Western, globalist agenda. An emergent theme is the centrality the International Baccalaureate plays for international teachers.

Mentoring, Role Modeling, and Acculturation: Exploring International Teacher Narratives to Inform Supervisory Practices

As teacher shortages continue in countries worldwide, international teachers may be recruited from other countries to help fill critical teacher vacancies, particularly in high-need subject areas such as mathematics and science. International teachers are a unique group who have specific needs, which could be addressed through school administrators’ supervisory practices. To understand international teacher needs, a review of the literature from 2009 to 2019 was completed to examine the extent to which dimensions of mentoring, role modeling, and acculturation were represented in international teacher narratives in peer-reviewed journals. In the course of the review, a fourth dimension of principals and ITs was found in the literature and explored. Findings from the literature review pointed to four themes related to the three identified dimensions: (a) a need for induction, (b) role modeling as collegial support, (c) international teacher acculturation issues, and (d) principal perspectives of ITs. The international teacher themes discovered through this review of the literature may help to inform the supervisory practices of school administrators as they strive to ensure positive outcomes for international teachers.