Expert: Bonnie Shimmin - 4/23/2011

Question
Hi,

I am an English BA and teaching degree graduate, with 2 yrs experience. I want to know what I would need to effectively up and move to Florida, and to continue my career there. Would I have to retrain, or take additional qualifications? is there any demand for foreign-trained teachers in Florida?

Regards.

Answer
Dear Rachel,

All of my education experience has been in California.  Each state in the U.S. has different requirements for obtaining teaching credentials, so I am not really qualified to expound upon Florida's system.  

I will say, however, that I have employed people from other countries and California is a notoriously nitpicky place to find work.  The teachers from other countries I worked with had to have undergraduate degrees in the subject they intended to teach and have passed the appropriate state exams in the same way that any other teacher must.  Most people then have to take college courses to obtain the renewable state credential.  If you have a credential from the U.K., then that may be waived.  Perhaps not waived, but you may have to take only one or two courses that the state finds very important for employment there.  (My cousin once moved from California to a small town in Oregon and had to take a class in working with minority populations in order to obtain a state credential though she'd been teaching in California for ten years.)  

Do you wish to teach English at the secondary level or are you open to elementary teaching?  There are generally fewer jobs in English (my subject, too), but there are always some.  I'd contact an admissions advisor at a Florida college near where you want to live to find out the specific requirements for teaching in their state.  Also, have you looked into programs where British teachers come to the U.S. to teach, and U.S. teachers go to the U.K.?  I've not had experience with that, but I've heard of others doing it and thought it sounded like a lot of fun.  I'd be interested in hearing about your progress.

Cheers,
Bonnie