After returning from Europe, Rachael Grant is preparing to go back to school teaching in South Korea.  

Getting ready to go back to school for two SFU Education students means working through visa applications, reading through travel books and all the other details with relocating to a new country. Katherine Mulski and Rachael Grant are getting ready for an international teaching opportunity that will find them in a new classroom in a new country and experiencing teaching from a new perspective. Both hope to come back with a world of experience that will enhance their teaching practice in Vancouver’s multicultural classrooms.

Katherine also believes the international experience will broaden her perspective on how she will teach in a local classroom. “I think it will enhance my ability to relate with students in a local and multicultural classroom,” she says. Having completed PDP and with her first international teaching experience in Trinidad and Tobago under her belt, Katherine plans on coming back to be a teacher but as she is getting ready for “back-to-school” in South Korea, she feels she learns best when she’s out of her element.

“International teaching opportunities such as these is not a vacation,” she explains. “You learn a lot about a new culture immediately and you are thrown into situations that may be out of your usual comfort zone and it really is an opportunity for self-discovery.”

Rachael graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree last year and after completing the PDP program is two courses away from completing a Bachelor of Education as a second degree. The oldest of eight children, she has always wanted to be a teacher. When a summer job as a child care worker on the NCL cruise line took her to distant places such as Russia, Estonia, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, she was hit hard with the travel bug. The opportunity to teach in South Korea couldn’t have come at a better time.

“I had just returned from three months of travel and although I was excited to start PDP, I wanted to travel some more,” explains Rachael. “I believe that this will really benefit me as a teacher because there is such a high need for E.S.L. teachers in the Lower Mainland who have first-hand experience.”

Click here for more information about international education programs and opportunities to teach abroad through International Programs in the Faculty of Education.