MOVING ABROAD: THE PLIGHT OF MIGRANT TEACHERS

Teacher Education

The primary objective of this study was to explore the experiences, difficulties, causes, consequences, coping mechanisms, and insights of teachers who previously taught in the New Bataan District and are now working as primary and junior high school teachers in other countries. A phenomenological qualitative design was employed and purposive sampling was utilized in selecting the eight participants who previously taught in the New Bataan District and are now working as primary and junior high school teachers in other countries. The findings of the study revealed that the experiences encountered by the participants were coming to school early to prepare learning plan, coming to school early before the start of classes, flexible teaching time, ride on a bicycle in going to school, and going to school early on a scooter. Their motivations were high salary, financial security, personal growth opportunities, international exposure, and favorable working conditions abroad. The factors that influenced teachers were offered salary, opportunities for professional growth, quality of the workplace, the attractiveness of the living environment, and shared experiences from friends. The difficulties faced were imposing discipline, preparing students for standardized tests like the ACT, teaching English as a second language, managing the care of very young children, and overcoming classroom management issues coupled with language barriers. The coping mechanisms migrant teachers used were keep in touch with family, hangout and attend parties, and hangout with friends. The insights were learner-centered environment a better approach, need to separate personal feelings from profession, providing teaching and learning needs enhances better outcome, study students’ culture and needs, working on learning materials a better choice, research the culture of students, and learning materials need not to be pompous.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.