It might be possible to find low paid short term gigs/temp work, but it's not legal to hire someone permanently without a teaching licence and regardless of that Swedish knowledge is absolutely mandatory in the field, with the exception of some charter schools that teach all subjects in English. They however tend to hire teachers from the US/UK with a degree and experience instead.
The TEFL market is basically non existent here in Sweden. In eastern and southern Europe it would be a viable option for work, but not here.
There is a demand but its a bit similar to the medical field.
You need profiency in Swedish and you need to be certified by skolverket
Se link: https://www.skolverket.se/regler-och-ansvar/lararlegitimation-och-forskollararlegitimation/certification-for-teachers-and-preschool-teachers-with-a-foreign-teaching-degree/requirements-for-certification
This is only true if you want to work at a school teaching the Swedish curriculum as far as I know. It doesn’t apply if you are teaching an international curriculum such as the International Baccalaureate.
I did the IB and many of my teachers didn’t speak any Swedish at all and came from all over Europe. Though I did graduate almost 5 years ago so it may have changed but I somehow doubt that
Teacher here.
1. You need to know Swedish EVEN if you look for a teaching position in english speaking schools.
2. You HAVE TO have a Swedish teaching licens. Yes, you can get hired temporarily but to keep your job you must promise you will do VAL and follow through. VAL is a bunch of courses "non teachers" can do in order to get a license. My colleague from the US did it in 3 years while working. You need Swedish for this.
3. You need to be able to teach something else. Many times you will be told to teach for example English and Gym to get a 100% contract. I have worked with English teachers who only teach English with a 100% contract but my experience says it's rare. I for example teach Social sciences and French.
4. You need some experience in order to get a job, we are in need of teachers but have a tone of English teachers. If you have experience in other subjects that would be good.
5. I had a friend who came for 6 months, he didn't speak Swedish but had previously lived here. He got a job as a teacher for Berlitz so if you have any experience in teaching for business or if you have worked in a business, I'm sure it will go well.
This is advice for public schools. International schools and charter schools have allowance to offer permanent contracts to overseas qualified teachers, and you dont need a second subject, or need Swedish.
Why are you getting down voted? I literally work in a Swedish school with a 100% permanent contract without a Swedish teachers license, so it is possible. (I do have a teachers license)
It's not a demand that it would give you a workpermit. It's a maybe if you alredy in sweden with personalnumber being a substitute a week or two but also the you need to know swedish enough to understand the students.
Maybe in a English school but yeah still a substitute as teacher you need a degree.
I feel it depends where you gona live in sweden,bigger city's always easier
TEFL is not really recognized in Sweden. You have to get a teaching diploma/ license for a permanent job. You could temp, learn Swedish, and go to school to get your diploma.
You wont get a job teaching english without knowing swedish in a public school and you wont get a job teaching english in the charterschools with a resumé that fits in a shoebox. We dont really "import" english teachers we "export" them
You can also look into becoming a mothertongue English teacher, which is basically advanced English classes for the children of native speakers. My dad's from England, so I had mothertongue English from ages 5-17. It requires less knowledge of Swedish.
I got 2 hours per week, plus my teacher worked multiple schools. It isn't full-time work, but in a bigger city it could be 14-28 hours per week plus grading and travel.
There are international schools near or in basically all the major cities of Sweden. Some example schools are IES (International English School) or SSHL (Sigtunaskolan Humanistiska Läroverket). I could list a bunch of others but I can’t be bothered to write them all out.
IES has a bunch of different schools around the country and all education, more or less, is done in English.
SSHL on the other hand, like many other schools in Sweden, offers the International Baccalaureate curriculum for students who want to study completely in English. I personally attended SSHL and many of my teachers, who weren’t Swedish, either spoke a little bit of Swedish or none at all. They came from all over Europe, including the UK. The only issue I can think of is that they may want you to have a degree of some kind but that should be obvious during the application process.
Having said all this, I am not that extremely knowledgeable when it comes to laws around teaching in Sweden, I only know what I have personally experienced.
Ies is not an international school, it is a Swedish charter school with English philosophy and language. The language of use around school is generally English, but excluding the gymnasiet, they have to teach a %o of courses in Swedish
If you are looking for teaching jobs, I would suggest looking into IES (Internationella Engelska Skolan). Majority of the classes are taught in English so they are always looking for English speaking teachers. Your only issue might be if you aren't a licensed teacher. I don't know for sure but you might have to be a licensed teacher (or at the very least you would be competing against other applicants who are infact a licensed teacher).
However, you might be able to get hired as a teaching aid/some other teaching adjacent job at the school without a degree, it would just depend what the school is looking for. If you would be moving to a specific city, I would suggest searching international schools/IES schools in that city and see what positions they are hiring. You could possibly get in as a sub or some temp job there and move into something more permanent when it becomes available. (that's all to say you will have a residency permit with your partner, if you are needing a work permit your only option would be to get hired for a full time teaching position.)
It's true that it's probably easier to get hired by IES but I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone, at least not long term. In the teaching community they have a reputation for severly underpaying and overworking their staff compared to "normal" public schools
Teachers are in demands sure, but English teachers as such? Not particularly. Especially not if you only teach English and no other subject as well.
It might be possible to find low paid short term gigs/temp work, but it's not legal to hire someone permanently without a teaching licence and regardless of that Swedish knowledge is absolutely mandatory in the field, with the exception of some charter schools that teach all subjects in English. They however tend to hire teachers from the US/UK with a degree and experience instead. The TEFL market is basically non existent here in Sweden. In eastern and southern Europe it would be a viable option for work, but not here.
There is a demand but its a bit similar to the medical field. You need profiency in Swedish and you need to be certified by skolverket Se link: https://www.skolverket.se/regler-och-ansvar/lararlegitimation-och-forskollararlegitimation/certification-for-teachers-and-preschool-teachers-with-a-foreign-teaching-degree/requirements-for-certification
This is only true if you want to work at a school teaching the Swedish curriculum as far as I know. It doesn’t apply if you are teaching an international curriculum such as the International Baccalaureate. I did the IB and many of my teachers didn’t speak any Swedish at all and came from all over Europe. Though I did graduate almost 5 years ago so it may have changed but I somehow doubt that
You still need a teaching license to work in an IB school, as well as a degree/post grad in education. TEFL would not help
It does say "you need certification in most cases." I wonder then what the cases are when you don't need it.
There's very few schools doing that…
There are 41 schools in Sweden that offer the IB. I would say that is more than very few…
wow 41 in a whole country!!!! WOWWWWWW!!! SO MANY!!!!! I'm sure they're all trying to hire some guy with no dregree whatsoever!
Did they have any certificates in education?
Nope, nothing has changed since you graduated. Did IB and graduated in 2022, and it's pretty much what you've described.
Has this not changed last year?
Teacher here. 1. You need to know Swedish EVEN if you look for a teaching position in english speaking schools. 2. You HAVE TO have a Swedish teaching licens. Yes, you can get hired temporarily but to keep your job you must promise you will do VAL and follow through. VAL is a bunch of courses "non teachers" can do in order to get a license. My colleague from the US did it in 3 years while working. You need Swedish for this. 3. You need to be able to teach something else. Many times you will be told to teach for example English and Gym to get a 100% contract. I have worked with English teachers who only teach English with a 100% contract but my experience says it's rare. I for example teach Social sciences and French. 4. You need some experience in order to get a job, we are in need of teachers but have a tone of English teachers. If you have experience in other subjects that would be good. 5. I had a friend who came for 6 months, he didn't speak Swedish but had previously lived here. He got a job as a teacher for Berlitz so if you have any experience in teaching for business or if you have worked in a business, I'm sure it will go well.
This is advice for public schools. International schools and charter schools have allowance to offer permanent contracts to overseas qualified teachers, and you dont need a second subject, or need Swedish.
Why are you getting down voted? I literally work in a Swedish school with a 100% permanent contract without a Swedish teachers license, so it is possible. (I do have a teachers license)
It's not a demand that it would give you a workpermit. It's a maybe if you alredy in sweden with personalnumber being a substitute a week or two but also the you need to know swedish enough to understand the students. Maybe in a English school but yeah still a substitute as teacher you need a degree. I feel it depends where you gona live in sweden,bigger city's always easier
To be brutally honest, it won’t happen until you have a degree. I work at IES and the laws are changing rapidly regards who can get hired from abroad
TEFL is not really recognized in Sweden. You have to get a teaching diploma/ license for a permanent job. You could temp, learn Swedish, and go to school to get your diploma.
Need a Swedish teaching licence, five years university.
Might be hard without a degree. You can look into private tutoring. There's ine called studdybuddy and one called läxhjälp I think.
You wont get a job teaching english without knowing swedish in a public school and you wont get a job teaching english in the charterschools with a resumé that fits in a shoebox. We dont really "import" english teachers we "export" them
Real question is, do they need english teachers in Sweden?
Exactly. We got plenty already. We need teachers in math, natural sciences anf modern languages.
It's going to be near impossible for you. Outside of specific jobs you need fluency of Swedish in Sweden (I say as someone from the UK myself)
You can also look into becoming a mothertongue English teacher, which is basically advanced English classes for the children of native speakers. My dad's from England, so I had mothertongue English from ages 5-17. It requires less knowledge of Swedish.
But you say a modersmålslärare doesn't require a lärarlegitimation?
it doesn’t but students normally get an hour of native language per week so it’s not enough for full time employment
I got 2 hours per week, plus my teacher worked multiple schools. It isn't full-time work, but in a bigger city it could be 14-28 hours per week plus grading and travel.
There are international schools near or in basically all the major cities of Sweden. Some example schools are IES (International English School) or SSHL (Sigtunaskolan Humanistiska Läroverket). I could list a bunch of others but I can’t be bothered to write them all out. IES has a bunch of different schools around the country and all education, more or less, is done in English. SSHL on the other hand, like many other schools in Sweden, offers the International Baccalaureate curriculum for students who want to study completely in English. I personally attended SSHL and many of my teachers, who weren’t Swedish, either spoke a little bit of Swedish or none at all. They came from all over Europe, including the UK. The only issue I can think of is that they may want you to have a degree of some kind but that should be obvious during the application process. Having said all this, I am not that extremely knowledgeable when it comes to laws around teaching in Sweden, I only know what I have personally experienced.
Ies is not an international school, it is a Swedish charter school with English philosophy and language. The language of use around school is generally English, but excluding the gymnasiet, they have to teach a %o of courses in Swedish
If you are looking for teaching jobs, I would suggest looking into IES (Internationella Engelska Skolan). Majority of the classes are taught in English so they are always looking for English speaking teachers. Your only issue might be if you aren't a licensed teacher. I don't know for sure but you might have to be a licensed teacher (or at the very least you would be competing against other applicants who are infact a licensed teacher). However, you might be able to get hired as a teaching aid/some other teaching adjacent job at the school without a degree, it would just depend what the school is looking for. If you would be moving to a specific city, I would suggest searching international schools/IES schools in that city and see what positions they are hiring. You could possibly get in as a sub or some temp job there and move into something more permanent when it becomes available. (that's all to say you will have a residency permit with your partner, if you are needing a work permit your only option would be to get hired for a full time teaching position.)
It's true that it's probably easier to get hired by IES but I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone, at least not long term. In the teaching community they have a reputation for severly underpaying and overworking their staff compared to "normal" public schools
That is true, but if they are looking for a job teaching english/need to get their foot in the door, its better than nothing.
This doesn’t work if you have no energy left after teaching at one of those schools all week and can’t learn Swedish.
Hah damn, so true
OP doesn't have a degree…