The Indiana Department of Education invites you to participate in an exciting international opportunity, the Visiting Teacher from Taiwan Program. This program, a joint venture between the Indiana Department of Education and the Ministry of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan), enables local school districts to hire a highly-qualified native Chinese speaker.

Through this program, school districts are able to recruit world language and bilingual education teachers from Taiwan to teach at elementary, middle and high school levels. At the same time it provides students, parents and educators with the opportunity to work with professionals who are native speakers of the target language, bringing an authentic and valuable international perspective to Indiana classrooms. With the growing interest in the Chinese language, this is an opportunity to address the immediate need to place highly qualified teachers of Chinese in schools where positions may be hard to fill.

The visiting teachers make a one to three year commitment to teach in the United States, provided that the school district agrees to rehire them. Participating districts employ these teachers in accordance with state regulations and policies, and pay them according to their experience and certification level. J-1 work visas are issued to the visiting teachers by the Indiana Department of Education.

The visiting teachers are responsible for their own housing arrangements and their immediate expenses until they receive their first pay from the district. However, schools must assist visiting teachers by securing a temporary host/welcome family for the initial days following the teacher¡¦s arrival in the United States

Please disseminate this information to the school principals, the district¡¦s director of human resources, and the district¡¦s department chair for world languages. If you are unfamiliar with Indiana¡¦s Visiting Teachers¡¦ Program, or your school district is in need of a highly qualified, native speaker of Chinese, please contact Caterina Cregor Blitzer, Coordinator of International Education, by phone at 317.234-2375 or by e-mail at cblitzer@doe.state.in.us by April 15, 2007.