How to write an English teacher cover letter

The shape of a teacher’s cover letter

Four paragraphs, one job each. A head of department reads dozens in a week; nothing after the fourth paragraph gets read. Three more decisions sit outside those four: who it is addressed to, whether it is an attachment at all, and what you offer alongside it.

1. 1
   Paragraph one: their class × yours

   Sentence one repeats the posting’s conditions: grade, class size, the framework (CEFR, IB, IGCSE). Sentence two gives the matching result with [N] and says how it was done. No introduction, no line about how much you admire the school.

2. 2
   Paragraph two: two student outcomes

   Pick the two resume lines closest to their programme: a band or pass rate that moved, and a curriculum other teachers took over. Name something they published — a handbook, an inspection report, an annual report — to show you read it.

3. 3
   Paragraph three: one teaching habit

   Actions, not traits: test before placing, a progress report home every few weeks, writing marked against the public descriptors. End on one real question about something their handbook leaves open.

4. 4
   Paragraph four: when, how, and the score

   Start date, the demonstration lesson on site or online, the licence and the test score in one clause, resume attached. The score is [N] and nothing follows it. No further thanks, no “fluent”.

5. 5
   The subject line, and who it is addressed to

   Most teaching applications go to an email address rather than into a form, so the subject line is the first thing read: the post and your name, nothing else. Use a name if the school publishes one — staff pages usually list the head of English — and “Dear Head of English” when they do not. “To whom it may concern” costs more here than in other fields: someone who did not open a single page of the site is not the person who read the curriculum handbook.

6. 6
   The letter is usually the body of the email

   International school postings often read “send your CV and a letter of application to…”. When they do, do not attach the letter as a second PDF with “please find attached” in the body. Write the four paragraphs into the email and attach the resume. What the head of department reads on a phone at the end of a teaching day is then your first paragraph, not a file waiting to be downloaded. Attach it only when the posting asks, and name the file with your name and the post.

7. 7
   What is attached, and what is only offered

   Teaching applications ask for more than most: referees, often required to include your current head; a copy of the licence; sometimes a recorded lesson. All of it belongs in one clause of the last paragraph, offered on request, not given a paragraph each. If a video exists, give the link and say nothing about what is in it. Describing the lesson asks the reader to believe your adjectives instead of clicking.

What each paragraph is doing

Paragraph by paragraph: the job each one carries, and what it deliberately leaves out.

1. 1

   Your posting for a Secondary English Teacher asks for someone who can move mixed-ability classes of up to [N] students, grades ten to twelve, towards a CEFR target. That has been my brief for [N] years at a bilingual private secondary school in Taichung, where I doubled the share of grade-ten students reaching B1 on the school’s external benchmark, from [N]% to [N]%, through a graded-reader programme of [N] titles a term.

   The first sentence hands the posting back: mixed-ability classes, grades ten to twelve, a CEFR target. The second answers it with “doubled the share … from [N]% to [N]%” and says how (a graded-reader programme). No introduction, no “I am very interested in your school”.

2. 2

   Two further results are shaped like your programme. The mean IELTS writing band of a [N]-student grade-twelve cohort rose from [N] to [N] in one academic year after I replaced free-topic essays with weekly timed tasks marked against the public band descriptors — the exam your grade-twelve students sit for university entry. I also wrote the [N]-unit CLIL science-English curriculum now taught across [N] classes by [N] colleagues, the cross-curricular model your most recent inspection report recommends for the middle years.

   Each result is matched to a shape on their side: the IELTS writing band to the exam their grade twelve sits, the CLIL curriculum to the cross-curricular model their inspection report recommends. “Your most recent inspection report” is the proof of homework, and the only compliment the letter pays.

3. 3

   Those figures rest on two habits: I test before I teach, and I write home before a parent has to ask. At a chain language institute before this post, a diagnostic in the first fortnight moved [N] misplaced students to the right level and halved first-term dropout, from [N]% to [N]%; a written progress report every [N] weeks took term-to-term re-enrolment in my classes to [N]%. Your curriculum handbook says students are set by level on entry; how often are those sets reassessed during the year?

   The habit is two actions — test before teaching, write home before a parent asks — backed by the institute years: the placement diagnostic and the progress report, figures left as [N]. It ends on an actual question, how often sets are reassessed, which the handbook does not say. A head of department replies to the applicant who asked the right question.

4. 4

   I can start in [N] weeks and am free to teach a demonstration lesson, on site or over Zoom, whenever your timetable allows. I hold a CELTA and a Taiwan secondary teaching licence; my IELTS Academic score is [N] overall, CEFR C1. My resume is attached; every claim above has its figure there.

   Three sentences: when, how the demonstration lesson can happen, and the licence with IELTS [N]. The score sits in the last paragraph, in the same clause as the licence, and nothing follows it: by this line the English of the first three paragraphs has already answered the non-native question, and the score is the receipt. “Every claim above has its figure there” sends the reader to the resume.

Six ways to open

The first sentence tells the head of department two things: you read the posting, and you have taught that class. Six ways in, none beginning with “I am writing”.

• Your posting asks for a teacher who can take grades ten to twelve, in classes of up to [N], to an external CEFR benchmark by graduation; that has been my timetable for the past [N] years.

  Posting conditions → your timetable, in one sentence. For postings that state the grades and the class size.

• The mean IELTS writing band of my grade-twelve cohort rose from [N] to [N] in one academic year, and your latest inspection report names writing as the skill where your grade-twelve students lose marks.

  One result → a weakness their own published report admits. For schools with an inspection or annual report online.

• The [N]-unit CLIL science-English curriculum I wrote is now taught by [N] colleagues across [N] classes, which is the cross-curricular model your middle-years handbook describes.

  An adopted curriculum → the model their handbook describes. For postings weighted towards curriculum design.

• Your grade-eleven classes change teacher in January, and taking a group over mid-unit is work I have done: I picked up [N] classes in week [N] of a term and left the assessment calendar exactly as it was.

  A mid-year vacancy → the fact that you have taken a class over before. Continuity is the whole job here, not course design; follow it with a firm date.

• Families in my grade-ten classes get a written progress report from me every [N] weeks, which is more often than your parent handbook asks of subject teachers.

  One habit → what their handbook asks for. For postings that put form-tutor duty and parent communication in the job description; sentence two has to land a student result straight away.

• I have taught the same exam-preparation syllabus to [N] thousand adult learners at a chain language institute, and I am applying to your secondary programme because I would rather have the same students for three years than for ten weeks.

  Institute to school → the reason for the move, stated plainly. Keep the reason concrete about the age group and the length of contact, not about wanting more impact.

Who opens this letter, and what they are checking

An English teacher’s letter has a property no other application has: it is the work sample. Nobody asks you for a separate piece of writing, because the reader is already holding one. Six things they check, roughly in this order.

1. 1
   The head of department, with a demonstration timetable open

   HR or the school office screens first, for licence and work permit; the head of English reads second, and reads at a specific moment — a sheet of demonstration-lesson slots on the desk, and more applicants than slots. So the letter has to say what they could ask you about afterwards: which grade, how many students, measured with what, moved how far. A letter that cannot answer those four does not earn a slot.

2. 2
   The prose itself, read as the writing sample

   This is one of the few posts where no separate writing sample is requested, because the letter is one. The reader is answering two questions with it: could a paragraph of this be put in front of a class, and can this person write a report-card comment and an email home with nobody editing it? Short sentences, one tense to a paragraph, articles in place. The meter beside the sample counts words, paragraphs and clichés; the grammar is on you and on whoever reads it aloud before it goes.

3. 3
   Whether the licence, the degree and the permit line up

   This check happens before the head of department sees anything, and it is binary: which country issued the teaching licence, what the degree is in, what the host country requires for a work permit. It passes or it stops; there is no middle. Naming the licence in full with its issuing body, and giving a start date, keeps it from costing the week of back-and-forth email in which teaching posts get filled.

4. 4
   Which English you actually teach

   “English teacher” is one line on a resume and four or five different jobs inside a school: EFL and ESL support, IB Language B, Language and Literature, IGCSE first language, exam preparation for university entry, business English for adults. The head is checking that you know the difference and use their words for it. Calling their Language B class ESL, or discussing CEFR bands with a school that reports IGCSE grades, admits you never opened the curriculum page.

5. 5
   What your classes were actually like

   “Taught senior English” covers a group of a dozen at a language institute and a state-school class of thirty-odd spread across three levels. The head cares about the second, so every result in the letter carries a class size and how the group was set. Leave it vague and demonstration day produces the one question you cannot answer well: how many students was that?

6. 6
   Whether your dates fit an academic year

   Teaching hires run on the school calendar, not on the day a post appears. Schools opening in August decide between November and February; a vacancy mid-year exists because someone took leave or resigned early. So “available immediately” is not a selling point in this field, and “my current classes finish in June” is. A last paragraph with a date that fits their year beats one that offers speed.

When it stops being the same letter

The posts an English teacher applies for sit in institutions that read for entirely different things. One letter sent to all of them gets no reply from any of them. What has to change each time.

• An international school against a bilingual stream in a local school

  An international school reads for framework — IB, IGCSE, AP — and for whether you can pick up a course that already exists. A bilingual stream inside a local school reads for something else: whether you can teach a subject in English under a homeroom system, with term exams and a parents’ evening at the end of it. So paragraph two swaps: courses and bands for the first, the class you ran and how you divided the work with the homeroom teacher for the second. “Bilingual” is not the same word in the two places.

• A chain language institute or a cram school

  There is no curriculum here, only re-enrolment. The branch manager wants to know whether parents sign up for the next term, whether you write the progress report, and whether you are there on registration day. Paragraph two becomes the placement diagnostic, the retention figure and the parent report, and CEFR bands give way to what a parent recognises — a test score that moved, left as [N]. Curriculum-design language reads as noise in that building.

• A post that opens in the middle of a year

  These appear in November or March because someone went on leave or left early. The argument is not that you can design a course; it is that you can take one over without restarting it — joining a unit in progress, keeping the assessment calendar, reading another teacher’s planning and mark book. Say in the first paragraph how many classes you picked up mid-term and in which week, then give a firm date. To a school that needs someone standing in the room on Monday, a teaching philosophy is worth nothing.

• A post abroad, especially one asking for a native speaker

  Some countries tie the work permit to the country that issued the passport or the degree; that is visa law and no letter moves it. Some schools write the phrase out of habit. The way to tell is whether the posting offers an alternative — a teaching licence and a degree in the subject. Where it does, the letter does two things and no more: the licence goes near the top, and the English of the letter argues the rest. Do not discuss the requirement, and do not defend yourself against it.

• Moving in from the next chair along

  From teaching Mandarin as a foreign language, corporate English training, a university language centre or online tutoring, the gap is usually the same two things: classroom management and assessment. So paragraph two takes whichever part of your experience looks most like school — a fixed group, an assessment you can measure, a run longer than a term — and paragraph three names the gap once, with what you have already done about it: credits taken, lessons observed, cover taught. Name it once. Do not apologise for it.

• A recruitment fair or an introduction from a colleague

  Fairs and teacher networks are the most common way into this profession, and they change the letter’s shape: it is sent before a meeting rather than attached behind a resume. The first paragraph says who introduced you and which fair; the last drops the demonstration lesson and asks for a slot instead. It can run shorter than a letter answering a posting, because it only has to last until you sit down together.

The mistakes English teachers make most

• Apologising for not being a native speaker

  “Although English is not my first language” writes the rejection for them. The letter is the language sample; the score appears once, as [N], and nothing else is said about it.

• Listing grades taught and coursebooks used

  “Taught grades seven to twelve with Oxford and Cambridge materials” is a timetable, not an outcome. Each claim needs a class size, a measure and a distance moved.

• A dropped article or a drifting tense

  A teacher’s letter is read sentence by sentence. A missing “the”, or a tense that slides from past to present, is a small flaw on an engineer’s letter and direct evidence on yours. Have a fluent reader say it aloud before sending; a spell-checker will not catch it.

• Praising the school

  “Your prestigious school” tells them what they know. “Your most recent inspection report” tells them you read what they published, which is worth far more.

• Writing institute work as a side job

  A chain language institute holds the cleanest data a teacher has: placement tests, re-enrolment rates, thousands of learners. Name it as “a chain language institute” and give the figures.

• Leaving no question

  The question closing paragraph three is the reason a head of department replies. Ask about something the handbook leaves open — not salary, not visa sponsorship.

• Putting your teaching philosophy in the letter

  “I believe every student can succeed” cannot be argued with, which is the same as saying it cannot be checked, and every letter in the pile carries a version of it. Schools that want a philosophy ask for a separate statement; write it then. The few hundred words here belong to sentences that carry a figure.

• Using the wrong framework’s vocabulary

  Writing CEFR bands to a school that reports IGCSE grades, calling their Language B class ESL, or citing gains on an exam their students never sit are the same error: you did not read the curriculum page. Use the words they record grades in, and put your own in brackets beside them.

• A result with no class size attached

  “The mean band rose from [N] to [N]” is missing the half that decides what it is worth: how many students, and how the group was set. Without it, a dozen learners at an institute and thirty-odd in a state-school class look identical on the page — and the head of department will ask on demonstration day. The class size costs four words.

FAQ

How do I state my English level without apologising?

Once, as a test and a score: “IELTS Academic [N] overall, CEFR C1”, in the same clause as your teaching licence, and then stop.

No “although”, no “fluent”, no story about how you learned. The letter is the sample and the score is the receipt; each extra sentence reads as a patch.

Do international schools actually read cover letters?

The head of department does, before deciding whether to schedule a demonstration lesson. HR screens licences and visa eligibility in the first round; the head reads the letter for one thing — whether the classes you taught changed measurably.

So the letter is short, carries figures, and matches their programme.

What if the school has not published an inspection report or a handbook?

Most international school websites carry a curriculum page, an annual report or accreditation details (IB, CIS, WASC). Failing that, quote one line from the posting itself and answer it; the effect is the same — you show you read it.

Should the letter mention the demonstration lesson?

Yes. International schools nearly always run one in the second round; saying in the last paragraph that you can teach it on site or online saves the reader an email.

Do not describe how you would teach it. That is what the lesson is for.

Which figures from language-institute work still count when I apply to a school?

The ones that transfer: the placement diagnostic, the assessment you built, how often you wrote to parents, materials other branches took up. Each has a counterpart inside a school, and a head of department reads them as teaching.

Re-enrolment and recruitment numbers mostly do not — a school has no equivalent, and quoting them reminds the reader you come from a different kind of institution. Translate them into the school version: students who stayed in your elective, parents who replied, colleagues who taught from your planning.

The post starts mid-year and my current classes are unfinished. Do I say so?

Yes, and say it as a date. What worries a school is not that you arrive two months late; it is that you would leave a class halfway to take the job — because someone who does that to another school can do it to them.

Write “my current classes finish in June, and I can start after that”, or give the notice period your contract sets. More schools will wait for the end of a term than you expect.

The posting says native speakers only. Is it worth applying?

Work out first whether that is law or preference. Some countries tie the work permit to the country that issued your passport or your degree, and no letter moves that. A posting that also offers an alternative — a teaching licence plus a degree in the subject — is stating a preference.

Where it is a preference, apply, but change the order: licence and certification first, student results straight after, proficiency once as a score. Do not argue with the requirement inside the letter. A letter that reads cleanly is the argument.

Related guides

• STAR: how to answer with evidence
• What each interview round actually tests
• Preparing for interviews in English