In novels and articles written by Americans I’ve come across the construction to teach school, as in “I teach school” or “He teaches school”, which sounds strange and wrong to my British ears. In the UK we would say something like “I teach in a school” or just “I’m a teacher” or “I work as a teacher”. We might also say “I teach chemistry/French/quantum ironing”, but not “I teach school”.
Is this expression used only in the USA?
Is it used with other educational establishments, e.g. “I teach college” or “I teach university”?
When used in this context what do you understand by the word school?
In the UK school usually refers to a primary or secondary school, though universities do have schools within them, e.g. a School of Modern Languages, and some institutes of higher education are called schools, e.g. the London School of Economics.
