I know there's a TON of information floating around about the ALT experience with JET, but I was wondering if I could get some information on being a CIR within the JET program - i.e., exactly how good your Japanese has to be, what else they look for, how competitive it is, etc. If there are any current/former CIRs out there, I'd be especially interested to hear from you.

A little bit of background on me: I've just begun to study Japanese, but it'll be about 4 years before we try to go (as my husband is planning on starting culinary school, and we'd both like for him to finish before we go), so I've got a 4-5 year time window. Japanese is my 4th language, so I've got a bit more language aptitude than the average (though this doesn't make me better! - it just makes the task easier). Is this a reasonable time frame to be able to learn Japanese well enough to apply for the position?

Any other information would be great - what the job is typically like, how your Japanese and other foreign coworkers treat you (if it's any different from the ALT experience), etc.

http://www.ithinkimlost.com/

I think this is the JET Internet forum community.

[ファブリス]

Andrew of ALTDirectory (see ad on main site and forum index) helps people find ALT jobs in Japan so he may be able to help. He is registered here too as "synewave" if you want to contact him.

Have a look at this page:

http://www.cirhomepage.org/

particularly the forums. They should answer all of the
questions that you have.

To answer you question as someone who is not a CIR but who knows several

IMO you dont have to have fantastic Japanese. Most of the ones that I know have passed the JLPT 2. However, you need to be able to communicate effectively - meaning that you would need to have a very "functional" Japanese." In other words, you need to be able to read just above a JLPT 2, but have a very strong foundation for conversation. (sorry that was kinda vague).
One guy I know was asked to read a newspaper article aloud during his interview and then he was asked questions about it

As far as the job is concerned - it seems that all the ones I know do really different things - working at Conbinis, translating for international conferences, working at international plazas ect.

I do believe it is competitive to get though because at least in my area the number of both ALTs and CIRs are decreasing every year. Also, the number of English to Japanese CIRs is smaller proportionally than you might think.

if you can get to JLPT 2 and have at least a year after that to round out your Japanese, I think that youd be just fine.