ThomasB Wrote:Teaching English in Japan is more or less a dead-end job that won't make you happy for very long. It's great to do for 1-3 years but most people get tired of it very soon. Once that happens they realize they don't have any other skills that can be used for a career switch.

THIS. I'm currently teaching in Japan right now and I've only been doing this for 2 months now and I can already tell you that this isn't a job you want to do for a long time if you have any ambitions for yourself. Its good for getting you into Japan and getting yourself a work visa and some money. I'm already looking for other stuff to do though. Also note that you salary never will rise working as an ALT. If you actually got credentials as a teacher though you could go to work as a teacher in legit international schools though and have more pay over the long term, but you'll go anywhere as an ALT.

The job is stupid easy for any level higher than teaching Elementary school. And while knowing Japanese can aid in your teaching, you are encouraged not to use it. The only real use for Japanese is in your day to day life.

Get a degree in something that gives you multiple ways out if shit hits the fan.

I just wanted to say i hate the typo bare.
BEAR!

and the other thing is.... i don't undersatnd why school is taking up so much time... you're freshmen right? or are you in like a really hard major or smart school?

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:I just wanted to say i hate the typo bare.
BEAR!

and the other thing is.... i don't undersatnd why school is taking up so much time... you're freshmen right? or are you in like a really hard major or smart school?

As previously mentioned there are no Majors in the UK nor are there any Freshmen. A UK college is below degree level and serves either as a vocational school or a place to aquire the relavent qualifications required for entry into a university, usually via the UCAS system. The op also stated that this 10 hours included such things are travel time. If the op is doing the standard 3x A2 levels, which I presume he/she may be doing then attended lectures will not amount to 10 hours a day.

thejoshlord Wrote:I guess the reason i want to go to Japan, live there, work there etc is i feel that there is nothing i want to do in England, in college i'm studying Biology, Geology, Geography and Computing none of these i want to pursue into, in fact nothing at my college i want do to.

if you can't find anything to do in your home country, you won't find anything to do in another country. japan and japanese should be the cherry on top, not the whole sundae. people and work are really not that different throughout the entire world.

it's especially troublesome if you haven't visited yet. and even then, living there is different than traveling there.
if you can, take a study abroad program or travel long-term and stay in a guesthouse.

also, keep searching for what you want to do. most of the time, school is completely different from what jobs are really out there. i think the most important thing i learned to do in school was make graphs in Excel, and i'm an engineer. (aerospace engineering for my BS, but my job is pollution control engineer)

thejoshlord Wrote:@kitakitsune - well by a looks of it im thinking of teaching english over there, i've heard of people that go over there to teach english without knowing any Japanese but i would find that unsatisfying and i dont know why but if i was Japanese id find it arrogant if someone was teaching me a language without bothering to learn one themselves

I just wanted to note that I think it's worse having a teacher that hasn't put effort into learning how to teach well, ie studied pedagogy or spent a lot of time considering what is important in a teaching situation and how to best present information, etc. Learning another language can sometimes aid in this, since you meet a lot of obstacles that learners in generally run into, but only doing so has a tendency to make teachers forget that all learners have individual problems, and what worked for themselves might not always work for their students. If you want to take responsibility as a teacher (in case you actually do become one), pour time into acquiring teaching-relevant skills. There seems to be waaay too many language teachers in really any country that basically ignore all that has to do with pedagogy.

Also, if you think school is taking up more time than it needs to, maybe you could read up on jettyke's past posts/ask jettyke about how he used Anki to effectivize his studying? It seems to have worked out pretty well for him, you could say : p

Edit: Also, regardless of where you are, if you only have an interest in Japan/Japanese, you will find that it's hard to talk with anyone for a long time - especially Japanese people think it's pretty boring to just talk about Japan in general. I recently read this article written by an anonymous Japanese writer (probably a high school or university level teacher) on what the true benefits of studying sciences are, while also acknowledging that it's not for everyone:
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/fromdusktildawn/20...1169414343 (in Japanese)
He sums up his points like this:
1. You can enjoy yourself with it - any field of science can be seen as a kind of 'game' that is endless, and science is especially fun because you can find innovative solutions that noone else has found and you can keep building on it, it can be very 'deep'.
2. You get more interesting jobs, in general. Many of the most fascinating jobs do require advanced education and so you don't need to get stuck with routine, you get to deal with challenging tasks daily and it's easier to get a job with a higher pay, which can open up other fun activities (though money isn't everything, of course)
3. Science gives you a way to connect to other people, by talking about different scientific topics, instead of just doing routine conversations every day. It broadens your horizons and makes it possible for you to have more varied types of friends.
4. You become more resistant toward people/organizations that try to trick you - this is a real issue, if you are clueless about statistics/methodology etc. you run a higher risk of being fooled and ending up losing a lot of money.

Here's a couple other texts, by Penny-Arcade forum users, that I think are helpful for getting you started on thinking on what you really want:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussio...rcastro/p1

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussio..._scarab/p1

Surreal Wrote:I just wanted to note that I think it's worse having a teacher that hasn't put effort into learning how to teach well, ie studied pedagogy or spent a lot of time considering what is important in a teaching situation and how to best present information, etc. Learning another language can sometimes aid in this, since you meet a lot of obstacles that learners in generally run into, but only doing so has a tendency to make teachers forget that all learners have individual problems, and what worked for themselves might not always work for their students. If you want to take responsibility as a teacher (in case you actually do become one), pour time into acquiring teaching-relevant skills. There seems to be waaay too many language teachers in really any country that basically ignore all that has to do with pedagogy.

This would make sense if we were talking about real teaching. ALT positions are however NOT real teaching and don't get me started on eikaiwa.

In elementary school level you have the freedom to do as you wish usually, but you are limited to talking and simply getting kids use to the sounds of the language and making English interesting (read: fun).

In Junior high, most ALTs are relegated to tape recorder positions. You can't do any real teaching in these positions because usually 2/3 of the class is done in Japanese and grammar points are taught in Japanese. You do 1 lesson/page a day in 50 minutes. And unless you are one of the few rare and lucky ones, you are probably not going to be given the chance for much input into what goes on in the class.

In high school, its much the same; but you are stuck with focusing on what will be on entrance exams for college. Same situation as to how much input you can give applies. And same on the language that the class is generally going to be taught in.

vix86: Well that sucks and I can definitely see why so many people loathe working as ALT's, and then I totally agree with everyone saying that these kinds of "teaching" jobs are dead-ends. That doesn't sound like anything giving you a chance to grow or show that you are capable of doing more advanced jobs at all.

vix86 Wrote:This would make sense if we were talking about real teaching. ALT positions are however NOT real teaching and don't get me started on eikaiwa.

In elementary school level you have the freedom to do as you wish usually, but you are limited to talking and simply getting kids use to the sounds of the language and making English interesting (read: fun).

In Junior high, most ALTs are relegated to tape recorder positions. You can't do any real teaching in these positions because usually 2/3 of the class is done in Japanese and grammar points are taught in Japanese. You do 1 lesson/page a day in 50 minutes. And unless you are one of the few rare and lucky ones, you are probably not going to be given the chance for much input into what goes on in the class.

In high school, its much the same; but you are stuck with focusing on what will be on entrance exams for college. Same situation as to how much input you can give applies. And same on the language that the class is generally going to be taught in.

I did 90% my own classes all in English last year as an ALT (elem & high school), this year much less, but mostly because my schedule is busier so I don't have the extra planning time to put in. In my experience this is somewhat due to luck, but a lot is whether you can show the teachers that you can teach.

They are pretty much dead-ends when it comes to pay/benefits tho, it seems you can perform as well as you like but your pay is going nowhere as a public school ALT.

sorry it took so long to reply

so the general idea i am getting from this thread is that striving to become a ALT is a short term career ( and a boring one at that) i am also getting the impression that a "English person who speaks Japanese" isn't going to go well on my CV, can i ask the question then, what job opportunities can i look forward to with A level Biology,Geology,Computing,Geography and Japanese (hopefully) in Japan? i know, i know it all depends what kind of person you are, different jobs appeal to different people, but 5 years ago when i first heard Japanese my impression was "this sounds gay" and look at me now dreaming of living there, sometimes things just have to be pointed out to you for you to enjoy them.

hmm This post doesn't seem to make much sense. But i'm posting it anyway

Your career opportunities right out of college in Japan will be limited because your Japanese language ability will not be good enough to realistically compete with native Japanese people trying to get the same job. Many people do English teaching first then try to look for something else while they're there.

But I'll let others answer in more detail because I've never actually tried to find a job in Japan.

With just A levels you won't even be able to get a visa to work in Japan. For that you will need a degree. Are you planning on going to university, and if so what are you thinking of studying?

If you are British then it is actually possible to get a 1 year working holiday visa without a degree, which opens up some opportunities if you want to try going to Japan as soon as possible. Even with it though it may be hard to get a real job so you may need to go through a gap-year organisation or do something like wwoof. This visa is only 1 year though and you will not get another one after.

With just A-levels I doubt you can look forward to much except a short holiday. If you want to work in Japan you need your employer to sponsor your working visa for which it's almost certain you'll need a university degree of some kind.

The alternative is a working holiday visa but that only lasts for one year. Have a look at the visa requisites here http://www.uk.emb-japan.go.jp/en/visa/visa-main.html

"The job is stupid easy for any level higher than teaching Elementary school. And while knowing Japanese can aid in your teaching, you are encouraged not to use it. The only real use for Japanese is in your day to day life."

Perhaps be careful about generalizing. Some Japanese teachers can't speak English and Japanese is needed to make things go smoother. Also, depending on your work place, the fun known as paperwork requires understanding kanji as well as writing lesson plans and business trip forms in Japanese.

"In elementary school level you have the freedom to do as you wish usually, but you are limited to talking and simply getting kids use to the sounds of the language and making English interesting (read: fun).

In Junior high, most ALTs are relegated to tape recorder positions. You can't do any real teaching in these positions because usually 2/3 of the class is done in Japanese and grammar points are taught in Japanese. You do 1 lesson/page a day in 50 minutes. And unless you are one of the few rare and lucky ones, you are probably not going to be given the chance for much input into what goes on in the class.

In high school, its much the same; but you are stuck with focusing on what will be on entrance exams for college. Same situation as to how much input you can give applies. And same on the language that the class is generally going to be taught in."

At elementary schools you can use all kinds of Japanese words for picture flashcards depending on the activity. At junior high schools, you can translate the 1 lesson/page a day into Japanese, put the English and Japanese next to each other and have the Japanese teacher read the English while you read the Japanese. The kids love it

At high schools I've seen and done short oral stories using pictures and videos and throwing in Japanese to make it understandable. Everybody loves the stories about the bald(禿） guy

theasianpleaser Wrote:Perhaps be careful about generalizing. Some Japanese teachers can't speak English and Japanese is needed to make things go smoother. Also, depending on your work place, the fun known as paperwork requires understanding kanji as well as writing lesson plans and business trip forms in Japanese.

I will definitely agree with you that you can get some JTEs/HRT that don't know hardly any English and will need you to use Japanese. Regular teachers included. While regular teachers are still at school, I do not consider that part of the "required for my job"-thing. It makes your life smoother at school but it was emphasized to us during training that many BoEs and schools have some weird kind of expectation that we are going to improve the entire teaching staff's English as well as the kids. Which means, lots of English with the teachers as well.

I use lots of Japanese in my classes now to explain directions or clear up things if the kids seem to be struggling. There just isn't enough time within a lesson to be spending it trying to get them to understand instructions for an activity. Your life will definitely be for the better in teaching if you know Japanese but I'm just saying that the extent to which you can use it might be limited.

If you have a passion for teaching though and make an effort to try and do stuff in class I think some JTEs would be more than welcome to let you. I suspect much of what I hear from other ALTs about the bleak situations in classes though comes from the fact that many don't put forth an effort to do more work. Its stupid easy work to just go in and be the recorder; and teachers don't complain about it. I mean to go in and just read words off a card and then go home every day after 8 hours and get paid 23万-30万 a month for that. I can see why some don't bother to do more.

This is ALTs though. Eikaiwas are far far worse I think since its not about actually teaching, its about milking the students for their money. If students actually learned a lot in eikaiwas, their cash flow would eventually dry up.