Dear people of Reviewing the Kanji,

In my home country I am studying to become an educator and I love to educate and I hope to do something very important for education one day.

One of the things I want to do (since im studying Japanese afterall) is to go to Japan and ''Teach'' be it English or some other language I master (I know 3 minus the japanese intotal)

But lets talk about teaching English specific here now .
Everything I hear about teaching English either is bad or overly commercialized as if its a job in Paradise.

When I hear something negative it goes like this :
The education system is very restrictive and they won't let you teach the way you like. They take everyone who knows a bit English who even barely has a degree (thus making the job itself a joke). The companies that offer you these jobs are evil .

On the other side you hear the ''Its a new exprience everyone should have'' Mumbo Jumbo.

So what is the truth?

And what is the way to do this right ? (getting an education job in Japan)

JET program, best thing I ever did.

Probably just like all other truth. Somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH

yudantaiteki Wrote:YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH

Do tell.

Doctorhabib Wrote:Everything I hear about teaching English either is bad or overly commercialized as if its a job in Paradise.

This is because everybody has had a different life so they will react completely differently to moving to another country and starting a new job.

No two people are the same; for example I spent a large amount of my childhood away from home/family/parents so I never experience home sickness. Some people hate being away from home for just a couple of weeks.

Apply that to every aspect of life and you get two people going to the same place and having completely difference experiences.

Seeing as you are studying to be an educator you are likely more prepared for the job than most on JET.

Friends , Japanese studying brothers.

I am not looking for wisdoms about life, I know the middle way is allot of times the truth and every person has a different exprience.

But I want to know what that truth exactly is.

So that I can prepare and prevent a bad exprience and what can I do to get the best conditions, and how and what.

I work for a sort of conglomerate company which is involved in all sorts of industries including the management of the ALT program for the city school system composed of about 6-7 schools. This is not my focus at the company but I have had to interact with and give training (not classroom instruction training but more company policy stuff, etc) to the English teachers who work for our company.

In my personal opinion if you want to come to Japan to be a teacher actually get qualified before you come over as an ACTUAL TEACHER. That way when you get to Japan you can actually apply for teaching positions and not ALT positions. This is one of the biggest issues with the majority of people who complain about English teaching jobs in Japan...they still haven't learned how to read a job description or a contract. If you come over and sign up to be an ALT, aka an ASSISTANT language teacher, then you are exactly that...an assistant and nothing else.

Another reason I emphasize to become a real teacher is that ALT work is to quite honest bullshit work. This doesn't mean there aren't great people who are ALT's but it is really a major career hole for most people. Spend a few years doing ALT work and you might as well put "spent past 3 years twiddling my thumbs" on your resume, at least to a huge number of companies.

So if I was coming over to Japan to be a teacher I would first become an actual certified teacher in whatever my home country is. Please, please, PLEASE do not come over to Japan right after school and with an empty resume. If you want to make it in Japan you have to bring an actual skill to Japan. This applies to any field, not just English teaching. Come with just a generic degree and no notable professional work experience and you have nothing that Japan doesn't already have tons of.

activeaero Wrote:I work for a sort of conglomerate company which is involved in all sorts of industries including the management of the ALT program for the city school system composed of about 6-7 schools. This is not my focus at the company but I have had to interact with and give training (not classroom instruction training but more company policy stuff, etc) to the English teachers who work for our company.

In my personal opinion if you want to come to Japan to be a teacher actually get qualified before you come over as an ACTUAL TEACHER. That way when you get to Japan you can actually apply for teaching positions and not ALT positions. This is one of the biggest issues with the majority of people who complain about English teaching jobs in Japan...they still haven't learned how to read a job description or a contract. If you come over and sign up to be an ALT, aka an ASSISTANT language teacher, then you are exactly that...an assistant and nothing else.

Another reason I emphasize to become a real teacher is that ALT work is to quite honest bullshit work. This doesn't mean there aren't great people who are ALT's but it is really a major career hole for most people. Spend a few years doing ALT work and you might as well put "spent past 3 years twiddling my thumbs" on your resume, at least to a huge number of companies.

So if I was coming over to Japan to be a teacher I would first become an actual certified teacher in whatever my home country is. Please, please, PLEASE do not come over to Japan right after school and with an empty resume. If you want to make it in Japan you have to bring an actual skill to Japan. This applies to any field, not just English teaching. Come with just a generic degree and no notable professional work experience and you have nothing that Japan doesn't already have tons of.

Just a question, but do schools hire foreigners as non-ALT teachers?
I would think that you would need to get Japanese teaching licenses and all that, except at a International school maybe.

edit:expanded a little bit

Thank you for your comment.

Well I AM studying to become a teacher if im done I am a certified teacher , with Job exprience (I teach at highschools on my days of from school).

I am not just some guy who knows English like allot of the fokes who go for ALT.

By reading what you say, the best thing to do is :

Get teacher certificate+job exprience -> Go to Japan -> Apply for teacher jobs yourself not through some company.

What are my chances, prospects ? got any tips ?

Note : I am going to have a Teachers Diploma+job exprience before I would possibly go to Japan .

And yes do they even Non-ALT foreigners as teachers?

Doctorhabib Wrote:And yes do they even Non-ALT foreigners as teachers?

It's very, very rare. I've heard of it at the college level but never high school or below.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

Doctorhabib Wrote:And yes do they even Non-ALT foreigners as teachers?

It's very, very rare. I've heard of it at the college level but never high school or below.

My company has 4 private school full time teaching positions open as we speak.

Japan has plenty of international schools. If you have a proper teaching degree, that's probably the way to go.

I taught at a children's eikaiwa for last year. It sucked. Certainly one of those 'character building experiences', but I'd be hesitant recommending it except to certain people with certain expectations. Of course, you can also get eikaiwa jobs that were a lot easier than mine was - you can probably do a whole lot worse, too.

I think it was a worthwhile experience overall, but there are probably better ways to have equally worthwhile experiences. If you're serious about Japan and it's your only way in though - well, not much choice, eh?
Don't expect to learn too much Japanese while you're stuck in the eikaiwa bubble, either. Learn your Japanese before getting here.

Anyway, happy to answer eikaiwa-specific questions if you have any.

EDIT: Listen to activeaero's stuff too. Lots of good stuff there.


I am an ALT so I'll just give a few points about the job.

First off, ALT is not a career.
Hope that stands out well enough. Being an ALT isn't a bad job, there are far worse things you could be doing and depending on your home country, the situation isn't half bad. It gets you money.

Recently a lot of ALTs have started to be introduced into the elementary system because teaching English became a requirement at that level. There are not many JTEs at this level and most of the homeroom teachers simply don't have the expertise to really teach much beyond what the teacher manual says to them. So its pretty common for ALTs to actually be teaching Elementary on their own and be given LOTS of leeway to do what they want. Junior High and High school is still pretty locked down though, if you are in JHS/HS you are the human tape recorder. The JTEs won't often be interested in changing up stuff too much because they have a tight schedule to hold for getting through the books and making sure the students know what they need to know.

Your best bet is really to get certified as a teacher in your home country and teach a couple years there. Then try and come over as a JET or as a dispatch ALT and work a year in the system. While working you should drop your resume at International Schools around Japan. The Int'l schools are a lot more likely to be the place in Japan where you can teach actual English. You'll also have a real (likely) and will get actual pay advances and have some job security.

As far as eikaiwa goes. Eikaiwas are businesses. Unless you are planning to open your own, don't bother, they are not interested in teaching English, just selling their materials.

Thank you for all your comments.

Yes I beforehand noted ALT kind of sucks due the fact it is not really a carreer and stuff like that.

But with an official teacher degree international school sounds way more interesting to be honest. Thank you I think I will look further into that .

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have to be a native English speaker to be considered for any ALT position like JET? Most places other than the eikaiwas will also require you be a native speaker no matter how good your English may be. I don't know where you're from but I just didn't want you moving forward thinking this would be a non-issue if your English is good enough. You won't be able to just "prove" your ability to them and then they will make an exception for you. They will strictly require that you be from an English speaking country or be able to prove that you were raised in some other "native" environment (i.e. having American parents or whatnot but being raised in a non-English speaking country) But, like I said, please correct me if I'm wrong.

If you are native then my apologies. There are just a few things you have written that make me wonder.

There's a whole crap ton of non-native speakers teaching English in Japan.

Filipino labor is way cheaper than American.

I work at an eikaiwa. For each class, I am assigned a topic, and I have complete control over how I want to design my lesson around that topic. For example, a topic may be "keeping a conversation going." Based on the topic, I'm supposed to make a lesson with a particular functional goal for the students, such as "be able to ask open questions to keep a conversation going," "understand and respond to questions asked at customs," etc. I have textbooks at my disposal to help me plan lessons, but I'm free to use whatever materials I'd like.

Of course, being a business, there are certain limitations. Students are praised, but never criticized. Lessons tend focus on giving students immediate results. However, these limitations aren't enforced by my superiors, but by the clientele. If I criticize students or design classes that don't give any immediate results, students will stop showing up. No students = no job.

Anyway, I enjoy the job, and I don't find it as oppressive as the horror stories that get circulated. Maybe I'm just lucky, though. My girlfriend works at another eikaiwa, and teachers there get fired like it's nothing. Furthermore, I only started three weeks ago, so it's possible that I have yet to see the dark side. The fact that several of the other teachers have been there for 5+ years is reassuring, however. At any rate, it seems that the most complaints come from ALTs, following by eikaiwa teachers, and the least come from JETs. I hope this post is helpful, and good luck on your quest.

kitakitsune Wrote:There's a whole crap ton of non-native speakers teaching English in Japan.

Filipino labor is way cheaper than American.

In actual schools? I know there are tons in the eikaiwas but I had never heard of any in actual schools. Not trying to say that you're wrong, just that I had never heard of any.

Yeah, when I said it was very rare I was not counting ALT or eikaiwa. I guess activeaero's company staffs private schools? That's good to hear.

thistime Wrote:

kitakitsune Wrote:There's a whole crap ton of non-native speakers teaching English in Japan.

Filipino labor is way cheaper than American.

In actual schools? I know there are tons in the eikaiwas but I had never heard of any in actual schools. Not trying to say that you're wrong, just that I had never heard of any.

Yea, doing the ALT thing. All over Tokyo.

The truth about teaching English in Japan? Nutshell version: ESID (Every Situation is Different).

Longer version: It's going to be a different experience teaching in an huge Eikaiwa, a small private eikaiwa, a big city school as a JET, a small school as a JET, as a private tutor, etc. It's going to be different from one school to another in the same type of area. One school might put you in a room with no support and have you do everything, another school might not let you do any lesson planning and stick you in a corner as a Japanese staff takes care of the class and uses you as a "repeat after me" scripted parrot.

Which isn't to say that you can't make some generalizations about teaching, or get some feedback from those who have done it (as others in this thread have been giving). I spent a couple of years at GEOS, then shifted over to a small private Eikaiwa. The small school was much more relaxed and less of a "students are our cash cow" environment, there was more freedom to do thing within your classes/lesson plans, and not as much pressure to SELL SELL SELL (though students were still were encouraged to pick up some supplemental materials in addition to the textbooks).

I also taught some lessons at a preschool and an elementary school. Very fun, but a completely different style of teaching. For the pre-school, they actually asked me not to try teaching very much beyond colors and animal names, just to play games and let the kids get accustomed to a foreigner. At the elementary school, the person I took over for had made lesson plans for the full year which the Japanese staff were familiar with and wanted to use, but during class itself I was running the show, so I could add a little bit of a spin if needed (to be fair her lesson plans were pretty good so it just made things easier for me and I didn't feel the lessons were wasted).

From what you've said about your background, I suspect you may be better off looking into the JET program (also taking into account the collapse of some of the big Eikaiwas) as it can be more of a traditional teaching situation.

Some of those horror stories you've heard are true (or can be, under the wrong circumstances). Some of the shiny happy polished spin is true (or can be, under the right circumstances). The truth about teaching English in Japan is just too broad a topic for me to be able to give a direct succinct answer.

I agree with what people have said; if you are looking for a real teaching job, ALT/eikawa is not a good bet. They're great for getting a chance to live in Japan and improve your Japanese, and they actually pay pretty decently if you don't live in a big city. But they'll count for zero on a resume, and the amount of actual teaching you do may be very limited.

In my own ALT (JET) experience, I did very little that I would qualify as real "teaching". I did work in both elementary and middle schools. In middle school I did virtually nothing, and what I did do was not very useful. In elementary schools I was in charge of everything and had to do quite a bit of work, but I wouldn't really describe it as "teaching English" in a real sense.

Now, I have heard of people on JET who actually did teach. Most of them were in high schools, though. But you can't bet on it -- you get essentially no say in where you go or what environment you'll be placed in.

kitakitsune Wrote:

thistime Wrote:

kitakitsune Wrote:There's a whole crap ton of non-native speakers teaching English in Japan.

Filipino labor is way cheaper than American.

In actual schools? I know there are tons in the eikaiwas but I had never heard of any in actual schools. Not trying to say that you're wrong, just that I had never heard of any.

Yea, doing the ALT thing. All over Tokyo.

This is true. I personally know of an ALT from Bangladesh, and I have heard about these hirings in the news.

The poster mentioning his shock of negativity towards eikaiwa initially caught my attention, but then I read that he has only been working there for a few weeks. Note that the turn-over rate for eikaiwa teachers is 3-4 months on average. The teaching 'industry' in Japan tends to view foreigners as temporary workers. If you want a sort of extended vacation in Japan, a teaching job might be doable, but those seeking something more permanent will have better luck at McDonalds.

Norman Wrote:If you want a sort of extended vacation in Japan, a teaching job might be doable, but those seeking something more permanent will have better luck at McDonalds.

Don't take the above comment lightly. If you wanna come over teaching English, then by all means, one year, or even two at a push, is fine. On the whole the jobs vary from the "zero responsibility with very little pay", to the "worked into the ground like a dog for very little money." Everyone starts with one of these jobs. Most people leave after two years, but some people try to make teaching in Japan into a long term career. This means there are now literally THOUSANDS of people with DELTA or MA in Tokyo alone, so trying to pursue a serious teaching career in Japan is not really a practical option. Even if you do land a job teaching at a university or a private school, you might earn enough to support yourself if you are single but... well as far as career decisions go, you might as well set up a business exporting refrigerators to the Antarctic.