Hi folks, I’m a teacher living in Japan looking for either a primary or secondary level English teaching job in a private school. While all my teaching experience in Japan has been in primary schools, the majority of my teaching experience in other countries has been in secondary schools. Therefore, I’m most familiar with the primary setting in Japan.
However, I’ve come across a few private junior/senior high school positions that I’d like to apply to, but I’d like to be at least a bit more familiar with what the private junior/senior high school teaching scene here is like. I took a good look around Reddit and elsewhere and now have a decent idea about the daily schedule and class sizes. But I’d appreciate other insights like how central of a focus is test prep; do you have anyone else in the class with you; how do you feel about the working conditions (e.g. pay, time off, working hours); how much freedom do you have to creatively plan lessons, etc. Of course this is all under the ESID umbrella, but I’d appreciate anything you have to share!
by GlimmerSailor
5 comments
I’m an IB teacher at a private school. Most non-IB teachers teach about 18 to 21 lesson hours. IB teachers have about 15-18 hours of lessons.
We are alone in the classroom, making our lessons, taking attendance, exam marking/making, assisting homeroom, etc. Pay is fine, and time off is okay. Better than some but not the best. About 20-something days (10 carry over) off besides holidays.
Definitely depends on the school. The schedule is usually brutal, with either 6-day workweeks or 5 days but no 2 consecutive days off. It’s tiring. In my experience everywhere here is about test prep.
When it comes to what sort of situation you will end up at a private high school, I think it mostly depends on your own qualifications. Right now, there are many private schools battling for demographics due to the fewer and fewer number of students available for enrollment.
If you have good qualifications and apply to a “good” or higher ranking private school, I think most of them (at least in theory/attempts) are generally moving towards more of the IB model, even if they are not certified as such.
For example, there are a growing number of private schools that have TOK courses that are taught in English or returnee programs — though they are non-IB and not “international” schools.
In short, ALT/starting positions where you follow a plan exist (expect lower pay), as do positions where you are leading and creating all content for what would be considered an AP course in America (possible to achieve university-level pay scales and above).
I’ve worked at 2 different private Jr/Sr high schools, both of them were about the same in regards to schedule, pay, time off, and workload.
M-F solo teaching with an established curriculum to follow, but freedom to teach how we want. 16-20 classes a week depending on grade level and student enrollment. Didn’t really work with the Japanese teachers at all.
Able to come in and go home whenever as long as it’s before the first class and after the last class of the day and we get all the prep done.
Time off is about 7 months in total including weekends and national holidays + summer, winter, and spring break.
Pay is better than typical ALT’s but about the same as JET teachers.
But the plus side is I’m free to do part-time stuff on the long breaks.
I worked at a senior high school associated with a high-ranking university. Most of the students at the school were able to enter that high-ranking university without an entrance examination, so there was virtually no emphasis on test taking. I taught classes entirely alone and was responsible for lesson planning, testing, grading, and even had the freedom to take the students off campus if I wanted to and it didn’t interfere with their other classes. There was casual coordination between teachers with regard to curriculum, but teachers were trusted to get the students ready for the next year’s classes in their own fashions. Not all classes were required.
Salary was far better than as an ALT or bottom level *eikaiwa* teacher, but not quite as high as a university teacher’s. One was expected to be on the school grounds on days when school was in session *and* one had classes, but if there were no meetings or classes on a particular day, one didn’t have to show up. Besides Sundays, most Saturdays, and all public holidays, there were about three months of paid holidays all together.