Hey!
I’m about to finish my Bachelor’s in English Linguistics (Teaching spec.), I just have to defend my thesis upcoming month, all taking place in Poland.
I’m planning on continuing my Master’s on weekends and getting a job to count towards the teaching experience before I move to Japan in approximately 2 years (WH visa initially).
I was about to sign a contract for teaching at a private language school (teaching small groups of kids and adults, well-paid and flexible, only about 8h weekly which is perfect cause my main income comes from freelancing online), but my boss told me that a local Public Elementary School is looking for an English teacher. In 2 hours I’m about to have a chat with her and I have to decide whether I’d like to stick to the private language school or try out the public school instead, the only downside of course is the fact that it would take much more time, which could get complicated with my online job as well as university on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (there’s also teaching practice at a Highschool that I’ll have to do and I have no clue how I’d do that while also teaching at a public school).
So my key question is, does teaching at private language schools count towards the “teaching experience”? My plan was to get the 2 years of experience – that is usually the minimum requirement – of teaching in there before moving to Japan, but now I’m worried that would not actually count and the jobs in Japan (also private schools, eikaiwa, later hopefully private schools or universities if there’s ever a chance) would only care about teaching at a public school. Does the only valuable teaching experience come from public institutions? Should I drop the more comfortable language school route and try out the public school if they were willing to accept me?
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by Shizuru_Nakatsu