In a few months' time, as part of a careers event, I've been asked to present some stuff about my time in the JET Progamme during the 00s.
However, I've been asked to talk a bit about the process of going to Japan, getting an English-teaching job and some of the pitfalls. For JET, I'm okay with this, because outside of the COVID situation, my research suggests that JET hasn't changed all that much, so my experiences are relevant.
However, for eikaiwa gakko teaching, I wanted to ask for people's thoughts on a few things.
During my time over there, I had plenty of friends who taught at private eikaiwa schools like NOVA, along with people who were ALTs (like JET) but for private companies that employed them as contractors. I also knew plenty of people among the JET group and these other groups who taught at things like juku cram schools, night schools, and did private home tuition. And these people were from various places and backgrounds; USA, UK, NZ, Aus, etc., caucasian, people of colour, etc.
So I got a decent spectrum, in my time, of the English-teaching experience.
However, it's been nearly 20 years since I was there, and I want to find out a few things:
1) What is the general process to get an English-teaching job for an eikaiwa gakko today?
Back then, it wasn't uncommon for someone to fly to Japan as a tourist, and job-hunt when they were here. Often they would fly home, their visa would process, and they would come back.
However, due to both COVID and proliferation of the internet, I assume that way of doing things isn't really viable anymore? Do people apply for the schools/companies directly from their home countries, and go that way?
I've googled it and got various responses; what I guess I want to know is, what is "the community wisdom" for this?
2) Do you *still* need a bachelor's degree to do this stuff? Anything else about qualifications?
Back when I was there, a bachelor's degree was a firm requirement for JET; but also, it was very difficult to get work visa without one, so you probably couldn't get an eikaiwa gakko job either.
That being said, people tended to be able to get to teach English in Japan provided they had some sort of degree. Obviously TEFL/TESOL and the like would probably put them at the front of the queue but few of my friends had this qualifications already.
3) What happened to NOVA?
Around the time I was there, NOVA collapsed, and many of my friends were left jobless, and had to scramble for work. Some of them were even left homeless as NOVA subsidised their acommodation, or they rented in a group with other NOVA staff.
However, when I look online today, I see NOVA still exists. Did someone swoop in to save them from bankruptcy? And are they still one of the easier stepping-stones to getting to work as an English Teacher?
4) Are there any particularly good online resources for info on this?
Back when I was doing this, the primary place we all went for info was called BigDaikon, which was an internet forum for non-Japanese in Japan. It was pretty acerbic and you had to warn new people that many on the site were really jaded 😀 but regardless, it was a tremendously useful community.
Apart from this one, here on Reddit, are there others I should point people at?
5) Anything useful you want to suggest?
I'm fully aware that life for a non-Japanese in Japan is a bit easier now than it was then. I understand getting broadband is easier, streaming services mean you're not limited to watching Japanese TV during the day when off sick, and most importantly, the existence of smartphones and google maps must be absolutely transformative (I loved when Chris Broad talked in his videos about drawing maps to places – this is something we just had to do back then).
Are there any other things you would want people to know, who are perhaps considering this for the first time?
by ByEthanFox
