What if they’re happy and content being an ALT? You get to see your kids/wife, play video games, not get stressed from work etc
Everyone here always says “you need to get your teaching license/MA!” Why? To earn more money? Money ain’t everything folks
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If someone is content working at McDonalds at the register, good for them, I don’t think anyone has the right to pressure that person to “be more” or “be better”. That’s what ALT’ing is, it’s entry level unskilled work and if people are content to do it, great.
The problems are more with the industry and ALT’s being put in positions they shouldn’t be in which are supposed to require actual expertise and licensure. There’s this blurry line that parents and employees don’t really seem to understand sometimes between what an ALT/eikaiwa worker is and what a teacher is, and companies/schools are abusing that grey area too much to take advantage of the situation.
If we had more people with qualifications a clearer line could be drawn, career progression would be more viable for people that wanted it, and ALT’s wouldn’t be shoved into jobs and positions they are woefully unqualified for to the detriment of students. That’s more of what people are talking about when they express a desire for ALT’s to level up.
Money ain’t everything, no. But ¥210,000 per month with no bonus or benefits ain’t very good either. At least get to ¥300,000 with yearly bonus or something, imo.
Disclaimer: I know nothing about the world of teaching. This post just ambushed my feed.
How old are you now, and what are your plans for the future?
If you’re under 25, single, with few responsibilities, then 250,000円(？), before tax, may seem like a lot, but it will seem like a lot less once you’re married, have children, need to pay the rent/mortgage, and everything else that a family entails,
Life isn’t a game. There are no “levels.”
It’s true that money cannot buy you love. In theory. But it does pay the bills.
This isn’t even a Japan thing, or a teaching thing.
The most obvious problem with your question is that ALTs are not teachers. Not even legally being allowed to be in a classroom alone (I know that it’s done, but it shouldn’t be) in a classroom without a teacher should be the first hint that you’re not a teacher.
That said, do you know what a 50 year old ALT looks like? It’s not a pretty picture. We’re talking about a job that has no actual job requirements, other than having a bachelors degree in anything. They’re a decade or so from retirement, and that “genki” face that used to be so easy to put on becomes increasingly difficult to wear. Meanwhile, some gringo fresh off the Narita express can command the same basic salary that you and your twenty years of experience gets.
Then there’s the fact that the job pays just enough to make ends meet, and maybe a bit more so you can splurge on Mos burgers for sunday brunch. This is all fine until you’re just tired of working, but the rent on your 1ldk isn’t getting any cheaper.
What’s the plan for retirement? The Japanese pension system?
Because it’s difficult/impossible to live on an ALT salary. Especially once you have a family to support.
Unless your wife has a much better job than you, you’re not going to have a good time on an ALT salary, and that’s before kids come into the picture.
There is a reason most ALTs who have a wife and kids have a “side hustle”. They need it.
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I’m fine with people being ALTs forever but they often complain that they’re not “respected” or that their JTE won’t let them do their awesome lesson ideas. They even complain about having down time at work with “nothing to do”. If they’re fine being ALTs then that’s great, but they can’t complain about the system and reject advice on how to “level up” when they get called out for it.
There’s nothing *wrong* with being an ALT especially if you enjoy it, but you should at least aim for a direct hire position instead of being on dispatch where you can be spit out any second.
The problem isn’t the job itself. The problem is the industry. JET contracts end after 5 years. Dispatch companies can and will leave you out in the cold if they lose a board of education contract. Direct hire positions are usually better in terms of stability, but those are few and far between compared to the number of dispatch company jobs.
That’s why people say to get a master’s degree or a teaching license and work in a university or an intentional school.
If it makes you feel better, we English Teachers across the pond working with MAs, CAGS, and all that jazz are also being told we need to “level up.”
As far as I’m concerned, it’s just the current buzzword.
If I had a wife and kids I’d be looking for a new job. ALT positions just aren’t stable enough to raise a family on.
It’s probably good for us to “level up” anyway, because it would turn the ALT job into a position that is harder to find replacements for.
Self respect?
If you’re fine with it good for you. I’m under the mentality that at the end of the day my body will degrade and I want something stable in my life.
Imagine all those bills and an ALT salary. Being an ALT is a golden ticket to Japan, a very easy one “I want to be English teacher” aka not a real one buut an ALT is the most fake af thing foreginers say in Japan. I don’t believe and single person wants to be borderline poverty salary for so much.
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I’m doing this for two years max, since It’s my dream to go Japan and I love it here, but being an ALT is an extented vacation, I’ll move back to install Solar Panels like planned or move to Mexico or Europe to translate, I don’t want to be in my 30s and thinking “fuck what now my vacation is over”
Dude, you can’t do this job forever nor should you. It’s bullshit. From the moment you start your first day you have already hit the ceiling in terms of pay.
Don’t get comfortable with this job. You need to find something different that pays more.
> Everyone here always says “you need to get your teaching license/MA!” Why? To earn more money? Money ain’t everything folks
My thoughts…
– Who’s saying that you have to upskill within the teaching industry? I think people who approach life with a growth mentality are always looking to improve. However, my message is usually ‘why teaching if you’re gonna go back to uni? You could be literally anything else, think about it’. IMO it’s healthy for people to approach life with a growth mindset and be searching for good opportunities. 30 Years as an ALT? Yeah nah, I don’t care how much people say they like it…
– Money isn’t everything but in my experience, living on or above the line rather than below it can give you a decent boost in life. There’s a lot of jobs out there that pay more than 250,000 yen a month (many of which are less stressful than teaching IMO). IMO one can earn 400,000-500,000 yen a month without selling their soul to the devil and becoming a lifeless, over-worked drone. If anything, I reckon many of these jobs are easier than working at an eikaiwa or as an ALT (which can be hard work in my experience! You don’t always get paid more & work harder with promotions… often you just have to work smarter).
– Personally, I don’t like teaching. I’m an Australian-qualified teacher and also have a master of TESOL (taught for ~8 years all up). One day I woke up and a lightbulb turned on, telling me that I didn’t want to teach anymore as I was over it and had achieved everything I wanted to. I went back to uni, did a law degree and now do a job that gives me a lot more joy/development. Nobody HAS to do this and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing a law degree unless people really love that kinda stuff. However, I think most people have that lightbulb moment where they realise there’s more to live than being an ALT.
– If I’m wrong then power to those who love being ALTs. You be you and I’m glad you’ve found your place in the world because many people try hard and fail at that game.
It’s not just about getting specific qualifications. It’s about overall professional development. I mean, can you really call yourself an educator if you eschew education? Can you really say you are a teacher if you don’t have subject-matter knowledge? Can you honestly call yourself an ESL professional if you don’t understand second language acquisition theory or how to apply it in the classroom? If you sit back on your butt and coast on nativespeakerism, then you do nothing to deserve your paycheck and mark yourself as a lazy incompetent, and your students will suffer for it.
How you get professional development is up to you – there are a lot of free and low-cost ways: you can read teaching journals; read books on teaching; try out what you learn in class; you can join JALT or other professional organizations and attending conferences (JALT has many free professional development seminars); you can ask more experienced teachers to observe you and give you feedback.
Or you can go a step further and take training programs like CELTA, Delta, a PG Cert course or an MA.
It’s up to you. But if you sit back and do nothing, don’t expect others to have any respect for you a a teacher. Teachers work hard – it’s part and parcel of BEING a teacher. We don’t do this to be rich. We do this because we love it, and because we want our students to learn. Wanting them to learn means learning how to teach.
What is it we tell our students? You won’t learn if you don’t study.
Security. If you have to leave your current job for any reason, moving into a new one can be a lot easier with more qualifications. Otherwise, you’re just depending on your experience to land you work. Which isn’t nothing, but it’s better to have something else to open doors.
the problem is the future. I loved esl more than anything at 22. At 30, it’s hard to see how this job would be sustainable. You make almost the exact same salary for the rest of your life and it’s comparatively low? Barely any bonuses? You have more than 1 kid and then expenses become exponentially harder?
They should either level up or diversify their job skills in order to prepare for the worst case scenario. If ALT work while sustain you into a comfortable retirement, good for you. If it won’t, get an advanced degree or train in another discipline.
Another way to put it… I classify ALT jobs as being ‘gap year’ jobs. Same category as (for example) seasonal fruit picking or coaching footy at some $$$ English grammar school. You do it so that you can travel and stay productive while deciding what your next step in life is.
Money isn’t everything but a 20-30 year ‘gap year’ is a serious amount of procrastination. I would suggest that planning one’s next step is a productive thing to do during a gap year.
It honestly depends on what you need and intend to do with your life.
I left the eikaiwa industry after more years than I care to admit with a 300,000 salary. The managers didn’t make much more unless they moved up higher. The problem is that going higher involves doing BS. However, I saw newbies coming in making between 200 and 250 a month. They were satisfied with it. They got to be in Japan. I suspect that is the problem with the industry. So many are happy to earn peanuts to get by in the country of their dreams. What they don’t seem to know is that not long before they came salaries were higher. Their tolerance allows the salaries to keep going lower.
I am not implying that you can’t have a life that you want on that salary, but your willingness to accept such low salaries is part of the reason they don’t go up and the companies are thrilled to have your asses warming the seats for peanuts while they pocket the rest.
Truth be told, I managed to save large chunks of money on 300 a month, but I also don’t want a house, amazing apartment, car, etc. I left America cause those ambitions never appealed to me. They’re costly wastes.
You don’t want to work an entry-level position your entire life, even if you think you do.
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I‘m not an ALT, or any kind of teacher myself, but I never understood this hate. Other foreign residents looking down on ALTs is just hilarious to me. As if having a job as software engineer, translator, or whatever else makes you a better person somehow. I guess some people are actually jealous you guys don‘t get to do 5 hours of overtime everyday lol.
Something else to bear in mind. EAP at university is not to everyone’s taste. It can involve a lot of planning and marking. Japanese uni teachers earn their 330- 450k a month. It’s not like the ALT is doing a similar workload.
you need money to live.
you need increasing money to keep your standard of living as you age (family, inflation etc)
you need money to buy a house. don’t want to be a rentcel your entire life.
you need money for retirement when you no longer can work.
sure money isn’t everything but you don’t want to spend your entire career making an entry level salary.
that is not smart.
It’s all very relative and very situational.
It depends on how your current job is, how much you like it, how much you get paid, where you live, your current lifestyle, if you have dependants, if you are planning to return home, and if you’re comparing your wage to Japan or to your home country (it’s not so simple to compare).
It also depends on your educational background, your job prospects in Japan and at home, and what you consider success.
It also depends on what country you’re from, if you’re from a wealthy family or a poor family, and what is a good wage/job to you (not everyone can earn big bucks).
I can imagine an American who has a large amount of university debt, high health insurance, and a competitive degree might think staying as an ALT is bonkers, while someone from a country where university was next to free, doesn’t need health insurance, and is from a very working class background, may think it’s a great gig.
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