Hi, I am trying to send out my resume to Business English firms / Dispatchers, and it’s been a while since I have so wondered if people could list a few here. Here’s who I have thought of so far –
Language Resources
Avanti
Phoenix
James
ACE
IBEC
Wing
Linguage
Global Bridge
Temple
Any more to add to the list and any warnings on the above list?
(Please no replies with Berlitz!)
4 comments
Do not confuse BEP with adult eikaiwa.
Lingauage was just bought by Nova and will mostly be full absorbed in a year or so.
IBEC, Berlitz Phoenix, ECC, and Aeon are the ones that are better (but not by much).
If you’re looking to fill in evening hours go for it. The management and organization varies on location.
The best companies that are near where you live will be assigned to veterans, at least that was my experience. So maybe expect to be sent to some inaka company on ocassion.
Can confirm that most of these are not professional organizations. They don’t require teaching qualifications and the people they have in charge of what they term “curriculum development” frankly don’t know what they are doing.
It was Avanti I mentioned in a previous post where I found three grammatical errors in their so-called “grammar test”, and I believe I mentioned butting heads with the guy at Phoenix because his level of knoweldge of syllabus design and methodology was just embarrassing. No idea if he is still there, but if he is … good luck.
Some of these companies have homemade materials which are just awful, while others use commercial textbooks but try to dictate to the teachers how to teach. None of them do any real needs analysis or curriculum design. There are no opportunities for advancement, no raises, no benefits, and no training or other opportunities for professional development. In that way, they are no different from eikaiwa except they pay better – but considering you aren’t full time and they are under no obligation of giving you any lessons, you might even be worse off financially.
I’m sure there are a few exceptions in the list, as I’m not familiar with every one of them, but most of the companies listed here do not have people in charge who have professional level teaching experience, and thus they are not professional organizations.
But then again, most “teachers” in Japan don’t have qualifications or real teaching experience, either, so none of what I mentioned here would be an issue to them.
What can I say? Good luck.