I’m a little drained by all the doom and gloom on this and other Japan related forums with regards to teaching here. And all those which company is better than the other crappy company etc.
Anyone care to share some good teaching experiences here? Be that with regards to a good position, salary, workplace or teaching experience that makes it worth staying on in this field.
15 comments
It’s getting rare. Even the uni gigs are seeing declining wages and outsourced labor. The “best” jobs are with the top international schools and universities and are extremely competitive now. ASIJ for example, wants a specialist masters degree in the field you are teaching, a license from the US and a minimum of 5 years experience for entry level full time. The good, tenured uni gigs want a doctorate degree, published papers and experience teaching university classes. These days most of the people that get these jobs are recruited from outside Japan because it is extremely difficult to get those qualifications here.
Which field are you talking about? Unqualified? Tertiary? International school?
If you’re an unqualified noob and your country participates, the JET Program is the best option. Even then, when you’re in your first and second year, start preparing for what you’ll do on exit.
Unless teaching us ur calling any positive experience is gonna be outside the job. If teaching is ur calling then it’s the same…it’s still gonna be outside the job…cause in the end if ur an ALT or working in an eikaiwa there’s not really a ladder to climb either professionally or monetarily.
I don’t have much to share for myself, but i heard some somehow would end up making private teaching a business or as a sideline, or have a school and stuff like that. While some likes kids in general, so they enjoyed the work, or like watching children’s movies to show children for class. I think there can be a lot of good stories when you go out and talk to people irl than ask people in reddit. Lol
I will speak positively! I love my placement. I get along well enough with all of my teachers, I make enough money to live comfortably in the middle of the city with a pet rabbit, and the students don’t hate me, so that’s great.
I’m only sad that I’m a dispatch ALT, so I’ll be moving to a new school(s) next year, but the job is easy so I can spend a lot of time at work studying whatever I want (when I’m not in a class, making materials, or checking papers).
Damn, that’s pretty sad that it’s so hard to get a positive tale from this. I’ll tell my story and you all can decide if it’s positive or not. TLDR: it all works out if you try hard enough
I came to Japan almost 30 years ago with a Bachelors in Env Sci and zero knowledge about the country, culture, or language; in addition to a ton of student loan, credit card and medical debt. I was working for $8/hr and was told I’d make 3 times that in Japan. I was “scouted” by a head-hunter who was just looking for anybody willing to go. He had a contract for a private jr/sr high in western Kyushu.
I was the penultimate noob that you “pros” love to dog on. Teacher training consisted of, “The classroom’s over there.” I did my first couple of years “team teaching” which meant I made the lesson and the J teacher walked around hitting any kids who made a mistake. Finally figured out how to get them to let me teach on my own so I could get the kids to relax and at least try…. English conv. to Jr students then low level HS students then little by little to higher level students as I taught myself the job.
Well, about 10 years ago, they took me off the ALT contract and gave me a full time position. (A first for a gaijin in the prefecture) Now I’m not only a home room teacher, but have been the head of the English department for going on 6 years.
This job allowed me to build a beautiful house, raise 2 boys in a safe environment and live almost entirely debt free. (Just the mortgage, which is MUCH more reasonable than any of my relatives ever got in the States). Although I don’t really make a lot of money, it’s not going to bankrupt me to complete the boys’ education. And yeah, I’m pretty sure I work too much, but then again I don’t feel my pay and work are that far out of balance.
Though I hate the paperwork and the “komakai crap” that comes with any job, I enjoy teaching and have the freedom to create my own curriculum and basically do whatever I feel is effective in the classroom.
I’m pretty sure living in any foreign country has its ups and downs, but y’all need to try to remember more of those Ups and fewer of the Downs.
Although I’m leaving Japan for a more “serious” placement, I will say that half of my schools have been an absolute dream to work for.
There’s no particular experience that I’d say that sticks out, but when the students enjoy my lessons, come up to me and say “tanoshikatta yo!” (or something near that) it makes it worth it 🙂 I’m lucky enough to be leading classes this year, which I love. It”s actually the leason why I’m leaving – I don’t want to be an assistant.
Worked at one of the major eikawas for 2 years. Salary was really not as bad as people say. I traveled quite a lot, ate out whenever I wanted, didn’t deny myself much and still went home with over 100万 in savings. Provided housing was clean, quiet, well situated and well-managed.
My manager always had my back and my head teacher was a supportive mother hen that I still miss. Students were fantastic and contrary what all the salt on this sub, I definitely learned some teaching and classroom skills. I still use this knowledge to make the archaic lessons I get into something much more student-centered and useful.
COVID hit and everything turned into a shitshow but frankly, from what I hear, back home they had it worse. The school definitely took care of us at the start at least. By the end it wasn’t the same story unfortunately.
Been back home for over 6m now. Started teaching esl at uni here. And yeah, there’s learning curve, but I don’t think I’d have had the confidence to do any of it without my experience in Japan.
Best experience was handing in my resignation and leaving the industry.
That’s the problem. It’s really not worth staying in this field in Japan, except in some rare cases.
Japan has extremely low standards for teachers, and the only way you can be happy teaching here is if you yourself also have very low standards.
Any serious professional will become more and more frustrated as the years go by, as they continually have to lower their professional standards and compromise their professional integrity in order to work in these organizations.
This includes some universities and secondary schools as well as pretty much every eikaiwa.
What can be expected of a country that allows anyone with a four year degree in any subject and zero teaching experience to call themselves a teacher? And to continue working in the feild for many years without any professional development whatsoever?
In fact, many institutions won’t hire you if you are an experienced professional because they vastly prefer hiring people whom they can mold. Experienced professionals upset the apple cart by expecting and then demanding higher standards. This includes universities, as many are now using dispatch companies – and for dispatch companies, it is far cheaper to hire unqualified people and pass them off as teachers than it is to hire experienced professionals.
How can you grow and develop as a teacher if you are not able to be promoted through the ranks, given increasing responsibilities, including curriculum and materials design? And how can you hone your skills if the people overseeing your work have low standards and no qualifications or professional experience of their own?
It might be worth staying in Japan if you love the country and culture itself, but if you want to grow as a professional Japan is not the place for that.
And keep this in mind: if you wind up leaving after having taught in Japan for too long, you’re going to have a hard time finding a teaching job outside Japan. Japan has a reputation that makes many colleges and universities hesitate to hire someone who has only worked in Japan.
If you’re a serious teacher, you won’t be happy teaching in Japan for long.
The students. Brilliant kids, and who I keep in contact on social media. I got to spend some time in a high school, and now I get to see them at University and leading their lives. Im back in my home country but I cherish the memories of being a very tiny part of their lives. The company I worked for was horrible but in the years since I was there, I only remember the good things
The people are great. The salary and the company, not so much.
I currently help run a school, teach four classes a week, get to make almost all of the decisions, and enjoy my life.
I came as a JET ALT, got hired to be ALT supervisor for the prefecture, taught at uni part-time, then full-time. At the same time worked part-time eikaiwa, writing materials, started a school with my wife.
Do that for twenty years and have some luck along the way and teaching English in Japan can be a very fulfilling career.
You do have to work at it though, either get more qualified (education/Japanese language skills) and get better formal jobs or do good work and create value (like these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Simple_Songs) , or go freelance/start your own business.
You probably don’t want to spend more than a couple of years working entry level jobs.
I’m having a great time teaching in Japan.
I got into teaching with a plan to make a career out of it. I worked for three years for other schools and overall enjoyed working for them. I also did a lot of extra part time work in the evenings after finding a main job at a private high school and saved as much money as I could.
Since then I have been in the Eikaiwa business as an owner. Sometimes its been hard work (especially opening new schools). Sometimes money has been a little tight, sometimes it has been a lot of stress (April 2020 sticks out as being especially stressful). Overall though it has been great. Its rewarding watching the students learn and having a chance to help out younger people who are just starting out living in Japan.
I make a reasonable amount of money and the hours are good too so I have enough time to spend with my kids and work on hobbies and other business ideas.
My first full time job out of Uni was an ALT, and I was really lucky that 1) my placement schools were in a well-off part of Tokyo (Setagaya); 2) The schools were modern and forward thinking and essentially allowed me to create and lead my classes as T1 or they made good use of me as T2 so I never really got bored; 3) The kids (elementary and JHS) were so polite and lovely, in and out of classes saying hello, inviting me to their classrooms to chat during breaks, some I got to practice Japanese with, even the older kids would walk me back to the station after school sometimes. I also made friends with the local bakery staff, shoe repair man, and cake sellers I would greet on a weekly basis. I could clock off work most days after my classes were done or even after lunch during half days, so it gave me more time to explore Tokyo and immerse myself in networking during the evenings.
I am also a POC, so to many kids I was their first non-Caucasian teacher, and that put me in a more positive light, with my different hairstyles every other week, or showing something new about where I came from, they were always genuinely curious. So I’m return I went out of my way and over 29.5 work hours to make each class fun and exciting, and basically unforgettable so as to set a standard.
I only kept a tenure of 2.5 years as an ALT, for many reasons: by year 2 my taxes went up and salary went lower so as to standardize the vacation months lol and frankly it was getting repetitive, and I was getting discouraged as many of my peers in other industries were making double/triple comps in the same timeline. I know I could do and earn better.
On my last week of work I announced to my schools I was not re-contracting and on my final days at my schools I was met with applause from the teachers/staff; some went out of their ways to give me handwritten notes and sweets, one JTE wrote me a recommendation letter. I haven’t been back to my former schools/area since, and I’m excelling at my new industry/workplace so I don’t think I ever will. But from time to time I reminisce on the fun times, the appreciation I got from the teachers, funny jokes with the principals, smiles on students faces and I’m thankful of how rewarding those few years were to kickstart my career life.