Hello everyone! I have been looking for a job opportunity in Japan as an ESL teacher for a while and one of my acquaintances recently sent me the link for a vacancy in Bower’s English School, Makinohara. So I got down to do a little research and found a couple of blogs from 2011 that report fraudulent even abusive behavior. Now that about 10 years have passed, I wonder if anything has changed and if anyone has had any recent experiences with the school. Looking forward to your responses and thanks for your time.
4 comments
I don’t teach in Japan, but I teach in Korea. I guarantee you a lot has changed in ten years. Even in just one year things drastically change. I wouldn’t rely on some random post from 10 years ago. It’s better to go off your own intuition in this case.
If there is another native teacher, you can ask them questions. I wouldn’t necessarily try to interpret the answer, but instead think about how they respond to your question. It’s kind of like reading between the lines. You can pick up on the nuance that way.
Regulations have tightened so contracts tend to be more exact. It could jeopardize a potential offer if you go about it the wrong way, but I would ask if you will be employed as a full time employee or a contract worker.
As a full time employee you *should* be signed onto *Shakai Hoken*, meaning employers match contributions to health insurance and pension with a deduction from your pay.
As a contract worker you will be liable for making your own contributions and writing up your own tax at the end of the year. This can actually mean more money in your pocket and shouldn’t be seen as a red flag, but potentially bothersome.
What you need to be worried about is if they are employeeung going you as a part-time worker (up to 30 hours paid work) and obfuscating about what constitutes working hours. This is a tax and labour rights dodge. Avoid them at all costs.
Edit: If they do get sketchy about the question then that is another red flag, just make it clear you want be aware of all your obligations.
After 10 years they are probably worse. They have survived screwing over teachers, mainly overseas hires. Avoid
If a local eikaiwa, not a large chain, is trying to recruit from overseas I’d be wary. What that could means is that they have gone through a good number of people locally, who either were fired or quit.
A small school with a large turnover is a huge red flag. When people find a good job at a quality eikaiwa, they don’t quit. And when those jobs are up for grabs, they usually hire by word of mouth and advertising locally.
They wouldn’t go though all the trouble of hiring someone who needs to have their visa sponsored unless they were having trouble hiring locally.
The big chains need to hire from overseas because they need butts in seats continually, so they hire en masse from abroad. But small local schools shouldn’t have that kind of high turnover.
There are a lot of good small eikaiwa, but generally you have to be living here to find those jobs and be hired.
And there are a lot of “black schools” who, as someone said, manage to stay in business by exploiting naive newcomers who don’t know labor law. Signs this school is one of them:
– is often hiring despite being a small local school
– pay is under 250,000 a month
– no experience or qualifications requried
– offers under 30 hours a week (tax dodge)
– asks you to pay for things yourself, such as materials
– is cagey about what the contract includes, or doesn’t give you a contract
– acts offended when you ask questions about any of the above
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Good luck. And if you want to be an English teacher, get yourself a qualification so that you aren’t relegated to teaching at these black companies. And maybe don’t come to Japan, LOL 🙂