Career path progression for licensed teacher

5 comments

1. Very few escape Eikaiwa or ALT work because it isn’t considered to be real teaching experience. Some pull it off but the number is so few that it really isn’t worth talking about.

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   (The EXTREMELY vocal few will jump on me for this post)

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   The honest truth is the only thing that really matters in eikaiwa is the color of your skin. For ALT all that matters is qualifying for the visa. You will see people here post things like “Get certificates!” or “Career development will help you!!” but it is all BS. Most of those posters are still earning less than national average and are trying to justify all the money they spent getting those various certificates.

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   If you are serious about becoming a teacher, get the qualifications required to become a teacher in your home nation and get a few years experience. Once you have those two things, then come to Japan. At that point, being an ALT for a few months may help you find a real teaching job because you will be here and can go to interviews. If nothing happens in 18 months it’s time to move on. The only other path is to get a PhD and publish a few papers.

2. Even if you find a great position available, it would be extremely difficult to get hired if you’re living outside of the country (not impossible).
   Think of your ALT Job as a way to get your foot in the door and a waiting pool that lets you live in Japan until you find something better. (It makes it a lot less soul crushing that way).

   But also make sure you’re working on your Japanese because it will be really hard to try and get out of that company housing if no one is willing to rent to you.

   (I live in Sapporo, my Japanese sucks, I work on it constantly and these are the difficulties I’m personally facing. Your experience may be different)

3. >majoring in Secondary Education, along with getting certification in teaching English as a foreign language

   This sounds good. Are you talking about a bachelor’s of a master’s degree?

   Not always but generally there are two career paths in teaching in Japan. Getting a master’s degree will allow you to move on to university teaching jobs. Getting a teaching credential/license will allow you to teach at international schools.

   There are also private schools which may or may not use foreign curriculum and may or may not ask for one or the other.

   So, it’s definitely possible to most past the ALT level. Keep in mind that it’s still pretty hard to get a job from outside the country due to the COVID situation.

4. > Is there career-path progression for those who begin as an ALT but their skills and background is the education field?

   I came to Japan as a qualified teacher (had done a few years in Australia with a full Australian teaching license. I have 2 masters degrees in teaching). The short answer is no…
   1. My piece of paper and license meant nothing in Japan (also, I woulda had to speak fluent Japanese. It woulda been a lot of work to just be a teacher. Sure there’s ‘international schools’… but they pay an eikaiwa wage with zero progression).
   2. Keep in mind that when I went back to Australia, it was an uphill battle to get my license back because the regulator was like ‘you haven’t taught for 5 years!!! You have to apply again, submit all the paperwork and start as a junior, supervised teacher’. I was like ‘fuck this, I obtained full accreditation in Australia then taught in Japan for 5 years… I should be getting that recognised as professional development, noting I now speak Japanese too!!!’ [Okay I didn’t swear at them but I was angry]. End result? I went and taught English in a prison because it paid better money and they were willing to recognise my experience. Later I re-trained as a lawyer.
   3. People talk about ‘university teaching’ but the pay’s less than what I’d get as a primary teacher in Australia and a general requirement is that you’ve published ~5 academic papers (for what’s essentially an on-campus eikaiwa job). I had the masters degrees ticked off but thought about publishing academic papers and was like ‘WTF would I wanna research English teaching and write looong papers about it? It’s not rocket science and I’d just be over-complicating things!’

   If you really really really wanna be a teacher in Japan one day then I’m sure you can do it. However, IMO you’d have to make your own pathway, and being an ALT wouldn’t count towards anything. I don’t wanna sound negative but as somebody with an Aussie teaching degree, Aussie teacher’s license and a Master of TESOL there weren’t suddenly a lot of awesome jobs I could apply for. I probably coulda gotten into an ‘international school’ more easily or found a uni-based gig but none of this woulda provided me with tenure and promotions. It woulda been purely because I was interested in that kinda work (which as noted… I wasn’t, and saw the idea of doing hardcore academic studies into TESOL as being a bit of a joke). If I’m brutally honest, I just wanted a proper wage after 5 years on 330,000 yen a month.

5. Reposting my response: not every prefecture has an intake system; if there is an intake system, prepare to buck up and study the Japanese policy documents just as you would for your degree.

   “target goal of learning English like a native speaker”

   If you want to teach, great – keep your eyes open for ネイティブ特別選考 from places like Saitama, Gunma, Ibaraki, Osaka, Kagoshima, Hokkaido, Kyoto, Shizuoka, Hyogo and others where you’ll have a grueling interview process over the course of a few months, but if you pass you’re legit, licensed, public school teacher with full investment after a year.

   Example from Ibaraki Example from Saitama

   You’re not going to be a millionaire, but the benefits are good and if you’re a lifer, it pays off pretty well. No side-gigs, ever, unfortunately, which can be a deal breaker for a lot of people.