So there’s supposedly a way for ALTs to get a teacher’s license by essentially just proving you have enough experience, which is the 特別(教師)免許状. The problem is I’ve been unable to find an ALT company familiar with the license and/or willing to help me get it in the future. My Japanese also isn’t quite good enough to understand all the fine details and I need to know what kind of company I should apply for for my new job because from what I understand of it this license is my career goal.
1. If you got the license how did you do it and with which company? How hard was it to get?
2. Can you get the license with experience from English schools and eikaiwa or does it all need to be from Japanese public schools? Do foreign eikaiwa etc abroad count as experience?
3. One company told me to get the license is unrelated to ALT work and completely impossible for ALTs, another told me ALTs can only get it if it’s a direct hire BOE job so you can’t get it from any dispatch job. Is that true?
1 comment
There’s a lot of gaps in information that is available for the 特別免許状, partly because how it’s gotten, who tends to give it out, and the requirements can vary from prefecture to prefecture. The only way to know 100% for your context would be to contact your BoE and ask them directly about it, since they would be the approving body.
Generally speaking, you need a sponsor which is usually the principal of an actual school. So eikaiwa is out, and experience at eikaiwa is likely to be ignored. There is some information as to what experience or qualifications can count, but part of what you need to understand is that this is not a normal licensing system that “awards” a license to people because they’re qualified and vetted to the same level a “普通免許状” holder would be. The special license is usually given to allow experts of subjects to teach/lead an official class by themselves when there is no normal teacher at the school that has the normal license to teach it. This is not a license that specifically exists for career advancement, it’s mostly a workaround license for people who are experts that have some experience but can’t/won’t get the normal license.
The numbers have been going up recently, but even now only about 100-200 of these licenses are given out nationally per-year, and most of them are to Japanese people to teach their subject of expertise at private/public school. Data is hard to find, but it’s likely that less than 20 of those are given out to foreigners, and only some portion of that would be to English teachers, which are also oversaturated. It’s not impossible, but you’d likely have to show your BoE solid teaching experience with a sponsor from a real accredited school, and convince them as to why you need it for your context instead of just continuing to teach on someone else’s license or in the private sector where licenses are not required.
It’s not a great system, especially for people who want official licensure and to forward their career. The only other option is to go for the “real” license which requires you to graduate from a Japanese university, complete teacher training, student teaching, and final evaluation for the license all in Japanese.