I have a college degree in broadcast journalism and communications. For years I’ve just sort of… “eh”… Not really found my passion. I started working with disabled adult and realized I enjoyed teaching. With them it was a lot of simple stuff. But I found purpose and value in it. And being 28 with no wife or kids I figured why not try teaching abroad, maybe just a year or two, maybe longer. So I have that TEFL certification. I know some folks who have gone overseas and they loved it. But all said the same things about their job programs. Mixed reviews. Some good, some bad. Pay was nothing spectacular.
Anyone point me in a proper direction? Just help me out a bit, some tips and hints. Anyone know a good job program to use?
If I enjoy it I’m thinking I’ll get an official teaching certificate and masters degree. From what I gather a cushy teaching job at an international university is the goalpost. That’s where you want to end up.
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There is a plethora of information online as well as on this subreddit if you hit the search bar.
“Cushy teaching jobs at international universities” will be **highly** competitive and extremely difficult to get if you don’t already have a phD + few years of teaching experience under your belt. If you do not speak any Japanese, it will be even harder.
Here’s the thing about teaching: If you’re doing it because you haven’t found your passion or because you think it will be an easier job to get, you are probably **not** going to enjoy it. Especially if you’re starting out in a vastly different culture than what you are used.
I’m not trying to poop on your goals and I think it’s great to try and figure out what you want, but TEFL teaching and teaching English in general, is not everyone’s cup of tea. Be prepared that is not going to be as straightforward as you might think it is.
I’m a career ESL teacher with a few years of experiece abroad and I am finally going out to teach in Japan this upcoming March. I’ve been preparing for a while with learning Japanese and making sure I am emotionally prepared for what it’s going to be like. It’ll be a culture shock and I say this as somebody who grew up as a Third-Culture-Kid.
**My advice:** really consider your motivations for specifically going to Japan. If you decide to go for it, great, but expect challenges along the way. Research various Eikawa or teaching programs that you can get into. That will be your best place to start.
r/movingtojapan is a better place to start.
For the “teaching job at an international university” you’ll need the cushy doctorate and cushy several years’ experience and cushy multiple publications in peer-reviewed sources and cushy oral and written fluency in Japanese along with the cushy tolerance for long hours.
Start with the JET Programme.
I started out with the same motivations as you, just wanting to get away from home for a year and teaching as a means to an end, realised I loved it and stuck with it. Now I’m a qualified head teacher of a fairly prestigious international school in Tokyo and earning a good bit “more than a supermarket checkout clerk”.
People here enjoy being “real” with the “teaching and living in Japan hopefuls”, their experiences are valuable but their cynicism can be off-putting. Frankly it is what you make of it and you won’t know for yourself until you try. It can be an amazing experience too.
I suggest getting an online TESOL 120 hour certificate and applying for international kindergartens in a big city. The pay and upward mobility are usually better than ALT or dispatch work and the experience of teaching young learners makes you more likely to get a job in an even better position in the future if that’s what you want. If not, wrap up in a year and chalk it up to experience.
**2.
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Your plan seems solid. I would say to better your chances of success don’t limit yourself to only teaching in Japan. There are a lot of great places in Asia that you can more easily progress up the career ladder, get better pay, and enjoy a much lower cost of living.
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From my experience Japan is great for a few years, but after that things tend to get pretty stale and you can find a lot of very bitter older foreigners who have lived in Japan a little too long.
I’m about to move on from my first school which I came to love. It’s an amazing environment and a great experience, but it’s a small school. I wanted something bigger, but if you’re looking for a some place to start out, I can DM you. They need someone fairly quickly so you will probably have a good chance
My branch is in Tokushige in Nagoya if you’re interested in there. But I will warn you there is a lot of babysitting since it’s mostly a preschool, though there are older kids on Saturdays and in the afternoons, so if that’s not your thing you may want to skip it…
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Well, you will need a terminal degree, experience, and some publications to get into a cushy teaching job at a university. A lot of people said get into the JET program, I personally don’t know too much about it because I just came over to Japan many years ago on a whim, but you can also look around on Gaijinpot for a teaching job that offers housing.
Why not try teaching in your current location? That could help you decide whether you like it. Immigrating to an entire other country just to see if you like teaching is a lot of hassle IMO…
Also I teach at an international university, and while I love my job I wouldn’t call it “cushy.” I work my ass off, which is fine because I love my students and I enjoy teaching, but I definitely Work. Also, it took a M.A. plus 10 years experience of teaching in US colleges to get here.
I see a lot of people recommending JET. And a lot of people saying ALT work can be boring, not worthwhile ect ect.
Just to offer a different perspective, I’m doing JET after being an experienced teacher in my home country and i love it.
I’m slight older, similar to you. My motivations for coming here were that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and I wanted to experience a different place. Everyone told me JET is really hard to get into. It’s really not so long as you can write an OK application and talk like a normal person for a 15 min interview.
I love it. I actively don’t want any responsibility rn, thats why I’m here. It is a working holiday for me. Want me to read out some words? Sure. Want me to make a PowerPoint? Cool that’ll take me ten mins. Want me to plan an activity? No problem I’ll just Google on some efl websites and whack something together real quick.
I have loads of down time – people say they hate desk warming but it is free time. That you get paid for. Most office jobs have a lot of down time. It has enabled me to work out what I want to do and I am studying 2 to 4 hours a day towards my next qualification and I have a really concrete plan of what I want to do.
I really could do this job in my sleep but it is supposed to be easy. People think that being on JET is to ‘make a real difference’ and ‘change lives’. Obviously not and I don’t really get why people are so self important to think that they could change the world as an assistant and as a 22 yo straight from uni. Or why they think the ways from an English speaking country is even better than the japanese way in the first place.
The point is it is an easy way to move to a different country, get an alright about of money for the easiness of the job but more importantly to experience that country and culture bc the job is easy!! To learn about yourself, to learn about others. It’s cultural exchange and a working holiday. To teach them a lil bit of English. That’s fine. People go on and on about being a teacher as an alt. It makes me laugh bc in no way shape or form is this proper teaching. Even as a t1 it’s not. It’s just not.
I love it. I’ve saved loads of money bc it’s so easy to here. It’s given me space to work out my next move. Its given me an adventure and lots of self development.
If you can look at it that way and make the most of it then this could be a good thing to try in the future.
If you get sucked into a bad grizzly mindset by others then it wouldnt be. Honestly the only hard bit about being in japan has been some of the weird and wonderfully self absorbed and socially inept foreigners in my city. And cockroaches.
*disclaimer that I know other people end up w expensive rents or bad schools or a different situation but you can honestly just not go if thats going to be the case, or leave*
Want to live in Tokyo and get an English teaching job? Lolz
pay is shit in Japan.
go to China instead.
Vietnam is pretty good when you consider cost of living.