Looking for an English teaching job in Japan

4 comments

1. It is possible. But It is pretty rare to get a position at a school or university without experience living and working in japan first. Like everyone you will have to grind your way from the bottom to the top.

   Start in an entry level position at an Eikaiwa (private english conversation school), or as an ALT (English assistant at a primary/secondary school), then keep studying, and networking until you can move into something better paying and more prestigious. Repeat until you get where you want to be.

2. I have a colleague who is from India, so yes, it’s possible. However, this colleague also has a specialism, gained from her work experience over many years, that has made her particularly valuable. She also has lived and worked in Japan for many years.

   You see, most people working in universities in Japan have already been in-country for many years. They have teaching experience in the Japan context, so already have an understanding of the particulars of the Japanese education system and can speak Japanese. You need to understand that Japan is a particularly difficult context for outsiders to get a foothold in, and generally speaking, Japanese colleges and universities prefer to hire people who are already acclimated to the culture. It’s going to be hard for you to find even an entry-level position at a college or university without prior experience teaching in Japan.

   Even for people already in-country it’s not easy to find a uni teaching job. It’s very competitive, and you generally need at least 2 years of prior university teaching experience and several publications for most positions, so as someone who has just graduated and has no teaching experience yet, you will need to teach for a few years first.

   With your education you could qualify for some university jobs after you get some teaching experience. If I were you, I’d get some experience in your own country first, and then see whether you can find a Japanese university who is looking to hire from overseas.

   That said, you can always check J-Rec, which lists university and college teaching jobs in Japan, and see if you find one that you might quality for: https://jrecin.jst.go.jp/seek/SeekJorSearch?fn=2&ln=1&jobkind=00013

   Sometimes they make exceptions, so you may as well take a look.

3. Read JALT job listings and JREC to get a picture of the university teaching situations here.

4. You’re going to struggle to get an English teaching job without having lived and studied in a country where English is the first language as almost all schools will have that as a prerequisite unless you already have roots set down in Japan. There are plenty of job forums online, I found my teaching job simply by googling TESOL or TEFL in Japan but you will be bottom of the list, especially as because of covid there’s a lot more demand than usual as there’s a backlog of people who wanted to go and couldn’t enter the country.