I know this is an all too common question, but the answers that I keep finding are confusing. Everything that I can pull up has people saying that teaching in Japan is terrible, that you’re treated like trash, that you won’t make enough money to save or to travel (let alone have time to travel!), and that finding housing is a real trial.
Yet… you all keep teaching in Japan. So… why? How do you make it work? Is it worth it to you, and if so, what gives it that value?
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Some people just want an easy job in a safe and quiet place to live? Money and status are great to have, but you don’t absolutely need them to be content with life. That being said, having one or the other in excess certainly does make things easier I suppose.
I can only speak from the perspective of an American.
After university, I was dying to travel. I was in the South, and the weird Christian conservatism, the obsession with guns, televised sports, consumerism, and general conformity was really depressing. I needed to get out. I wasn’t penniless, but I definitely would need to earn money to live. Teaching English was something I could do, so I took that opportunity to get out of the United States.
In terms of career building and money, it was probably a mistake to come to Japan. When I think of how hard it was to learn Japanese, and how little value my English teaching experience had to employers when I returned to the USA, it almost felt like I got nothing for years of hard work. If I had stayed in the US and struggled just as hard, I very likely would have had a more rewarding career overall. But, right after university, I really was sick of the USA.
Also, I kind of lucked out late in life. After returning to the USA, and working for many years, I married a Japanese woman and returned to Japan, where I live comfortably. It is very unlikely this would have happened if I had not paid my dues in Japan in my 20s.
People who say teachers in Japan are treated like trash likely haven’t taught in the United States.
Teaching *qua* teaching in Japan is close to teaching in other countries, although it can be a little less exciting because most students I’ve taught are not outgoing, but working as a teacher here is good. I make enough money to support a family (plus some family members overseas); have a place to live; and have enough time to both actually do the work and to have a reasonable leisure life.
I also like living in Japan as a non-Asian, too, because I can be anonymous despite being noticeable.
There are lots of reasons. Some people have Japanese partners who don’t want to move abroad. Some people managed to find a decent job after many years of working their way up, and are happy with it. Others dislike their job, but love Japan and don’t want to leave. Still others just don’t care about teaching or professionalism in teaching, so don’t care that teaching standards are so low – in fact, it benefits them since it means they can coast along at an easy job that doesn’t expect much from them.
In other words, what you have heard about teaching is quite true but people stay for a variety of reasons.
I will advise you on one thing, though. Those of us who have been here long-term have worked our way up and now have jobs with livable salaries. But it is getting harder and harder to move up and out if you start at the bottom. Back in the day eikaiwa paid well, so you could afford to save money, buy a house, get an MA, and find a direct-hire high school or university job. But in the last 20 years dispatch companies have slowly been taking over, the economy has tanked, Japan has become a popular tourist destination, and it has become easier and easier to recruit new teachers. That means standards and pay keep falling.
The market has also shifted from adults who study for a hobby to mostly kids lessons, which don’t pay well at all. Universities, which traditionally do pay well, are cutting their English programs, and companies are cutting business English training budgets, so pay in those sectors has also fallen and it’s much more competitive. That equals more competition for fewer jobs, and those jobs pay less.
Teaching in Japan has gone from a viable career that, over time, you could make a decent living at, to a low-paying short-term, no-future job for people who only plan to to stay with it for a year or so. You should keep that in mind.
I’m too disabled to live in a country without public transport. And my husband is Japanese, so the visa is easy for me to get.
But I also love teaching little kids. I love finding new and interesting things to show them and let them try! I love their curiosity. I love everything about teaching, so I put up with the bullshit from admin.
Plus, like, the hours are perfect for parenting . Never have to pay the hoikuen extra.
I’ve moved on from it but basically…
1. I was a young teacher who got sick of being bashed/taunted/insulted by western kids. Saw a few ads for gigs in Japan and decided to give it a crack for the opportunity.
2. Above all I wanted to travel and learn a language as my brother was the ‘golden child’ who always had months of travel through Europe paid for by our parents while I had to sit at home and be told to stop complaining because he was ‘older’ and ‘more mature’. He’d then come back and have a heap of longwinded stories about Europe, so I sorta resented that travel experience. Decided that Japan could be ‘my thing’ I guess.
3. I stayed for about 5 years because I liked the work/opportunity as a youngster. It was high energy, fun and gave me a full-time job. When the magic ran out, I left.
For the green tea and onsens
My husband has an academic job in Japan. We didn’t plan for me to move here but then covid happened and we didn’t see each other for over a year.
Teaching is probably the only job around here that I can do without Japanese language skills. I teach nursery and elementary kids in local cram school and I’m fully in control of the lesson planning/content and I actually enjoy it. ☺️
“teaching in Japan is terrible”
Not sure why you see this, but I’m assuming most of those statements are from people who work in low-paying jobs. You get out of it what you put into it, though, even the lower-paying jobs can be decent, if you can ignore all the crap from the employer and focus on the teaching aspect.
“that you’re treated like trash”
I’ve never encountered this. If you’re an ALT, you may be treated as though you’re not a teacher, but this is because… you’re not.
“that you won’t make enough money to save or to travel (let alone have time to travel!),”
Dispatch ALTs get more than enough free time to travel, they just may not have the money.
Eikaiwa teachers will more likely have money, but not enough time.
Once you start going up from there, you very well may have both.
Honestly, I’ve been here for longer than I had expected. I initially didn’t really enjoy it, but finished off my MA and out of the usual dispatch ALT/eikaiwa jobs (also I moved to a more preferred location). Despite being content I still had thoughts of leaving, then covid hit and I figured it would be better to stay put. Now I’m reaching the 10 year point and am considering applying for permanent residency – more as a backup rather than a definitive plan to stay long-term.
Overall it’s pretty comfortable here. I find it easy to save, travel, and live fairly comfortably. Getting out of entry-level jobs helped a lot.
University professor here (not teaching English). I found the salary competitive with my home country, the department collegial and supportive (if a bit “hands off”), and I don’t have to deal with a lot of the current hostility around higher education that I would currently in the US.
Also, I have a family and houses and daycare are more affordable for me here. And the schools and daily life are safer.
I teach in Japan because I wanted to. I did study abroad and thought “it’d be nice to spend a few years here” and teaching english is the easiest way to get in.
I don’t think you are treated horribly, but you are treated like a service sector employee, and the expectations for you are not changed because you are foreign. This is where some of the culture shock comes from I think. If you think service sector in most countries are bad, Japan has some of the highest expectations and standards for service level employees IMO.
So, I did some prep in college, got a cert in MA TESOL, and such. I was prepared for anything, and my inaka community is pretty good. I get to have my 3 to 5 years in the country on my own. and I don’t make enough to really owe anything on my student loans for now, not that I really need much more to live on here outside the bare minimum.
I can pleasantly live quietly in a low stress job and environment with a guaranteed job while I figure out whats next. If teaching is not your end game, its a beautiful place to contemplate.
My time teaching in Japan was my favorite time in my life . Living four years of my twenties in Tokyo was such an amazing experience. And it gave me a passion for teaching. I hopefully go back sometime now I’m certified and have real teaching under my belt
At this point Im actually earning all right so thats the only reason, but yes I hate it.
I used to like teaching, I honestly did, but Covid changed that.
There is so much extra work and parents are being dicks when it comes to using ZOOM.
Zoom was set up because of Covid and I understand why, but now some parents has started to use it as an alternative and that I don’t like. Prime example was last week. Parents call and say 10 minutes before class (also means I have to change the whole structure of the upcoming class in 10 minutes) saying that “my kid has a cough and were going to the hospital after the zoom class”
Okay all fine and well nothing can be done about that, kid joins the zoom call, I ask him at the end of the class something like “Oh so are you going to the hospital now? hope you’ll be okay” He responds “No hospital. We are going to Shizuoka”. I was so fucking pissed.
Thats why I hate it. Im sick and tired of it.
Means to an end.
You’re probably reading about eikaiwa workers, at worst entertainment/childcare workers and at best tutors. And dispatch ALTs who are assistants, not teachers, on limited contracts and low salaries.
International school teachers and university instructors I talk to love what they do, earn good salaries, and make lives here.
I’ve taught in private high schools for years, earn a decent salary higher than I earned back home, get 10 or more weeks away from school (I take some work home but not a lot), and my students are awesome.
Eikaiwa is a lot of fun and really fulfilling for me. It’s easy work and I get to be creative. Never worked in a school so I dunno about that but juku was absolute cancer. Can’t recommend.
Teaching in Japan is awesome- teaching companies (eikawa/dispatch) will exploit you shamelessly. Is it worth dealing with the companies to help teach some lovely students- at some point the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
You have got to see it for what it is-not what you hope it will be- or what is was 20 years ago. Its short term, no pressure, no responsibility work but for low pay and no benefits.
I would get paid more working at some 7-11s in America.
But on the other hand: I have Japanese friends in the Japan countryside. They work full-time, some more hours than me. I make more money than them as an eikaiwa teacher. So much so, they call me rich knowing exactly what my salary is (we all shared).
Because Japan is awesome and the work is easy with very low hours.
I have my own business now but I think I’ll always keep teaching part time even if I make enough with my business to stop. I like having a schedule, getting out of the house, socializing, making lessons etc.
I had 7 weeks paid vacation at my job, and I was sleeping at odd hours, was less productive than normal, really no benefit.
When I’m locked into a schedule it’s more easy for me to plan my day and actually get things done that I need to do. Infinite time means infinite procrastination.
Also, I’m a permanent resident of Japan. I have a child, a house, vehicles, my own business, relationships etc. Japan is my home so of course I want to live here.
Personally, I like teaching so long as I have a reasonable wage and get a reasonable degree of freedom. I also like living in Japan. I started teaching here when the EFL downward spiral had begun but wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now. Over the years I was able to build credentials and qualifications that kept me ahead of the riptide currents dragging other teachers down.
So basically I’ve carved out a little niche for myself that seems mostly stable and it’s the force of inertia keeping me from actively seeking something better. I’m not married to staying in Japan, but the idea of learning a new language in a new country with a new culture – basically starting over from scratch – let’s just say it would need to be a pretty good offer to be worth all that effort.
And while I could maybe teach back in the US now, for all of Japan’s faults, at least I don’t have to contend with a political party here trying to weaponize against teachers to drum up culture war BS. No one in Japan accuses us of grooming kids just by acknowledging that the LGBTQ+ community exists and then turns around and demands we all pack heat to protect schools from random mass-shootings, so by comparison Japan seems like a pretty good place to teach, at least compared to the US’s current dumpster-fire situation.
Because they want to live in Japan but can’t speak Japanese and have no other skill usable without Japanese (coding, engineering, etc) so it’s the only job they can do to support living there
My partner and I both teach English. We both have had the opportunity to work for schools that respect us enough and we actually love our jobs. We both work for private schools.
We met here, got married here, bought a house here, most of our friends live here. We’re both pretty quiet, love to walk, love to read, don’t like drinking. Our life is here. And we love it here. There are things we miss from our countries but as a teacher I think it’s hard to live in his country or mine with the meager salaries.
I think a lot of people just like to complain, and those voices can be pretty loud and attention-seeking. Personally I love it here, I love my job, and I’m having the time of my life. But I’m a university professor so I realize that my experience is very different from a JET, ALT, etc.
I lucked out with a really great JET placement in the countryside, got a direct hire from the BoE for the same salary after my contract ran out, and have recently been in talks with one of the local legislators I’m buddies with to get the town to give me a yearly bonus. I’m not a “real” teacher but I’ve built trust and gone beyond my job description to the point that I’m the de-facto main English teacher at the elementary school and do the bulk of the lesson planning, explanations, and evaluation myself. There’s also not a lot of students due to the low population here so the workload is fairly light and leaves me time to study or focus on other things. Some days I’ll finish my classes in the morning and hike out to one of the mountain village schools in the afternoon just to chat to my old students and co-workers.
My passion is for languages (my BA is in linguistics), not necessarily teaching. But I still enjoy teaching and feel like I’m paying forward what my high school Japanese teacher passed onto me. I’ve thought about going back to school for an MA and getting a higher paying job, but those jobs are in the city and I’d rather stay in the countryside where I’m pretty comfortably settled. I’m a regular at town events and everyone here treats me like family. Cost of living is lower here and I have no trouble saving and having money for travel and hobbies. Since I live right in town everything is walking distance so I don’t have to spend anything on my commute either.
Those are the “pulls” ; the main “pushes” are that the housing crisis in America puts a damper on me ever having a place to call my own and the healthcare here, while it has its problems, is much more affordable.
Wanted to live in Japan for a few years, and it’s an extremely easy job with very low visa requirements and no experience needed. Ultimately I fell in love with Japan, and would have stayed longer, but teaching English is soul-crushingly boring and I couldn’t do it any more. But I had a good run, and certainly got to experience a shitload of Japan.
The numbers are falling all the time. Japan is bringing in Filipino and other nations’ teachers to plug the gaps.
I was teaching before I even came to Japan.
Because if you can’t, you teach as the old saying goes. There are tons of people coming into Japan who have zero skills and no prospects. So they teach English. It’s the bottom of the barrel so why are you surprised at all the horror stories?
was a teacher in my home country, then moved to Japan because I married a Japanese. I was an English and History teacher, so it wasn’t easy to find a “good” teaching job that was “teacher teacher”. but after a few years, finally got a job at a real international school with decent pay. the worst thing though is the commute.
also, I’m one of those “non-native” English speakers that some might say are making the standards of education drop, but in my defense, I have the qualifications and experience.
Navy’s are the best
Because this subreddit has two main types of threads, though others are obviously included:
First, you get the “I’m coming to Japan to teach English! What should I expect?”. More often than not, these are the same folks who have never done any form of teaching before and are coming simply because the bar is so low. It should be noted that you’ll hear from these folks once or twice, and then never again.
The second type… well, it’s not actually a thread, but the comments- and there’s certain wisdom in the old internet saying “Never read the comments”. These are from people who are FORMER teachers, of any sort. You’ll get the now-teaching-in-university, or the ones who have gone back to their home country (and if you REALLY pay attention, you’ll notice it’s the same users making these comments). You see OP, you’re asking the wrong question: it’s not “Why are you teaching in Japan”, it’s “Are you ACTUALLY teaching in Japan?”. There’s no restrictions to who can come here and post, so long as it’s on-topic, so there’s a bunch of people who have been burned by the ALT/Eikaiwa industry who post simply to shit on anyone who is entering the industry.
While I’ve been here my country went insane and I don’t want to go back.
Also I’ve got a pretty easy life at my current place where I can do pretty much whatever I want with regard to my lessons.
Well, I’m an international teacher here, so the points you listed seem to be mostly based on the English teaching jobs like ALT / eikawa stuff.
>people saying that teaching in Japan is terrible, that you’re treated like trash, that you won’t make enough money to save or to travel (let alone have time to travel!), and that finding housing is a real trial
I have total freedom in my classroom and content, I make the equivalent of Japan’s national *household* income as a single person with no dependents, saving a minimum of 12万円 per month, currently still on summer break and have travelled to Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, Izu, Shuzenji and Karuizawa in the last 8 weeks, and had no issues finding a decent place in the city near a good station.
I came to Japan because of a few reasons;
* reconnecting with old friends here
* love Japan (used to come 2-3x yearly between ages 18 – 25, and yearly before then)
* like traveling around Japan, especially rural, and I speak Japanese so it’s not a problem
* and yes, I like anime and manga
>Is it worth it to you, and if so, what gives it that value?
So far I’m loving it here. I’m on a 3 year contract, will see how I feel after that. I’m used to the expat life, having moved to 4 other cities before this in my life, so if I somehow have enough of Japan in the next few years, I’ll just move onto the next.
ETA: I probably shouldn’t need to add this but I also love my job itself. I’m one of the few(?) teachers that don’t really feel stressed from my work nor take home any work, enjoy both the content and my students, though it’s been an interesting adjustment having no behaviour management issues here but also having to basically pull teeth when getting students to debate controversial topics in class.
I like teaching. I learned Japanese, and can use it in this work. My Japanese study feeds into teaching, which motivates me to improve my Japanese. It also helps me to understand what Japanese find difficult about English and find easy to understand ways of explaining English.
I taught at AEON, as an ALT, and neither are doable long term because of the work conditions, but the classroom work itself can be very rewarding… if you do it well. I also did some university work, which was the least enjoyable, because I was teaching mandatory English, and the students felt no obligation to participate.
I opened up my own classroom space. That doubled my salary, and am now my own boss. I work six days a week, but that’s my choice. I could cut it down to five and still do fine. I just want to bank some money to make up for the desperate years I had as an ALT.
Came for two years (hah!) on JET in 2000, met my wife, was lucky and ended up having an interesting and profitable career teaching English in Japan, semi retired this year at 44.
So far, I have absolutely no complaints about working in Japan except that the pay rates are not super high IMO. But that’s it, really. I teach both kids and adults.
Love teaching even after fifteen years here.
My personal life involves a Japanese subculture and I can’t be a part of and enjoy if I do not live here. So I work just to keep living here.
Edit: I also do not want to work in an all Japanese environment because I hate the work culture lol
Cost of living is much better here than in my home country. I could never afford to live on my own back there. …Also I’m bilingual. If I lived in another non-English speaking country I wouldn’t be able to communicate.
Because I enjoy it and I make a good hourly rate as a self-employed person.
>teaching in Japan is terrible
It’s not.
>that you’re treated like trash
I’m not. The only people who ever did that to me were employers doing that by paying too little. The other people I met were great.
>that you won’t make enough money to save or to travel
This is often true for people in stuff like ALT jobs because the industry is a race to the bottom where they try to basically nickel and dime your by doing shit like defining work ONLY as the times you are in a classroom or using loopholes to avoid paying insurance. If people stopped accepting shit remuneration, this wouldn’t be the case.
>finding housing is a real trial
If you’re a Japanese person who doesn’t have a guarantor, it’s just as bad. It’s also improving. Furthermore, there are no barriers to buying a place if you have the coin, unlike most Asian countries that restrict foreigners.
>Yet… you all keep teaching in Japan. So… why?
We don’t all have the same job and/or living situation. For the last five years I’ve had a decently paid job with good vacation time. But it took me five years to get to that point. So if someone asks for advice about coming here and starting out, my advice would be you’d need to be prepared to have at least a few difficult years before you could find something really rewarding. And even then, jobs like mine are getting more difficult to come by (you need a bit of luck).
I came to Japan long ago, _after_ being in korea in a few different roles (army, then peace corps, and later uni teaching), and after having spent a year in Beijing (’82-83), and then six months in Taipei.
The world was a different place then. Korea was pretty primitive the first two times I was there, and even the last is was still military dictator (Chun), student protests and tear gas, etc. China at that time was just opening up, only the faintest glimmers of private markets, no private cars _at all_, and everyone was still ‘comrade’ (tongzhi). Taiwan was better, but still repressive, and if you got a real job/visa, it would then be hard to leave (needed permission). Vietnam wasn’t even open at the time–in the 80s there were still boat people leaving.
So when I got to japan (’85), it was a breath of fresh air. Normalcy. Like free country kind of normal.
One thing led to another, and yes, I did get married and had kids. But you know what? Even today, kids of mixed couples like us can go thru the regular school system–the public schools–and in spite of the BS you may read about discrimination/bullying, ours did fine (even university here). Important: that still doesn’t happen in china, korea, or vietnam (not sure about taiwan). It may be possible in korea, in principle, but the overwhelming pressure and almost the only choice is international schools. Given what I read about them, esp these days, schools in japan are far better than in the US–safety, levels/skills that students achieve, and so on.
Immigration: Japan also is unique in that your visa, your permission to stay, is not tied to your employer. In china and korea, even now (and I doubt they’ll ever change!) your employer owns you (again, not sure about taiwan, or vietnam these days). Married/spouse status is comparatively easy to get here, and, another big difference, permanent residency is also easier/achievable.
I’m now retired, and have no plans to relocate from japan. And there are a lot of people like that–people who got permanent residence and then retired here. Japan is very ‘retire-able’.
Uh, go to korea and find some foreigners who liked it so much that they decided to make/continue their lives there, raising families and staying after retirement. And china–do I even need to ask? Vietnam seems fairly okay as a possible retirement destination, now, but IME medical care is much better here (and I’ve had occasion to experience some serious things).
Tho getting rare/rarer, I was a permanent (seishain), with all the associated employee protections. This is another big difference between japan and other countries (even the US!).
(hope this doesn’t sound too much like a rant, I don’t mean it to be)
> Everything that I can pull up has people saying that teaching in Japan is terrible,
The only terrible experience I’ve had was working briefly for one of the big ALT dispatch companies. Long story short, their branch office employees lied, cheated, and misinformed. And the pay was abysmally low.
> that you’re treated like trash,
A lot of noobs in Japan learn what their rights as workers and residents are as they go along and get cheated by predatory dispatch companies.
There are also horror stories about women harassed by creeps in eikaiwas. Not all customers are there for the English lessons.
> that you won’t make enough money to save or to travel (let alone have time to travel!), and that finding housing is a real trial.
It really depends on which slice of the job market you’re in. I earn a salary in the mid-range of university and international school teachers make as a private high school teacher.
Before corona, I traveled abroad once or twice a year. These days, I travel within Japan.
The cost of living is rising, but still lower than at home, housing is cheap, and I’ve got extended family, my partner, and my social network here.
Another factor that makes it comfortable is I don’t own a car and between a bicycle and the rail network, I go anywhere reasonably cheaply.