I double majored in Japanese and Korean language at university. During my university years I started my own freelance teaching business online, so I am a private tutor with 5 years experience.
Also, I went for one year to Tokyo University of Foreign Studies as a MEXT scholar.
Is there anyone on this group that is teaching English in Japan as a non-native? Any advice would be appreciated, thank you!
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This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**Hello, is it hard to get an English- teaching job in Japan as a Romanian?**
I double majored in Japanese and Korean language at university. During my university years I started my own freelance teaching business online, so I am a private tutor with 5 years experience.
Also, I went for one year to Tokyo University of Foreign Studies as a MEXT scholar.
Is there anyone on this group that is teaching English in Japan as a non-native? Any advice would be appreciated, thank you!
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You might wanna ask that in r/teachinginjapan
But as a non-native let me share my research so far. It is hard. Japan’s Instructor visa for ALT work requires you to have 12 years of education in English, so if you’re not from an English speaking country and did not attend international school for all 12 years then that’s out of the question. The alternative is Specialist in Humanities visa which eikaiwa schools usually give. Eikaiwa schools may or may not hire non-natives and each one is different, but many big names do prefer natives.
Now the bigger issue is there are so many natives wanting to teach in Japan, and in the end if the employer prefers natives, they’ll take even inexperienced ones over non-natives with experience.
English teaching, especially in Eikaiwa schools, is considered an unskilled job, so employers don’t expect much from workers in terms of qualifications or experience, and may even prefer ones who do not speak Japanese at all.
So it’s not impossible, but it is very hard. In the end you just have to apply and see what happens. I don’t know if Romania does JET but if it does you might wanna try that as you can experience better conditions and pay while doing ALT work.
I have no idea how hard it is to get a job as a Romanian but I did work with one at an English school in Japan and I remember thinking that she was very overqualified. She had a chip on her shoulder about the rest of us getting jobs so easily. Anyway, it is possible!