Discuss the state of the teaching industry in Japan with your fellow teachers! Use this thread to discuss salary trends, companies, minor questions that don’t warrant a whole post, and build a rapport with other members of the community.
Please keep discussions civilized. Mods will remove any offending posts.
10 comments
There was/is a theory that English education is creating more nationalistic views. And while this might not have been the original intention, it continues to this day in a Japan – foreign divide where students learn English as a way to speak to foreign people (all foreign people, not just English speakers).
JET has been a good resource to this as a large % of JETS come from inner circle countries thus the created materials by these ALTs also reinforce this stereotype of English foreignness furthering an us vs. them.
Thoughts?
What sort of review worksheets are ALTs making for their students as the year comes to a close? Also, any ideas for how to kill time while most classes are cancelled during the 3rd year tests?
I have a prefectural provisional license from a job I had a year back. Currently not at that job anymore and was planning to let it expire. I am wondering though if there is anything I should do to keep it active or is it just one of those things that just expires.
Is there a school owner group?
I’m looking to connect with teachers working at accredited international schools in Japan. I’m hoping to ask some questions as part of a teacher training program and just to find out more information about what different schools are like in general. Particularly interested in connecting with people working at schools with an IB focus or anyone from Hiroshima International School. Please DM if interested!
JHS first grader’s end of year message, ‘When I talked about hello kitty in my 推し presentation, sensei nodded’
This girl literally remembers me nodding and listening to her when she talked about her interests, it was many months ago. That mattered to her. Try not to cry -> cry a lot
My university is dropping all COVID restrictions next semester.
I’m currently job hunting in the Kanto area – wondering if anyone recommends certain companies? I don’t need help applying, but rather am seeking general feedback from any teachers in that area.
We need a 6 month moratorium on posts and comments related to ChatGPT. Every single time, it devolves into people calling each other “cunt” and telling each other to fuck off.
Just something interesting that I’m thinking about after being reminded how the dispatch and ALT system works.
Now, I should preface this by saying that I’m actually at an eikaiwa that isn’t national, and only operates in a few cities. Short version is that due to some supposed connections, the manager is always looking for ways to expand what roles the native-speaking teachers can do. Or in other words, this is NOT your typical eikaiwa.
Anyways, the company managed to secure some connections with a local BoE for doing teaching in schools. I’ll just say that there’s a lot of gray area in the law that is being exploited for this to happen (the company is a black company anyways). So, with this project coming up, one of the laments of the owner is “our teachers don’t actually have enough teaching experience.” Of our staff at this company, only two of us have ever actually been full-time in public schools. which got me thinking, you’re looking for English speakers who are actually somewhat qualified or at least have teaching experience? Heck, even your normal dispatch companies don’t care about teaching experience in general, because they’re just looking for warm bodies to occupy a school and maintain the contract. Which means that most of the staff only have experience following a very rigid guideline for normal eikaiwa classes, and there’s definitely a couple of people who may not be able to handle the curveballs that come with doing something like ALT work. Most of them (who, incidentally, were all hired within the past year) signed on for one role, and now a new role that they didn’t originally sign up for is going to be dumped on them. Only a couple of people in the company have worked as ALTs before… heck, my previous experience as an ALT is part of the reason I was originally hired.
Or in other words: you make a general job description so that you have enough staff to cover regular operations, but now you’ve taken on an opportunity that requires skills that most of the staff didn’t originally need or possibly even have. While I and the other guy who has had experience teaching at a public school can probably handle it, this is just a disaster waiting to happen.