I’m reaching out to non-native EFL/ESL teachers in Japan for advice. How did you start your teaching career in Japan? Do you have any tips on how I can improve my chances of finding a job?
After sending out 40 job applications in the education sector over the past three months, I am still out of luck. I hold a Bachelor of Education in English, have one year of teaching experience in Austria, native-level English, and have taught over 1000 online lessons. However, my first language is German, and that seems to be a major roadblock.
Private schools have informed me that they prefer native English speakers or those with prior teaching experience in Japan. ALT companies have rejected me because I didn’t receive 12 years of formal English education. I even had a discouraging experience during my first interview with an Eikaiwa company, where the recruiter suggested that I look for a job elsewhere because I am overqualified for the position and would probably get bored quickly.
6 comments
>Private schools have informed me that they prefer native English speakers or those with prior teaching experience in Japan.
Unfortunately, native speakerism is alive and well in Japan. There are few contexts that accept that a non-native speaker is qualified and can teach as well as a native speaker. There are all kind of prejudices involved, as Japan hasn’t yet, and might never, embrace the concept of ELF.
>ALT companies have rejected me because I didn’t receive 12 years of formal English education.
Unfortunately, you need those 12 years of education for the visa. The only way around that would be a professor visa, which I think requires an MA? You should check the immigration website to see whether there is another visa type you qualify for.
>I even had a discouraging experience during my first interview with an Eikaiwa company, where the recruiter suggested that I look for a job elsewhere because I am overqualified for the position and would probably get bored quickly.
They aren’t wrong. Eikaiwa isn’t real teaching; it’s paint-by-numbers where you follow a set lesson plan. Anyone with a teaching qualification or degree in education is not going to enjoy working at an eikiawa. The teaching is so dumbed down it’s just pointless for anyone who has a degree to try to work in one.
I sort of wonder why you’d want to work in Japan in the first place. You should look at all of this holistically – ESL educational standards in Japan are very low, and pedagogy is way behind the standards that you must be used to in the EU. They are stuck in grammar-translation mode, utilizing discrete-point, focus-on-forms PPP, and basically ignore every other aspect of communicative competence.
If are, or want to be, a good teacher, Japan is not the place to teach.
If you want to visit Japan and experience the culture, you should probably come as a tourist, or a language school student. Teaching here will just be disappointing.
Are you in Japan already?
If not that’s probably your biggest hurdle. Come with a WHV and then change it to a work visa after a year.
I’m German and work as a teacher in Japan. Also have a teaching degree.
Some people make it somehow but it seems to be luck of the draw. You can only get in on a humanities visa, not an instructor visa, so ALT is out of the question. Some eikaiwa might eventually give you a chance.
I’m in a similar boat being non-native but native level (and strangely I’ve been told I have German accent but I’m not German). I just feel fed up with how strict Japan is around native speaker requirements and I’m sure I’ll never feel fulfilled as I also have a bachelor’s in education and Japan seems to be so behind on stuff.
For what it’s worth, you might stand a better chance if you come to Japan as a student and do teaching as a part time job and then might progress to full time (but again expect bad pay and feeling sad cause you know you’re not helping the students much, in most cases not all).
Non native here. I’m Scandinavian.
Never had a problem finding a teaching job tbh.
Might be because you have an accent or something.? Or you need to work on your interview skills?
What do you honestly think you can improve?
Regarding the dude telling you you’re overqualified. Be thankful. At least he was honest and didn’t waste your time. More people should be like him.
Hi!
My advice is pretty simple. Do a CELTA or trinity TESOL and then try to find an organisation or school that cares about diversity (e.g. Shane English School).
Then after 2-3 years move into a Delta and possibly an MA. You’ll be more qualified than most and you should find it far easier to move into other areas of the industry.
Would recommend r/gaijinjobs