Hi everyone, looking at posts here I’ve seen a lot of people commenting that Eikaiwas/ALT Schools are looking for foreigners who don’t have much experience with actual teaching/education and was wondering if I should try to downplay my experience with linguistics and teaching during interviews and more on how much I enjoy Japan and etc.
3 comments
No. Be honest.
If we are talking about eikaiwa, it’s not so much that prior teaching experience can hurt you; it’s qualifications along with prior experience, particularly if these show you would be unsuitable for an entry-level position.
Every eikaiwa teaching job, whether kids or adults, is considered entry-level. These positions don’t require prior experience or quals because that makes it far easier to find people who will accept low pay and poor working conditions. When people don’t have anything to compare it with, they don’t question what they are being told to do. But someone with an understanding of second language acquisition would question everything and push back on what they are being told to do, since they would recognize that the teaching method they are being told they must use is outdated and ineffective.
Ekaiwa are owned by corporations who are out to make large profits, and they are run by bureaucrats, not teachers. They create a business plan, not academic standards. They hire businesspeople to create curriculum, not teachers. They are businesses, not schools, and are run as such.
A real teacher, i.e., someone with an academic background in TESOL/linguistics/education and real ESL teaching experience, would recognize all the problems in how eikaiwa are run, and would be very, very unhappy in such a position and would quit very quickly.
I hope that helps makes things clearer.
No. Don’t downplay. You don’t want to work for the ones that prefer no experience.