Teaching english as a non native english speaker

5 comments

1. Anecdotally I know a few European English teachers whose native language was not English. It’s not impossible. That said, all those teachers found their jobs when they were already in Japan. It may be a disqualifier for some companies if they haven’t met you.

2. I’d say you can very likely get an English teaching job in a part of the industry that has high turnover such as ALT work or 英会話.

   Back 20 years ago it was almost unheard of that any English teacher would be from anywhere other than the big 5 English speaking places – even South Africans were rare.

   But since then it’s become increasingly common, hell, when I worked at GABA about 10 years ago about 30% of their teachers were “non-native fluent” AND of the top 3 teachers at my branch (by student ranking) only 1 was “native”.

   Yeah you should certainly apply.

   Optimally, you should come here on a tourist visa and be on the ground able to interview. That will give you a leg up wherever you are from.

3. So there’s some decent advice here, but a few key points are also missing.

   While it is certainly *possible* to get a job teaching English as a non-native speaker, it is very challenging. There are a number of roadblocks/challenges you will have to overcome:

   #1: In order to be an ALT (English teacher in the public schools) you will need to prove that you have “12 years of education in English”. That’s the phrase that’s on the immigration documents, but it’s confusingly worded. They don’t mean “I took English classes for 12 years.” What they mean is “I took ***all*** my classes in English for 12 years.”

   Basically if you’re from a non-native-speaking country you need to have gone to an International School with an English curriculum. Whether your time in the UK counts is a bit of a grey area. Some folks have made it count, others have been required to show K-12.

   #2: As an eikaiwa (private language academy) teacher, you’re not required to show the education requirement. But they’re commercial enterprises, selling a product, and that product is not actually “learning English”. It’s “Talk to a westerner”, basically.

   In other words, there’s a *lot* of bias in the industry. Their ideal employee is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed American. The closer you come to that ideal, the better your chances.

   As for your specific questions:

   >I’m planning on taking IELTS exam (as a proof of my english knowledge)

   That actually might help with an eikaiwa job. It won’t help for an ALT job if you don’t meet the education requirement, though.

   >and getting TEFL certificate too

   Don’t bother. No one looks for it.

   >I’m afraid they will just see that I’m lithuanian and will automatically reject me.

   Being frank: There’s a high probability of this happening. Especially now that the borders are opening and 2 years work of back-logged potential employees are flooding into the country.

   Worst case you apply and they say “no”. It’s not a judgement on you as a person. It’s just a job that didn’t happen.

4. I work at a company that is quite welcoming teaching English as long as you have experience of teaching under your belt already. Feel free to DM me if you’d like!

5. You could apply to the JET programme— looks like Lithuania does participate, albeit in very low numbers:

   http://jetprogramme.org/en/countries/

   Applications open in the fall every year. Check the website to get more info and see if you meet requirements, and then there is also a subreddit for JET. r/jetprogramme