Teaching in Japan rewarding or not?

18 comments

1. You’ve pretty much answered your own question. It’s the old and overused phrase; Every situation is different. There will be rewarding teaching jobs in Japan, but in my opinion, they’re probably quite rare.

   Teaching English, especially as an ALT, is widely considered a joke here in Japan. Japanese students have a serious and well-documented lack of desire to learn English, and it isn’t really our job to change that.

   I just try to have fun lessons, expose them to natural spoken English, enjoy my time here and not stress too much about emulating Great Teacher Onizuka.

   That said, there are opportunities you will get to make a difference. For example, students may want to practice for tests such as TEAP or EIKEN, and being informed you helped a student pass is a great feeling.

   My advice to you is to divorce yourself from your expectations and find fulfilment elsewhere because your situation is all too common and I am yet to discover a way to change it myself.

2. Sometimes

3. They go though the motions because they like the *idea* of learning English, but they don’t like the reality of what it actually takes to learn. So yes, learning English here is very much about checking boxes more than actual education.

   I’m going to generalize next, so keep in mind there are plenty of exceptions.

   Japanese often have social anxiety because there is such a strict code of social behavior, and this manifests in a fear of standing out or looking silly. They are also a very risk-adverse society, where they like to have formulas for doing things, rules, and plans in place that they can follow. But learning a language is the exact opposite of that – you have to be willing to take risks, make mistakes, look silly, and experiment with language. People who can’t do that or are unwilling to try won’t learn easily, and won’t become fluent. Most will just give up and drop it.

   Case in point, walk up to any Japanese person on the street, most of whom have had at least 5 years of ESL education, and ask for directions. Nine out of ten will get tongue-tied, five of those won’t be able to help you at all and will tell you they don’t speak English, four would try but be utterly ineffective, and maybe one would be able to help.

   And again, just generally speaking, most people are just not interested in learning another language as they don’t see its connection to their daily life. They study to pass tests, get into a good school/university, and then just coast though their classes. They have no image of their “L2 self”. There’s no motivation, and little interest.

   Most people have also experienced some very bad teaching. Teacher training programs emphasize the teaching of grammar since that is what is needed to pass tests, which are the focus of most ESL programs. Grammar-translation is still very much the norm. If they are lucky enough to have an ALT once a week they might get a bit more variety, but even ALTs tend to focus on grammar. This is just the expectation, which really is a pity, since even if they go on to further study after high school or university, eikaiwa classes also focus on grammar above all else, and the teachers aren’t even trained well and have no idea how to teach communicative competence.

   It’s a wide combination of factors, all of which result in people who have no real motivation to learn and who aren’t very good at communicating in general.

   I don’t blame you for feeling frustrated or burned out. Most all of us are right there with you.

4. I’ve been teaching as a full time ‘English conversation’ teacher in a private school for a few months now. I have many classes which I teach for 50 minutes a week, and they have (other than my class) an additional 3 hours a week for learning English Grammar with Japanese teachers. In my experience, it’s incredibly demotivating. Most of my students don’t want to learn and just sit there copying whatever you write on the board. Some students are downright rude and disruptive. I have a few students who are rewarding and really work hard to study English but they’ve all been told that studying a language is all about memorising vocabulary from a dictionary and formulas. Which, obviously, is not the best way to approach learning a language.

   So yeah, teaching English in Japan sucks. I do it because I like Japan and I try to make my classes fun so the students can at least have fun and I try to have a bit of fun also. It’s monotonous and sad and I feel sorry for the students who basically don’t want to be there and have to work so hard and yet not see any results. But that’s the way it is. I’ll probably burn out and give up in a couple of years and move somewhere else. I’d advise looking into a different country if you really want that rewarding teaching feeling 🙁

5. I only teach adults and I’ve seen improvements in them and even changed their life in a positive way.

6. I believe the sentiment is, if you enjoy and want to actually teach English, go to countries OTHER than Japan.

   A very dark reality is that education in japan (and arguably other countries as well) is on a major decline. Even at university level, it’s terrible. The short version of the “ideal” education in Japan is this: learn enough to pass tests and try to get into a good high school first, then learn whatever you need to for passing a university exam (hence why jukus are such a Big Thing in Japan), then screw around in university for four years before you make the right connections to work at a good job. To make this even shorter: learn only what you absolutely need to for high school and university, then make connections to get a job. Anything else is just extra.

   Side note, the next step after all that was: Marry and have a family, and your kids repeat the cycle. However, the declining birth rate is kind of killing this part.

7. Yes.

8. There are moments in the profession, and they usually appear in the form of a student or two who look to you as a role model. I transferred to a new set of schools (ALT) last year. I was burnt out at my old position cuz I taught out in the middle of nowhere and English was openly mocked as the joke class. Kids were good, and I made an effort to give them a good English education, but I can’t blame them for not seeing the point of learning English when most of them just wanted to stay in their hometowns to be farmers. I also worked with JTEs that were terrified of challenging the kids beyond “I like…” statements. English was just a curiosity to them.

   My new position is at the top school in the Prefecture. These kids want to go abroad or at least to Tokyo for higher education and can hold basic conversations in English. My JTEs teach most of the grammar and I focus on developing academic skills like summarizing, digital literacy and critical thinking. It was a shock to me how undeveloped those skills are for the kids. These are basic skills I was taught in Elementary/Middle School. The kids are enthusiastic about class and still have a bit of light in their eyes when it’s not testing season. It’s rekindled enough of my passion for the job to keep going another year until I finish my TESOL MA. After that I am out. Some people can make a career out of being an ALT but it’s not for me.

9. I teach younger kids in an after-school program, that’s honestly the most fun I’ve had here! They are very young and just want to play and sing princess songs! Make up games and use English and they learn and remember what I taught them! As they get older, it becomes very hit or miss. And so far, I’ve seen better wages (in the private areas) for younger kids than adults too!

10. My thoughts as somebody who has taught English in Japan (eikaiwas) & also in Australia (for prisons, TAFEs offering migrant English programs and job service providers):

    – You probably won’t see the same gains as you do in Australia. For example one of my students was a child soldier from Sudan. An NGO found him rotting away on the side of the streets, selling cigarettes aged ~13 (and completely emaciated). They brought him over to Australia. Over a 6 month period I saw him VERY quickly learn how to speak English (he spoke ~10 languages already but wrote none) and pickup high school grade reading/writing. I’ve since seen him around town and he’s an office worker who appears to be doing well. Clearly such experiences are very rewarding, but they’re also a result of people living in an English speaking country. Also, that was an exception. The welfare element of it all was pretty bloody desperate.

    – Others will disagree but to me the actual quality of teaching in Japan wasn’t bad. It was ‘student centred’ (they did all the singing/dancing/speaking) and took a ‘constructivist’ approach as the kids were always teaching me about their lives in Japan. Yes it gets very repetitive and yes there’s some crappy schools (literally anybody can open one & the industry’s unregulated). However the teaching style I was asked to use in Japan was high energy and look… rewarding. Again the cynics will say it’s all bullshit, but it’s rewarding seeing masses of kids in a small town with 1 or 2 foreigners (outside Japanese speaking Koreans/Chinese who have lived there for 20+ years) singing songs, reading books with rhythm/intonation and having simple conversations. I stayed for roughly 5 years and the majority of my students were speaking passable English (with LOTS of vocab/grammar in the bank) from my lessons.

    – Rewards come in many different packages. All of the above rewards came to me when I was in my 20’s and still working out what I wanted to do in life. It was a good mixture for me at that stage in my life as I learned a new language, made lifelong friends and built a lot of soft skills that have indirectly helped me in my career / personal life.

    – Is it rewarding for everybody? Definitely not. Pay’s very low, the pressure is unsustainable and unless you’re a special 1% person… it’s simply not a career. IMO in general it’s most rewarding for people right outta uni who wanna do a gap year. Alternatively I’ve seen people take-up decent graduate roles with Aussie companies, score their first few promotions and then take a year of leave without pay (to be a JET). IMO the latter is the dream situation as you draw a line from day 1 and won’t be struggling to find work when you go back home.

11. I ALT for elementary schools and find it very rewarding, especially building relationships with the students outside of the classroom and having them ask me questions about English or foreign cultures when we’re playing at recess. We have a smallish community that’s very rural, so I run into them outside of work all the time. Most of the younger students love English class and are curious about it, but when they hit junior high, that’s when I see the interest waning and classes getting boring with Japanese teachers teaching with outdated methods.

    I also teach a group of older ladies every week, and they are so sweet. Just wanting to learn English for the fun of it.

12. It depends on where you’re teaching and who you’re teaching. I’ve worked in eikaiwas where most classes weren’t in any way rewarding and I felt more like a babysitter / childminder. What changed it for me was first working at a dispatch company whose clients included private high schools and Japanese companies. I’m now a direct hire at a private school that runs an English immersion program and I absolutely love my job and find it it to be hugely rewarding.

    If you’re feeling lost and demotivated and you know thats down to your employment situation you absolutely have to try and find an alternative teaching job somewhere else, especially if you’ve settled here. After my first stint at an eikaiwa i felt exactly the same, thought English teaching in Japan was a hopeless, dead-end industry but i was so wrong.

13. Is flipping burgers at Burger King rewarding? Being an Eikawa monkey is the same as a burger flipper

14. What segment of the English language field are you in? What are the expectations of the learners and the community around them? That will determine how motivated and nurtured the learners are.

15. No

16. I’ve been lucky and find it rewarding. But I happened into decent employment and living quarters.

    David Paul, who created a teaching series I’ve been using for years called Finding Out, says he’s doing his last one-day Courses in Teaching Children on June 11 in Tokyo, and June 25 in Osaka.

    [One-Day Certificate Course Teaching English to Children](https://ltprofessionals.com/one-day-course/)

17. Kids don’t understand why they are learning English. Usually it is because their parents think it is “good” or they want to improve their TOIEC TOEFL score or whatever. The big difference between NZ, Australia, and Japan is NZ and Australia will reward English learners immediately (they are in an English environment.) In Issan (do you mean Isan, Thailand, btw?) there is a noticeable correlation in tourism heavy developing countries to learn English and earn foreign money. For Japanese kids, truth is, they don’t need English. 98% of Japanese adults don’t need English. Then you have the communication norms or Japanese (reserved, ambiguous, levels of formality, etc.) being quite different from English.

    Japanese education excels in areas such as mathematics (when you need to learn a formula). Obviously with a good literacy rate, it also teaches basic Japanese reading, quite well. However, things that are not so formulaic and require original ideas and risk to try something that wasn’t already done and drilled, is well, not so great.

    My advice. Just make English a fun experience for them. Through having fun with you and maybe becoming interested in the world outside Japan in a real capacity, they’ll put in the effort needed to motivate themselves to learn English. Plus, you’re not going to see much progress when their “exposure” to English is something like 4hrs a week, if that.

18. It’s easy to feel lost and demotivated here, but I think it’s a symptom of something wider than just stereotypes about unambitious kids in Japanese education. Because I’ve been able to work with ambitious kids. I’ve been able to work with kids who have good English skills yet who are motivated to be even better. I’ve had the chance to do innovative and creative classes with students who achieve big things.

    Those moments are glorious. Those moments make you forget about all the bs. But the bs always comes back.

    There are just too many adults in education here who don’t know how to get ahead without cutting someone else down. There are too many people who scheme and gossip and hold knives behind their backs rather than deal with their own inadequacies. There are too many people who only thank the people above them when it greases the wheels of power, and never thank anyone below them even when they’re standing on their shoulders. It’s so rare to get to see one of my colleagues even cheer for another without it being a symbolic statement about them sharing a political faction.

    Working with unmotivated kids is frustrating, but damn, if I was born into this system, I’d be unmotivated too.