I can’t decide between the two. I was accepted to teach by PKC and prefer to work with kids, but they pay less. The only upside for me working for Berlitz is the extra pay. But I would still have to do a 2nd interview and I don’t even know if I passed the 1st.
PKC wants an answer in the next day, but I won’t hear back from Berlitz until later this week.
My long term goal is teaching 3rd grade GenEd in the States.
Thoughts and advice?
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From what I know, Berlitz has been closing schools, sold off by Benesse and new management is unable to improve things.
I don’t know if PKC is any better but Berlitz might go bust in the near future.
Most eikaiwa/”international” schools/kindergartens/after school type of “teaching” in Japan are more like playing around with kids, it won’t do you any favours in the future as a real teacher. You’re better off trying to find a teacher assistant position where you are if you want experience.
That said if you just want to have some fun in Japan for a year or something, then anything is okay, just don’t get weird ideas into your head that you would be actually teaching. And yes you’ll have to live very frugally if you don’t have much saved up but it’s not impossible even on their shit pay. For a short time.
Berlitz has quite a few out-service contracts with schools and kindergartens which, if you express interest in doing, will help you stand out from the other applicants and might get you placed in a more kids-heavy location.
Can’t speak to Berlitz, but PKC is a pretty easy job. You start late, usually 3 or 4pm, teach 2-4 lessons, and go home. But the commutes can be pretty terrible if you get unlucky. You’ll be assigned 4 classrooms over a wide area, and you’ll go to each classroom for a week a month, rotating each week. Some classrooms are close to train stations, but others require long bus rides and long walks, and the bus schedules might leave you waiting for long periods if the lesson schedule doesn’t match well. On the up side, PKC is solo teaching, so you get some freedom on how you implement your plan, as long as the kids are having fun. But with any workplace, PKC or Berlitz included, having a dick as a manager is a real possiblity, and can make your experience in Japan much less enjoyable. Also, at least when I worked there many years ago, we had to attend monthly meetings which might be very far from where you live, and ranged from mildly useful to numbingly pointless. Getting up very early on a Saturday for that shit was not great. Again it depends on your manager and how they do things.
This might depend on location but the manager at my Berlitz was absolutely insane.
Accept the position with PKC and drop it if you get the Berlitz gig? You’re apparently not in Japan for the long haul.
Berlitz. Hands down. Berlitz all the way. Pepe is close to being a black company.
Never worked for Peppy but a few people I know have and I’ve seen the local (small town) Peppy. My only comments are…
– I always see a foreign teacher working alone after dark on a relatively secluded street. Personally, I wouldn’t wanna put myself in that position with kids.
– Pay wasn’t great for the people I knew. One was this ‘bionic’ South African dude (think big tats and bulky piercings everywhere, clearly thinks he’s an android) and he broke down like a little baby after a month or two (I almost had to pretend I didn’t know as he was loud & sulky in a bar). He struggled with the pay as he was travelling all over the countryside (they’d pay him back at the end of the month but it was a pain that they were always in arrears). Also his supervisor would drop-in randomly without notice to ‘assess’ him all the time (sounded like he copped some pretty harsh feedback… NFI how he was performing but it didn’t seem like a supportive environment).
– Knew two JTs. They found it extremely stressful and noted they were pedantic about these hand gestures that you learn from some random English lady on a video. Lower pay than the FTs.
– To be fair… and I speculate here… my sample group doesn’t include anybody who stayed there for a few years and got offered some sorta supervisory role. Also, for all I know the FT I knew mighta had some serious attitude/performance issues. He may well have needed constant check-ins because (see my first post) they didn’t want to leave him alone with kids unsupervised unless they trusted him.
– Maybe somebody on here’s a Peppy supervisor? I’m guessing there’s at least somebody out there who’s earning semi-decent coin as a supervisor, doing more ‘assessing’ than teaching and has a little kei so can buzz around the countryside all day, sipping coffees before lessons and smashing big bowls of ramen at lunchtime. Love to hear one of these stories 😀
I know someone who works at Peppy and it’s awful. Would not recommend. Have you applied for ECC? They also teach kids and pay the same as Berlitz and I heard they offer a lot more days off!
Peppy is the easiest job I’ve ever done so if you just want a chill and easy ride I’d go for that.
Been with Peppy nearly 13 years as an NT and currently am a supervisor. The Peppy experience varies wildly depending on what area of the country you’re in. I’ve really enjoyed the work and the teachers that work with me say they’re happy (but maybe I’ve terrorized them into doing so? I can’t read minds). If you’ve got any questions you can DM me.