Full-time contracts – How I am supposed to teach 40 hours a week AND provide engaging lessons?

11 comments

1. You are not supposed to work full time, it’s a working HOLIDAY visa! The work is to support your holiday. You can do part time job but there’s no legit school that will/can hire you or a WHV.

2. There’s no way it’s 40 teaching hours a week. Probably around 20-25.

   Also you said you don’t want to be an ALT. I don’t know any jobs at JHS/HS that aren’t ALT’s, so good luck.

   I have maybe 3 Saturday events the whole year at my school.

3. You can’t work as an alt unless you have had 12 years of schooling in English.
   Your best bet is an eikaiwa or private international school. If you have teaching experience (not just the degree) it will be easier.

4. Working hours do not equate to teaching hours, more often than not. It will say in the job description how many teaching hours are required and then the rest is prep time/breaks/lunch.

5. You can find direct hire private schools that wouldn’t be ALT. The 40 hours are working hours total, teaching hours will be at least half of that. Also those 40 hours do not include unpaid breaks so in reality you will be working more like 45 hours a week and about 51 hours if you work a Saturday for the school festivities (which is about twice a month at my school) Also don’t expect any overtime pay as schools add the total hours for the whole year and divide that by 52 to say you are doing under 40 hours a week.

6. [deleted]

7. 1. Depends on the employee. If they’re willing to give you an interview before just saying “no thanks”, you’ve got a good shot.
   2. ESID – depends on the position. You can’t just make a blanket statement about positions all across a country based on one thing you heard.
   3. If you’re teaching, it’s unlikely to be 40 hours a week teaching, the planning and such will be in that number. If you’re not teaching, but rather using materials that have been provided for you, that 40 could be real.
   4. If you come here on a WHV, your potential employer is going to want to see the cutoff on it. When they figure out it’s not the same as the end date on your contract, they’re going to say “thanks but no thanks.” You’re probably going to need to try and find a job willing to take you on full-time, that is… if you must go to Japan to work for whatever reason. Why not come on vacation?

8. Hello. I teach at a private high school where i’m also in charge of recruiting. I’ll try to answer your questions as best I can.

   1. If you’re looking to teach English in a direct hire position it’s insanely competitive right now. We recently had an open position that received well over 100 applications. Not being a native speaker may go against you but also your lack of experience actually working in a Japanese high school could do as well. The job doesn’t just require teaching experience but also someone thats at least a little familiar with the day to day workings of a Japanese high school (speaking for my school this second one wasn’t as important before covid but now that the market is more competitive its allows us to be more stringent when considering a new candidate).

   2. This may be an open school event (these are seasonal and certainly do not occur throughout the entire year) or some sort of school festival, again these are not regular. I would hope that its not the norm to be required to work 6 days a week, in the 3 different high schools i’ve worked at it wasn’t.

   3. As others have pointed out 40 hours refers to your entire working week which includes lesson prep time and free periods. The standard rule with the schools i’ve worked at was if a teacher is required to teach more than 15 solo lessons a week they’ll be paid extra. This did not apply to ALT / team teaching type roles.

   4. I don’t believe a part time position will offer visa sponsorship. Also regarding part time positions they can also be pretty poorly paid and offer no benefits like health insurance, pension or paid holidays / sick pay.

9. In America the answer all teachers are basically forced to is “work a fuckton of unpaid overtime”. I hope that’s not the answer in Japan, but I’ll bet it is.

   If teachers only worked their actual contracted hours the entire education system would collapse overnight.

10. >Require native-English speaker – I am not a native but have native level (C2 on CEFR), does that suffice?

    Short answer: No.

    If you want to teach English you need to have had 12 years of education in English. This is a visa requirement. You cannot get an instructor visa (the one needed to teach at secondary school) to be a foreign language teacher without it. If your schooling in Austria was in German, then you will only be able to get a visa to teach German.

    If you want to teach another subject, i.e. Geography & Economics, then the visa requirements are

    1. a license/endorsement/certificate from your home country to teach that subject (basically whatever teachers in your home country/state have to have).

    and/or

    2) five years of experience teaching

    For more information look at the Immigration Department’s website: [https://www.isa.go.jp/en/applications/procedures/shin_henko10_09.html](https://www.isa.go.jp/en/applications/procedures/shin_henko10_09.html)

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    >Requires me to attend school festivities on the weekend – I read that there are quite a lot, is that accurate?

    It really depends on the school. I wouldn’t automatically not apply for a position just because the advert said you need to work weekends. I would apply and then have them explain their requirements to you. Typically it would only be one or two weekends per term.

    >Requires me to work 40 hours a week – in Austria full-time teaching is 21 hours a week. Am I supposed to design lessons, correct homework and so on in my free time?

    This usually means 40 hours per week on campus/at school. It doesn’t mean 40 hours in the classroom. You can expect prep, grading, meetings, etc. outside of class time. You may even have time with nothing to do, but you will need to be at school. Remember that Japan is a group oriented culture. Showing up and being present is a big part of the culture. It takes some getting used to because it is the opposite of most western cultures.

    >Because of problem 3 I searched for semi-full time jobs but they don’t provide visa sponsorships and I cannot stay until March (contracts are from April to March) with my WHS – suggestions?

    Adult education. If you want to work teaching adults then you need a Specialist in Humanities visa which has much easier requirements, basically just a bachelor’s degree. You can work at an English conversation school (eikaiwa), you can work at a foreign language institute teaching German, you can teach business English, European culture, etc.

    Good luck!

11. **Disclaimer: I don’t think I ever worked a job that had me working 40 hours a week. I’ve had 40 hour work weeks with 20-25 hours of teaching, but not 40 hours.**

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    I don’t give homework. I find it to be a huge waste of time. Research does not point to homework having any benefit to the students. It is just more work for them, and the teacher.

    For the rare disgruntled student that wants homework, I tell them that if they write a diary entry or something then I’ll grade it, but it’s optional.

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    Most places will have teaching materials (with lesson plans) already. I don’t work at one of these places, out of choice (I hate being told what to do). I find that you come up with activities that are easy to fit into the mold of various grammar points/vocab, such as flash card games (for kids) or news articles followed by peer-to-peer discussion for more advanced students. Once you find pattern/style that works for you, it gets a lot easier.

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    However, I digressed: You probably shouldn’t take a job that asks for 40 hours *of teaching* total. 40 working hours is something different, but 40 *teaching* hours is a fleet of red flags all at once. In my opinion.