So, in a nutshell, I live and work in Korea and I’ve been here for a few years. I’ve had several offers for private tutoring (but turned them down to due illegality on korean work visas).
I’ve been developing my own curriculum as my main goal in Korea was to eventually settle and open my own gongbubang (private tutoring at home) or small hagwon (academy) teaching British English with a focus on native level pronunciation and accents and reading fluency.
I’ve developed 3 vocabulary text books. One phonics based, one elementary and one more advanced one for middle to high school students. I’m also creating a translation based grammar text book.
I know my reading and phonics curriculum is highly effective as in one job I had 6 year old students spelling 8 letter words just from the mastery of phonics I taught them in less than a year and their reading and pronunciation improved collosally.
Also even in big chain academies, the managers told me directly that my reading curriculum was better than the one provided by the chain HQ so I’ve been practicing and improving it using my other jobs students as guinea pigs.
The point is, I know my resources are pretty good and in Korea there is a huge demand for private teachers who know what they are doing, and if I stayed in Korea I will definitely make alot of money one day as my curriculum is better than the majority of hagwon and gongbubang here especially for elementary students and low level learners.
But what is the environment in Japan like? I know the korean environment very well but know very little about what it’s like in Japan.
Honestly, I’d prefer to stay in Korea as i think itd be much easier making good money tutoring privately. But I’ve been dating a Japanese girl for a while and the topic of marriage has started to come up. Since I’ve invested so much time learning korean and creating resources for korean students I’ve been reluctant to think about starting from scratch in Japan.
But to those with more knowledge of the japanese system, what do you think my chances are?
It’d take me a couple of months to translate all my Korean resources into Japanese. I have a foundational knowledge of Japanese grammar and speak a little Japanese. I could probably be fluent in a year or so if i studied properly (been studying korean so far).
My girlfriend lives in Fukuoka but has said she would be happy to relocate almost anywhere in Japan if I wanted to and she wants to support my teaching goals.
Obviously I’d be going on a marriage visa so I wouldn’t ushe any restrictions on my work.
I also have a good friend (half Japanese and half korean) who has encouraged me to focus on being qualified to work as an international school teacher instead (she’s quite wealthy and sends her son to an international school in Tokyo but she has also said she thinks I could do well in japan if im smart about it but its harder than korea).
I’m also considering applying for JET this year and trying to get a JET position for a year or two while getting settled before just jumping into the marriage route. My girlfriend would relocate for it (but obviously prefers I go to fukuoka than another city). I applied in 2020 but didn’t even get an interview though I’m told the situation isn’t like that now.
What advice would you guys who jave more experience with japan for me?
Which sort of cities are best to live in for succeeding teaching privately? Is a medium size city like fukuoka a perfect city for a small self employed tutoring business like this or is it better to focus on Tokyo or its suburbs? In Korea a native even in a rural area can be quite successful.
How competitive is it and how much demand is there?
How would you recommend I go forwards from here?
Thanks alot everyone c:
5 comments
To reiterate what I commented on the other post:
Do you have a teaching license and a few years teaching in your home country?
Alternatively, do you have a PhD and a few publications?
If the answer to both of these is ‘no’, your long-term prospects will be limited, and it may honestly be better to seek opportunities in other sectors.
If you’re able to obtain a teaching license, you may be able to nab an international job, but I’m not familiar enough with that avenue to offer guarantees.
It is not as big in Japan as it is in Korea. Most Japanese students will go to cram schools and/or conversation schools. So, you’d be best to open up your own small conversation school. It’ll be a little tough to get students early on to make it a full time job. Fukuoka is probably a fine city for this. Not too big, not too small. A good balance of market and not as much competition. If you have any knowledge of business, you may look into buying a currently operating small conversation school. This would enable you to buy up the current roster of students (though a chunk will leave in a management turnover). But, if you have the money and can afford to build your business from the ground up, you could do it yourself.
Sure there are private tutors, but its not the lucrative business it used to be. The market is just too saturated, and compared to Korea education isnt that competitive.
You need to have a way to get a visa via a regular teaching job but you can make extra cash teaching privately. You won’t have any of the crazy problems with immigration like in Korea. I did it for years. On the other hand it has been getting harder to get private students to pay a reasonable amount to make it worthwhile for me. Anyway it is doable but you need a basic job to get the visa first. Fukuoka is good and any city about that size or bigger.
As someone who wrote textbook in Korea and then came to Japan just gonna say its an entirely different beast. Korea is, or was when I was there very wild west. This let a lot of people who didn’t particularly have the qualifications make stuff like textbooks. I now have a masters and look back at my old text-books and role my eyes at what I made, especially related to language learning. Japan has a lot more mature market and most people making material have experience and expertise in it. Normally a PHD and if they have a masters its because they have decades of teaching experience to go along with it.