Been in Japan instructing since 2009, just finished a contract, have a working visa till 2026, have a bunch of money saved from the corona years, never formally received pedagogy instruction, wondering if now might be the time for a Delta, or something like it, even looking at getting “teacher certified” in my home country, USA, via https://moreland.edu/, wondering how legit that, or any of it, actually is, ideally looking for something entirely online, or something in Tokyo with a significant chunk online, would also love a potential reading list of recommended tried and true teaching tactics. Where I’m coming from: till now, frankly, and kindly pardon any arrogance, pretty much all classroom textbooks I have come across in Japan are boring for all involved, only used them secondarily under duress, ended up making my own materials at my last job (4 yrs at an eikaiwa), riffed off the student’s reactions to that material in the classroom, ie – review/presentation quickly done with powerpoint, then various activities/games I generally let the students (groups of 2 – 4) choose from, voluntary writing “homework” (maybe half the kids knocked it out, ie – scrapbook style self-expression, and a few kids went ape with it), thinking I got at least decent results in that students often had a good time and learned something, if eiken and the like are indication, am at least reasonably certain I didn’t damage anybody through boredom, ie -succeeding only in teaching them to hate the subject and/or think they’re “not good at English”. Checked out a CELTA program, got completely turned off by the application, things like, “Write what your best friend would say about you” in x number of words, but of course ready to change opinion per testimony. Been poking around in this sub, followed some links from https://www.reddit.com/r/TEFL/wiki/careerdevelopment/, chucking this post out there, curious about any constructive rebounds, and, again, would love some reading on tried and true tactics, hopefully following r/teachinginjapan rules, new to here and reddit in gen, thanks!!!
5 comments
Um…paragraphs are a thing.
You teach English?
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The only way I have ever witnessed Eikaiwa workers move into real education is by going home for five years and getting qualified. Otherwise you are looking at those scam international schools that article was talking about.
Reading through your comments, people are fuckin spiteful. What did this dude do wrong?
It really depends on your goals
If you are interested in teaching English at a university in Japan you should get a master’s. You could go to Temple University Japan or do an online program through a UK or US university. I went to Temple and they really teach you how to publish which is important for University jobs. But Temple is expensive and I know plenty of unpublished adjuncts with random Master’s working for various universities.
If you want to teach in the public or private school systems there are other requirements that you should be able to find out about by searching this subreddit.
If you are asking if Moreland is a real program – yes, it is. Will you get a great job from it? Well, depends on your circumstances. I know people who got jobs in good IS in Japan right away afterward but they had connections and did their practicals at the schools in question.
As to books, I would look up popular books on teaching and go from there. Visible Learning is one. Anything by Paul Nation is popular in TEFL. There are a lot of free, nice seminars from JALT still and Tokyo JALT even puts a lot of theirs on youtube after the fact.