Hi y’all!
I’m so happy to have found this subreddit and I’m really excited to connect with you and join you soon 🙂
The reason why I’m opening this thread is because I’m looking for advice for my specific situation:
\- I’m 30, Portuguese (currently live in Portugal), and have a fairly all-over-the-place background with a bachelor’s degree in film and communication and most of my professional life working as a writer and a translator.
\- I’m a fluent English speaker. I also speak Spanish and Italian. I’m learning Japanese, but I’m only working through kanji at the moment, so I don’t think I’m even at an N5 level yet.
\- I have taught English before in Peru and Brazil (first as a volunteer, then at an NGO).
\- I don’t really have a preference when it comes to my students’ age groups, but I do feel like I’m better at working with 8/9-year-olds or older (including adults).
\- I’d prefer to be in Tokyo or within the Kanto area, but it is my understanding that that might be the hardest place to find a position as a non-native, so I wouldn’t mind being in other areas.
My biggest questions are:
\- Will my background still allow me to find a job as an English teacher in Japan?
\- From what I’ve read around the subreddit, it might be easier for me to find a job at a smaller eikaiwa. The issue is that those seem to be a bit more hidden, often they might not even have easily identifiable websites. So if anybody could point me toward some of those (or give me some pointers on how to find them), I’d be super grateful.
Sorry for the long post, thank you so much in advance to everyone who’s willing to help me out!
![How to tell if an international school in Japan is reputable [Japan Times]](https://www.lonelyjapan.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/e22hs0uLwbvbZRCzwu6bcSHIn8n2Zqo103252LHFZ6I-380x220.jpg)
4 comments
If you can get a visa you’ll be able to get a job. Maybe not a good job but a job.
Check if you qualify to actually get a visa. The immigration website is in English.
Then apply everywhere gaijinpotjobs, jobsinjapan, ohayo sensei, indeed, Craigslist, Google search etc etc.
Is Portugal part of the jet programme?
There is a job post on japanlife, but I believe they’ll be looking to hire someone domestically, which is mostly the case really. The supply for “teachers” is so high that many companies only hire locally, making it very hard for people in your situation.
Japan is noted for its unfounded prejudice against people that would not be considered “native speakers,” i.e., someone who wasn’t born in the US, Canada, UK, Oz, or NZ.
Without any formal teaching qualifications (MA) that would allow you to work in a professional teaching environment (international schools, universities), this means the jobs open to you are bottom of the barrel – places that will hire anyone with a pulse who is reasonably articulate. This means the salary will be low, the contract conditions might not meet labor law, and there is a possibility that you won’t be treated well. It also means a very unprofessional work environment, where you won’t learn anything about teaching and will encounter bad practice that could warp your ideas of how ESL should be taught and hinder your professional development.
If you look though this sub, you’ll find a good number of posts describing the various issues encountered at shady language schools. Read them – keep the red flags they mention in mind, and do not take jobs that don’t seem legitimate.
If I may ask, why do you want to come to Japan? If you’re interested in ESL teaching, then I would not bother since eikaiwa do not offer a professional experience for people who are serious about teaching, and the professional teaching market is already saturated with MA’s and PhD’s who have been in-country for years so it’s very competitive.
However, if you have no aspirations to be a real teacher and your only goal is to play around for a year while learning the language,and you are only teaching as a way to pay the bills, then it’s fine.
Another option is working holiday visa, find out if you like living here at all, and try to find a decent job once here. It’ll solve a few of your problems.