On my birthday no less. Very sad day, and it’s not over yet. I hung on as long as I humanly could, but this was a terrible work situation, and it’s been hell on my mental health. I still feel very sad. I have a new part time music event staff job, but I was really determined to become a good english teacher and pursue a career in this field. I have lifetime job placement from the company I received my TEFL certificate through, but you know. I’m just afraid that was it, and finding a new position is gonna be super hard. We’ll see I guess
The job is what brought me out here to Japan. The story goes: I got certified last year, I flew out in January and started the training. The 2 week training was absolutely brutal. I was verbally abused for making some small mistakes in my lesson plan while teaching my “trainer”, not a real student. He actually got fired for it (through no fault of mine). Still, I jumped in with both feet and gave it my all. I mean seriously. I had had no previous experience teaching, or with children whatsoever, but this company’s demands and expectations of me continue to just be so insane. Like, clocking in and 5 minutes later “Sensei, please teach this makeup group lesson to two students you’ve never met before from a book you’ve never seen before in 5 minutes please! What do you mean no one ever showed you this book? It’s in our supplies, and you’ve had plenty of time to review it! Do a good job!” They offered virtually no support if you had a problem like the company book not matching the student’s book. They’re basically like “Figure it out yourself”. I swear, that’s only the beginning. I stuck around for 5 months of this, and gave it my best possible shot. I’ve been getting a little bit better at my teaching lately, but it’s mostly just me getting better at their specific curriculum. Their books and materials are ancient (some from the 90’s) and you work there completely alone with one staff who barely speaks English.
My issue was that the contract I signed said 40 hours per week, but I’m actually required to be there for 45 hours per week, which is just 5 hours too many for me to be able to take care of crucial personal affairs. Laundry, groceries, learning Japanese, shopping for school supplies, exercise. It’s 5 solid days of having no time for anything besides the job. Anyway, I politely explained to them that as an American, I didn’t realize the contract meant that it would be 45 hours clocked in, and that I’m just too “burnt out”. I emphasized “This is because of “me” misunderstanding the contract, not because of your company” Oh man, the words “burnt out” permanently changed their attitude towards me, now viewing me as a liability or crazy person who’s going to crack. They also took it as a direct slander of their company. The last month has just been them pressuring me to resign every day, and last week it turned into harassment on the job. I stood my ground, but they made empty threats and pulled shenanigans and last week they were literally trying to guilt trip me into staying, and pressuring me to resign at the same time. They would come in between my lessons and chew me out to leave, but then their personality would totally flip and they’d be showing me new jobs on their computer and trying to softsoap me into taking one. Absolute nightmare. I know I’m gonna get flack, but 45 hours is just too much for me. I was totally fine with 40. I’m fully aware now that it’s the standard in Japan, and doesn’t include lunch breaks, but you can’t take care of personal life on your lunch break. a fleeting 2 day weekend is not enough. Especially if your fridge isn’t stocked from Saturday morning
I just honestly never understood. I know Japanese corporate culture is very different, but I’ve done nothing but show up on time, every single day ( I’ve had a single sick day in 6 months. ) with a smile on my face, teaching to the best of my abilities. This company does not care about its’ employees at all. Only its’ image to the customers. The American hiring manager was a total asshole about it, and just totally off on her assumptions about why I’m quitting.
It really, really hurts me to have to even temporarily give up on something I’ve been working towards for 10 years. I’m excited for my new job and living situation, but man am I down. I know there’s new opportunities out there for English teaching, but yesterday I was looking at the placards of some of the teachers saying “Award for teacher of the month” etc, and I’m like “They could handle this, why couldn’t I?”
35 comments
you should feel glorious if youve found a new better job before quitting.
you should feel bad if youve quit and are now lost without a job
Name and shame said company man. They deserve all the hate they get their way for treating their employees who just want to make things work out.
You basically described 90% of all eikawa jobs in the country.
No. You’re not a failure. You tried. That’s more than most people do.
I have to ask… the school…
Without giving too much away.
Does it start with an S and has a bunch of schools in the Saitama area?
“I was really determined to become a good english teacher”
Gonna stop you right there.
Becoming a legit teacher, even here in Japan, requires a BA and a licensure program usually with student teaching all while under the mentorship of actual professionals.
Eikaiwa isn’t that, and neither are ALT positions. The people that you’ll be working both under and with in those industries don’t know any more about actual teaching than a random person off the street would.
If you wanted to get an actual career in teaching in Japan, pretty much the only three viable options are college, which will require a relevant master’s and publications, international school, which requires a license from your home country and 2-4 years experience, or direct hire J/S high school, which requires either a limited license (provisional/special) or a full license which requires a BA from a Japanese college and passing the normal licensure process. Anything else will have little to no security or advancement, and will have very low standards and expectations, you will also be permanently teaching under someone else’s license and will not be employed as a teacher, but support staff.
I can almost guarantee you any of the staff at your eikaiwa that have a teacher of the month picture up wouldn’t survive a week in an actual teaching position and wouldn’t be able to pass any licensure or certification program. Don’t use those people as your point of comparison, if you really want to advance in English education, there are legit pathways, they’re just difficult and will require more time/education on your part.
Eikaiwas are where English teachers go to die tbh. If you’re serious about teaching, look into teaching certification programs so that you have better options for legit work.
Eikaiwas are awful. Some people run away after a month (you more than quadrupled that) you should be proud
If Eikaiwa never felt like they failed then why should you?
Powerful stuff, also tragic.
>and I’m like “They could handle this, why couldn’t I?”
That’s the capitalism talking.
No seriously, I know people are going to reflexively downvote for that line, but your company was exploiting you, you gave it your best shot, realized you couldn’t do it, framed your decision not to take it as a failure on your part to help the employer save face, and they’re still giving you crap about it? This is how inept companies keep staff to enable revenue – they bully employees into feeling like not generating all the revenue is their failure.
Re-frame your question this way: “They choose to continue taking this. Why didn’t I?” That’s a much more neutral and much more honest way to approach the question and it’s going to put you in a much better light. Because what’s happening here isn’t a failure of ability, it’s your values being incompatible with the exploitative, profit-driven company’s values.
Let me tell you, eikaiwas *do not* deserve your loyalty. That’s pretty much true for any employer in the Japanese EFL space actually – you only should ever give them the bare minimum to guarantee what you need and not a bit more. Be mercenary. Because loyalty and working your ass off is never going to get you what you deserve for it. But especially eikaiwas deserve no loyalty. The managers and owners of these eikaiwas are rarely experts in EFL teaching methodology or educational theory – they are sales people repackaging and misappropriating better, smarter people’s work and expertise into snappy sales pitches and gimmicks to dupe customers into paying for substandard services.
You should be proud that on some level you worked out that the scam wasn’t for you and got out so quickly.
Tbf you either sink or swim. Its the same with any walk of life.
I remember my first day as a teacher, there was an emergency and my JTE bolted out of the classroom and there I am literally teaching on my own for 30 odd minutes as a complete noob in front of 40 kids. The following day I had someone from the BOE show up. Again no fucking clue or prep.
Eikaiwa stinks though. 30,000 yen extra a month for basically double the work-load? Fuck that shit. ALTing and ad-hoc weekend work is way to go. The amount of free-time you have in this job is ridiculous. Yes the pay stinks, but you can add extra with whatever you want to do during your downtime.
I wouldn’t see it as a personal defeat. It really is not for everyone. It seems like you generally care about the students and English, which is not what eikaiwa is – its nothing more than a glorified sales job.
Anyways don’t give up on the country. Maybe consider switching gigs? Plenty of ALT positions will open up for September as a lot of people will go back home then.
You have not failed. You’ve been exploited. You’ll find a new job, just be picky and choose a good company. You live in Japan now and you can afford to be picky. You’ll be ok. I worked for a shitty eikaiwa and now I work as an alt and life is better.
You were not happy, you changed. You have a new gig. What more to it is there? You need to breathe. You’ve moved on, they’ve moved on….life goes on.
I’ve only had a positive experience at the eikaiwa I’m working at. We got a few positions opening up soon. It’s a busy job, but you get heard and given a lot of leeway to teach the curriculum building your own rapport and teaching style. I’m assuming that’s what you meant by becoming a great teacher.
So many people rag on eikaiwa jobs. I get it the vast majority are trash. But those that aren’t offer a really good opportunity to befriend nice people, and make a kids have a much brighter day.
I appreciate there’s a lot of emotions for you to unpack there but will keep it simple:
1. I don’t see jumping ship as being a failure per se. LOTS of people go through the same stuff in eikaiwa (unreasonable bosses, long hours, burn-out…etc). It’s a ‘gap year’ where you wanted to have some fun in Japan while doing your first job. You can’t fail at this, although you can obviously leave disappointed that the reality didn’t live of to your dreams/expectations.
2. My only question if you wanna turn this into a positive rather than an inability to stick it out (noting that resilience is an important work skill in all industries) is… what next? In considering this… what plans have you got? What did you gain outta this? What did you learn from it all? Can you take some positives outta the experience? You never ‘fail’ in life if you’re able to reflect and continuously do a bit better every time.
If it helps you feel better, I think the biggest ‘failure’ people hit with ALT/eikaiwa gigs is staying too long without making plans. Leaving is a big move if done right. A lot of people lack the drive to do it because they have a job and lack the spine to move our of that comfort zone.
That said, some people are simply weak and could benefit from at least sitting out for the rest of their contract in order to learn a little thing or two about resilience. Not saying this is you (sometimes there’s no such lessons from putting up with arseholes). However it’s important to remember that you’ll always have some sorta boss and silly pressures.
Sounds like a pretty crappy job even for Eikaiwa. Schools should want to give new employees support and they should never be yelling or harassing you. I wouldn’t worry about it.
On the other hand, 45 hours isn’t that long to be at work in a week and 1 hour isn’t that long of a commute. Is this your first job?
Some companies suck, my man, and even then it’s not for everyone.
bro if you quit there is a reason + failure is subjective. you prefer « successful » and depressed « I want to die » ? No of course.
So if I understand this correctly, the extra 5 hours a week come from the hour break you get every day? You are jot actually working an extra hour of forced overtime each day?
First of all, based on how the school is treating you, yes they are shit. They sound abusive and if it were me I would get out of that environment as fast as possible.
That being said, I think you might be over reacting over the 5 hour time difference? I dont mean that as an insult or anything, but I dont see how 1 extra hour a day is totally preventing you from doing chores or food shopping. Surely there is a supermarket you pass by at some point on your way home? And for studying Japanese that can be done on the train or during lunch break.
I just say this because, even 45 hours a week is below average if that includes lunch and break times. Its actually less than most people in the US work weekly on average.
Yes your current eikwaiwa is shit based on how they reacted to your situation. But if you go into job interviews with a strict cut off of 40 hours weekly, I think you are going to have a really hard time finding a place that can accommodate that.
You did the right thing.
You speak the truth, internet stranger, but for balance, you wouldn’t want to put yourself in the shoes of any of those “crazy” eikawa owners. 45 hours a week, I literally laughed when I read that, having to drop everything and teach a furikai lesson you haven’t planned for at a minutes notice (every day occurence) unreasonable pressure from high expectation parents and the real fear that you could lose everything you worked so hard for because of a simple honest mistake or if you hire someone who fucks it up for you, man no wonder this woman seemed crazy. Tbh, you only saw the cruisy end of that game. That woman’s husband, 28 years in, he would have to be as grizzled as a drug addled Vietnam vet
At first, when you said “**my”**, I thought you started an eikaiwa.
What you’re really asking is are you a failure for leaving an abusive workplace. The answer to that is always no.
The only regret you should have is not quit sooner.
I have been working at an Eikaiwa for about 8+ years. What you spoke about rang so familiar to me. The first six years were absolute hell because of several factors. Verbal and emotional abuse were par for the course. I like my students, and I needed something to support my family, so I’ve stuck with the job. Now a permanent resident in Japan, I’m working on applying for a sole proprietorship with Immigration, and I plan on going into Freelance design and graphics.
But, the experience gave me enough that I can teach English as a freelancer with some decent knowledge. I’ve learned so much about the English language from this job, though I’d like to explore better teaching techniques.
The long and short of it is, even though the hours suck, the pay is garbage, and the environment is garbage, take whatever positives you can from the experience and use them to grow as a professional and as a person. Congrats on finding a job that’s a good fit for you, I hope you can find a way to continue exploring and sharing your love of English.
This subreddit is hilarious, lol I had a beer while reading your post, cheers , happy new career at the music venue 😂
Its a silly job dude, shake it off. Just cos it gabe you a visa or whatever dont mean shit – its still shit.
Travel round, have some fun, see some sights, drink some beer and either head home or try another round.
you didn’t fail, you saw reality faster than most.
One thing, being at work for 45 hours a week is completely normal in Japan. Most real jobs here fully expect you to do the government maximum overtime which is 4 hours of OT a day, 40 hours a month or 360 hours a year. Usually they will work the employees 10 hours a day three days a week and 8 hours two days. When they use all the allowed OT they either ask you to sign a waiver to work more or they act like no OT in December is a gift.
For perspective Americans work more hours than Japanese, they just do it at other jobs instead of OT. The new trend in the USA is 10 hours a day, 4 days a week so you can be “part time” for 30 hours at a different job. Being an American means you should be willing to work more.
The hours complaint seems like the typical ‘I never had a job before” complaint you hear form the people in the kind of job you have.
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The rest of your complaints are valid. You were hired into an industry that exclusively hires illiterate migrant workers. They don’t want employees that know the laws or, more importantly, have the ability to seek help and legal council. The moment they find out a candidate speaks Japanese, they end the hiring process. Another goal is two get the migrants to quit before their third year so the new labor protections never apply. These jobs are not stepping stones, they are migrant traps similar to fruit pickers and meat packers in the US.
I left a very similar company (friends English school in morioka, iwate) and had an eerily similar experience. You did the right thing and you should be proud you stood up for yourself. You should absolutely name and shame the company. They can’t do anything.
Happy birthday, OP. Try to be kind to yourself. It’ll take time to heal.
If you’re not going to say the name of the school, don’t say anything at all 🙄
I understand what you mean because I was power harassed in my Kanto based job. (Their words not mine) but have you ever had a real adult job before. Gotta start multitasking. Laundry on weekends or before sleep after you get back, shop on way home from station. Walking around crazy that’s your exercise now.
If you can’t handle it get a part time job.
All the horror stories i hear about these larger companies.. feel bad for folks who find themselves in that situation.
In my case, the two companies/schools i have worked for have been smaller companies. Only a handful of staff so i immediately feel “needed” by the school on arrival(so no harassment, ever), smaller city so i am not going to be replaced within a day, and some level of basic japanese requirement since none of the staff – aside from the 1-3 teachers – are fluent in English.
Not sure if it’s a combination of those things, or i have just lucked out with great people, but my English teaching experiences have been wonderful thus far. Granted, i am somewhat picky about where i apply/interview for, so i’d never risk being blindly placed into companies by someone else. I wont pretend its easy, but i 100% recommend finding individual postings to specific job openings. Having the ability to choose jobs based off location, work hours, responsibilities, etc., is much preferable to placing your fate in a recruiter’s hands. Happy work environment and nice coworkers = happy life. Aint got patience to spend 45h/week with people I dislike.
On that note, OP, i think you are letting the 45h/40h thing bother you because the job is shitty. Even if it were 35h/week, dont suffer yourself to be in bad company like that <3
Here’s the thing: these eikaiwa set people up to fail, and then take zero responsibility and put the blame fully the employee, when in reality, it is their own system that is the failure.
They use clever ads that make the applicant think that there is nothing much to teaching, that anyone can do it, and that you don’t need any specialized knowledge or skills. This is very obviously not true at all – think about the number of years an average subject teacher studies to become a teacher. You not only need to understand the subject matter itself, you also need to understand second language acquisition theory, methodologies, classroom procedures, and on top of that, you have to learn how to present information clearly to learners who are not of your culture, don’t speak your language, and whose education system is vastly different.
How can they expect someone to function even on a minimally adequate level when they only have a certificate, maybe three days of short workshops, and zero practical experience applying what they learned? I won’t even go into the fact that they mainly only show you how to teach grammar, ignoring all other aspects of communicative competence and skills, such as how to teach listening, discourse, pronunciation, strategic competence, pragmatics …
They throw you in the river and when you sink instead of swim, they act like it’s your fault.
There is some fault here in that wannabe teachers are so enamored of the idea of teaching in Japan that it never even crosses their mind to question whether they are qualified or have the right temperament to teach, and they do minimal research into the company they decide to leave their home country to work for.
But the main fault is on the eikaiwa/ALT companies, since they blow sunshine up your ass and make you think it’s all sunshine and rainbows instead of being damn hard work with a long road of learning for you before you can even call yourself a teacher.
Let’s hope more newbies to Japan read this and think a bit harder before they give up everything at home and move abroad for a flimsy promise.
This sounds like a typical eikaiwa. They all have super high turnover rates, so I think you’re just normal.
>pursue a career in this field. I have lifetime job placement from the company I received my TEFL certificate
What the actual fuck did I just read. A TEFL certificate programnthat somehow gives life time placements to jobs?
You have learned why that must be bullshit, I hope.
Eikeiwa jobs are a dime a dozen. If you start looking now, you can be enployed by this time next week.
It’s qn almost inherently explotive industry that churns out new graduates/first time workers like a meat grinder. TEFL is a dying industry being flooded by people looking for gap years or a quick overseas stay who are willing to put up with bad salaries and worse work conditions. There is very few ways to climb the ladder, and even better jobs like uni gigs are becoming more competitive for less reward.
If you truly love teaching, just consider getting a teaching license qnd teaching in your home country. Eventually this path will open the doors to international school, which other much better pay and conditions compared to TEFL jobs.
You didnt fail them, they failed you. Try to find a direct hire job with a school, not eikaiwa. There are good teaching jobs out there.
U gave up a shit job ehy are u a failure?
Random question, is it a big chain school, or just a regional one?