Interested teaching in Japan. I am a qualified teacher of 9 years with a master’s in education. What are my chances?

19 comments

1. Where are you teaching now? Do you hold a teaching license in your home country?

2. International school probably your best bet if you want to keep any semblance of a similar job. If you just want to get over here any ALT, juku offering visas works. When you finally get here you can look for something that fits your credentials better.

3. Reddit/internationalteachers

4. >What are my chances of landing a job in Japan and what would the salary/benefits involved? My main subject is Geography and also teach the Humanities curriculum

   Humanities, from what I’ve heard, is pretty competitive/saturated. I know my school was able to find a replacement History teacher almost immediately when our previous broke contract mid-year.

   With almost 10y experience, MEd, HoY _and_ international experience though, you’d probably be on the upper end of candidates.

   Most international schools here run IB curriculum though, with only BST being an established/well-known British curriculum school. Also heard there’s a couple more newer ones recently started like this or last year, (Harrows?) but no idea what they’re like.

   The only ‘issue’ that might be brought up is your willingness and ability to adapt to a new curriculum if you choose to apply to non-British curriculum schools.

   For salary/benefits you can check out the live salary sheet on r/internationalteachers . There’s a few Japan entries there to give you a rough idea. I know of salaries anywhere between 5m – 12m depending on various factors.

5. Stay in Abu Dhabi. It’s every ESL teachers dream to be paid so high, tax free.

   There really isn’t anything worth it in Japan.

   If you care about teaching. Don’t come to Japan. Japan doesn’t care about your credentials, you will be min wage. The boat has left.

   If I could, I’d be in UAE in a heartbeat…l

6. Good news – yes, you have the credentials to apply and be competitive at an international school year. You would have a decent chance

   Bad news – Salary will definitley be under what you’re making in UAE.

   Out of curioisty, how much is your salary in the UAE?

7. You will be overqualified, overworked, and underpaid.

   If you fine with that, come on over here.

8. A lot of places are going to think you’re overqualified.

9. I am not sure why so many comments are such downers… But from what I can tell, you should have a good chance as long as there are openings for humanities positions. Check school websites directly or apply to Search Associates by October to get started. Also, while many international schools are IB, I found that some look to the British curriculum as a foundation for what content to teach so it should be okay.

   You should vet schools carefully though as there are some that are technically international but offer lower salaries and have a stressful workload (btw this is not inherently unique to Japan but a teaching job search in any country as I am sure you are familiar with). I agree with a previous comment; you shouldn’t accept anything less than 6m and it should include other possible benefits such as flight reimbursement, housing allowance, transportion allowance etc.

10. Yes, you have credentials, but don’t be expected to be taken seriously.

11. Your chances would be fairly good, but opportunities are few. u/Ristique and u/xuobi seem to have the most reasonable comments.

    Unless you need cash, Japan is a fine place to live and teach.

12. I believe that Harrow, Rugby, and Malvern College have or are building schools in Japan.

13. Get another career. Teaching in Japan is a joke. Of money is important find another career…anywhere but japan

14. Money is terrible nowadays. There aren’t a lot of jobs and the good ones want Japanese ability.

15. I’d say you’d have a golden ticket to anywhere that’s hiring with that experience. Check out international schools like [the British school ](https://www.bst.ac.jp/community/working-at-bst) and other fancy international schools. I’d expect your salary to start at 6 – 8M and go up over time. Other places to look are JALT jobs and you might have to look up nicer international schools websites and apply directly. Good luck OP.

16. I was a STEM teacher in a international school in Japan.

    Sadly its an oversaturated market, wages are going down and many teachers are now on 5year mx contracts. If you have a life in the UAE, don’t give it up for Japan. Often schools want you to be here in Japan to apply for jobs as well.

    IB experience helps, but lots of schools will likely downsize or get rid of these programs now that the government money has dried up and declining interest.

    Ideally you’d want to find a school that caters for returnees and children of foreign parents who will likely return to their home countries.

    In Tokyo you could make 6million a year but outside Tokyo it could be 4.5million. Also unlikely to get COL raise so you will make less as time goes on.

17. You’d do better to get a job at one of the International Schools that falls under the IB program. Otherwise teaching in Japan is just…not worth it at all.

18. I have a sincere question if anyone can answer

    Why, out of all of the countries, are there more people teaching in Japan who tend be so down on the idea of others coming to work there? Plenty post videos and talk about how they enjoy it but then tell others to not come. I also know a few who love posting “look at me, I live in Japan” pics on Instagram, but will be severely disinterested in talking to others who are interested in moving to Japan.

    Teachers in other countries don’t do this, at least not to the same extent. Is this some sort of gatekeeping? It feels like there are more “I am the special foreigner, don’t come here and ruin it” mindsets in Japan.

    Has anyone else noticed this and is there a good explanation? Does Japan just attract the r/imthemaincharacter crowd?

19. Not sure if anyone else has touched on this yet.

    You may find an international school or private school willing to hire you at a comparable salary but read the fine print first.

    Teacher life in Japan can be grueling especially if the school requires you to coach/head a club activity. There is usually a stipend, but you may find that you are working 6-7 days a week and sometimes for 10-12hrs (depending on how seriously the school’s approach to club activities are).

    You get certain holidays off, but trying to get PTO may be difficult. You have to maintain relationships with the other teachers and if you are taking a lot of PTO, you will irritate the other teachers and feel ostracized.

    Usually, schools have a “secretary” but you’ll be taking on tasks throughout the year like school lunch management, sporting/school event finances, or school supply inventory.