I’m currently an ALT with time on my hands. I’m looking to at least double my current salary. I feel like getting an MA in TESOL would be the quickest way to go, especially if I take courses online. What are my chances of at least a non-tenured position if I have roughly 10 years of experience teaching English in Japan? Any advice appreciated. Thank you for your help.
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Its very competitive. How old are you? That will determine your salary as much as other factors. Also, have you got 2-3 years university teaching experience? Do you have any publications? Do you speak Japanese fluently? you need these things to even get considered for a full-time job.
You’ll need to have published, the more the better. Your Japanese reading skills should be good. The younger you are, the better.
The four legs for uni teaching: MA or better, experience, publications, and j-lang ability.
I’m not located there, but from general reading of forums like this, you’ll be competing against PhDs in kanto, likely other big cities or when looking at the more desirable positions. Focus on smaller schools in prefectural capitals, then bust ass publishing and making connections, and try to pivot from there.
Do you want to work as a professor or do you just want more money?
An MA in TESOL certainly helps your chances in landing a job, but the current number 1 trending requirement is publishing. If you want to teach at a decent university then the more publications and presentations you have, the better.
Of course, if you are happier to start at the lower end of the scale then just a bachelors degree could land you a part-time job until you get your MA.
If you are okay to start with a full-time contract contract-limited position, I’d say your chances are good (just make sure to have at least two peer-reviewed publications at the end/just after your MA and before you start applying). On my phone ATM so I won’t write an entire write up, but…. You can check my post history. I’ve written breakdowns of my path to tenure (starting from Eikawa teacher at AEON) and some things to keep in mind, like checking the right boxes in your resume (2 publications would be one of those) for being considered for an interview for a full time Uni. gig.
Feel free to PM me. Happy to help answer questions if I can.
There were days in the past where you could get the professor title without a PhD. Not common anymore and it definitely isn’t happening in an English department these days. Most reputable Unis want PhD’s for entry level English jobs because of all the natives that think they don’t need proper education plug up the pipeline with trash CVs.
You claim to have 10 years experience. If that is at an eikaiwa or as an ALT, you earned zero actual teaching experience. Those jobs are customer service not teaching and the serious teaching positions will count it against you. To overcome you are going to have to get 3 to five years classroom experience outside Japan as a teacher at an accredited university and publish 5+ papers. At that point you will be able to get part time positions and work your way up.
You’ll probably have to work part time as an adjunct to get your foot in the door. For example you’d teach 2 days a week, 2 koma or 100 min long classless. At the low end hopefully that’ll get you 120000 – 140000 yen per month year round. So to keep afloat you’ll need to work two unis or eikaiwa / uni in sync which can make for a salary the same as working full time at an eikaiwa. After a few years of that if the uni you’re working at likes you they hire you full time but on a 1 year contract limited for 5 years. Hopefully that should pay 5 – 6M yen a year. As others have said,while you do your MA get some of your longer class papers and tweak them to get published. Most unis expect 3 published papers. In the long run if you enjoy university you’ll probably go for a PhD, many people do it online while they work.
I’d also like to suggest looking into getting international baccalaureate certificates and training as the IB schools pay the same or sometimes better than universities and the job market is a bit less competitive I believe. Best of luck OP.
Good luck. The market is saturated. Earn a master’s degree online, but most people will not respect an online master’s degree. They regard it as inferior, especially if there is no dissertation.