For those that run their own Eikawa or equivalent in some fashion in Japan, what have been the highs, lows, and lessons learned?

10 comments

1. Been doing Eikawa as a pseudo paid hobby a little over 6 years since I retired from the military when 3 years ago the small school was shut down during COVID. The school was basically a “finance your adult son’s allowance” sub-business for a family ran street construction company meaning the parent company didn’t care, and the “boss” was never there. Basically the manager and I ran the school and happened to get along quite well. When they shut it down, we both decided to open our business to keep the students/customers willing to continue with us.

   Main low was when we started and were doing classes online. Having an even split of “profit” was immediately causing problems since there weren’t that many classes and managing was more work. Even created an argument when my wife and I had dinner with her and her husband had dinner and talked about the matter. I found the solution was agreeing we’re both owners and can split the profits 50/50, but we also paid ourselves first as “employees” based on our different jobs. So she was paid a set salary while I was paid based on per student per class. Once we met what we actually covered the “salary” then anything above that was profit to get the split. Worked like a charm and there’s been no complaints about the money aspect.

   High point is moving away from only online, to using community center for classes, using her old room at her dad’s place, to finally getting our own school room a year ago. We have adult and child students, and in each are those that have preferences between online versus in person though most prefer in person. However, getting away from the community center made life easier for all as we stopped needing to shift the schedule monthly based on availability. It came with an immediate increase in costs but we also got to start increasing students.

   Lessons learned have been many. The biggest though is using videos made from the text books as homework (mainly use Let’s Go series from OUP followed with Side-by-Side). It’s like pulling teeth to get parents to let their kids watch shows in English for fun. However, these videos are “homework” so they get 15 to 20 minutes extra a week listening to comprehensible English and the kids just soak up the songs and tempo sentences. The adults also get through the in person lessons so much faster with better pronunciation and comprehension as well.

   It’s still a small Eikawa with a few dozen students, and I still consider it more a pseudo paid hobby for me that’s more fun to do than taking another tedious government job on the nearby US military base. Also, I know not everyone has the baked in benefits I have (military pension, disability pay, Japanese residency, reasonable literacy/fluency in Japanese, own my own apartment) that lets me treat this like a hobby.

2. Never expect anyone to care as much about your business as you.

3. My school building experience was pretty smooth. I did it working evenings and weekends as an ALT, so I never really had a broke period. Just a point at which my own place was healthy enough to quit my day job.

   The lesson I had in those years was to find others who like teaching. Anybody who says, “dancing monkey,” there’s almost no point in having a conversation with them. It’s okay to dislike Japan’s Eikaiwa/peppy/ALT system, but there are way too many people who insist English teaching on the whole is a scam. Keep those folks away, they are on a different path in life.

   I take a weekly Japanese lesson. I respect the skills of my teacher. People take cooking and piano lessons without intending to be cooks or pianists, those teachers are legit teachers too. Teaching is a skill and something you can do well, and better than others.

   So, find a few colleagues who like teaching, who want to do new things and try to engage students, and make a point to meet with them semi-regularly, even if only twice a year. They will motivate you and give you a foundation, while online communities might drain your energy. Attending teaching seminars, like through JALT, Cambridge, or ETJ would be places to encounter others in your area who treat teaching like a profession.

4. March is the worst month of the year, and April is the best. Forget March and remember April.

5. Don’t hire your friends or buddies to work at your eikaiwa! Lollll i know a guy who hired a friend from our previous workplace. I am sure that dynamic is crap! I would feel bad for his friend but he has no career aspects. Lol!

6. Ooooh I just started doing this in June.

   So I left one of the big kids eikaiwas and went off on my own. We have a house so we just turned half of the first floor into a padded space and a room on the second floor into an officey type space for adults.

   There are so many things I need to learn. There are also a number of things I have learned.

   – Not everyone has Instagram lol probably need a website.

   – You are the brand. 👍🏼 Most kids are coming because it’s me.

   – Communication is vital! Gotta be quick sharp.

   – Schedule MUST be written down in multiple places for visibility and avoiding forgetting say a demo lesson. 😅

   – I don’t use textbooks but instead take inspiration from a bunch of them and make my own sheets. This way I can avoid material fees and my curriculum can continue to evolve forever.

   – Need some kind of flag or something if doing it from home. Still need to get one.

   The way I got most of my students though was just by talking to people. I work part time at a MD’s and a gas stand and I just chat with people lol.

7. The office staff and teaching staff will be thinking of things from different perspectives and schedules. Teachers will be more concerned with day to day teaching and the upcoming week. The office staff needs to know details about future events so they can get publicity out and answer inquiries.

8. Just about 2 years in here. I inherited the place from a buddy so I didn’t need to do the initial set up.

   Maintenance is easy enough, most customers come from word of mouth and siblings.

   If you have a fair price, you can get away with a lot. I only really work 44 weeks a year really.

   I do side stuff though, a morning or Saturday at an Eikaiwa for pocket money and a university gig that’s too good to quit. I actually scheduled my school around it specifically.

9. I live in mainland China and I opened an English center (I guess that’s the same as an eikawa?)

   Oh shit highs and lows where to start..

   – if you increase the price do it to the old members too, I pride myself in being that cool North American high levels of customer satisfaction but if ppl really want me to go into details why on this one I will

   – a good assistant teacher is hard to find, but make sure they have a decent level of English because parents are gonna complain ‘how can (they) really know how my kid is progressing when she speaks no English?”

   – always end class on time, you may feel like ending exactly when it’s over looks bad and a little greedy but after a few times what will happen is the parents wil just be expecting the class to always go over 2/3 mins and when you suddenly end on time they will think you changed.

   – never accept a trouble parent because it will be so hard to kick them out

   – remember whatever you do at the start you will always have to do, so be a good person but do not go too out of your way otherwise you will have to always keep up an unnecessary standard

   – fit your classes together so the parents see other kids lined up and won’t be upset that you ended exactly on time (sometimes it’s raining and everyone is late for a few mins but those parents know they always treat the school great so if there were no classes behind for them to see it looks bad, although if there really were no classes and the parents are good I would give some free time if I know they aren’t going to get spoiled by it)

   – no matter how much above market rate you pay any employee is never going to go that much out of the way and you will always to some extent have to apply pressure

   – I’m glad I was one of the only schools to make the students only pay by month and free discounts for all remaining credits whenever you want (it makes the parents feel safe they only have to pay a month at a time and can leave no questions asked whenever they want, I’ve only had a few kids ever leave and half of them came back after shopping around)

   – understand you are a foreigner who opened a school, you being a type of ‘principal’ gives a lot of status to your school so you are already are at such a strong position and the business is so easy don’t be scared

   – that one kid can ruin your class so even if the parent is amazing (the parents know their kids so they will try to be good and send you presents because they are scared you will kick out their kick) just use the excuse ‘unfortunately we don’t have a class suitable for his level but when something pops up we will let you know

   – keep everyone the same price always, when new parents see up just send everyone’s bill and it being the same will make them trust you a lot

   – finding a good foreign teacher who likes the job and kids and that the parents like is really fucking hard (in China I was literally paying 7500 yen per one hour class, and the teacher still kinda sucked, I’m sure Japan having more foreigners will make it easier)

   – a lot of low quality foreigners (idk how similar Japan is to China) they will try to open next to you or steal your students so lie and tell ppl you are just a teacher

   – don’t try to push any of your friends to open a school as well even tho they would do great you are just gonna be pulling their hand through the procress and you are gonna be frustrated

   – never ever hire your friends or relatives of your friends

   – a lot of you won’t have choices but it really is best to not work with your spouse (don’t be scared if you don’t speak the language for a lot of parents you not speaking it is even better, they want to practice their limited English and think it’s fun)

   – a student who you love and the parents seem to love you and the results are great lmay leave sometimes, you may never get to know the reason why and it’s gonna hurt

   – they aren’t like the us, they won’t be scared of the child getting molested so don’t buy all those special live web cams no one ever tunes in

   – a lot of parents are pretending they are just having classes here only or not reviewing at home because they want you to think their child is a genius and you like them more

   –

   So far it was the best decision in my life to open the school, I really would without hesitation sacrifice my life for those kids and I just always appreciate ‘wow, I’m making great money and having fun while immensely improving their lives?’ I have literally told myself “it’s not possible for life to stay this good forever I better really recognize and appreciate it while it lasts’

10. I didn’t own mine but it was a single teacher eikaiwa where I taught all the classes and my (now ex-wife) did most of the office admin. We were thinking about buying the school or setting up our own but I just couldn’t as our marriage was too flaky (hey… probably a factor for others on here).

    When I started, the school had ~30 students and only remained open because the owner was a local businessman who owned the site (an old house) and could afford to cross-subsidise wages…etc using profits from other ventures in his portfolio (he’s a big man in the prefecture… owns phone shops, swimming pools, petrol stations…etc and decided to experiment with an eikaiwa). By the time I left there were ~150 students and it was turning a modest profit after covering wages / outgoings.

    High points…

    – Building a school up like that is rewarding. You make connections within the community, develop a reputation and are like a mini celebrity. It’s rewarding when compared with (for example) rocking up at a Nova branch, following their systems, getting paid your stipend and chugging konbini beers outside because you don’t really give a shit about optics/reputation.

    – I’m a qualified teacher (Australian teaching license and multiple masters degrees in teaching, including a TESOL). In terms of professional development it was a good challenge. I learned a lot about the industry and had a personal connection with what I did as I took some ownership over it.

    – Seeing kids grow up. I like kids… being able to take-on shy 11 year olds and then be speaking proficient English with them as confident 16 year olds is rewarding. IMO lotsa people miss this as they either use eikaiwa as a gap year (or less) or become cynical bastards.

    Low points

    – It’s a lot of fucking hard work and you don’t make much money!!! I suffered from burn-out and see people getting burned out on these forums all the time. My burn-out involved anxiety attacks where I lay in bed (on my back) and literally could not control my body. I tried to lift my arm or roll over and my brain refused to do it for me. Concurrently I felt like I was floating above my body (like I was a spirit looking down on my body) and had sharp chest pains throughout the day that made me think I was having a heart attack. Not sustainable and my health went to shit (bad mental & physical health).

    – IMO development caps out pretty quickly. You get to a stage where you know how to teach English & locals love your smile/energy. However, it’s no longer a challenge. I cop shit for saying this on here but my TESOL was pretty easy and there’s only so many ways to teach English. In terms of personal growth/development, I wouldn’t be satisfied if I ran an eikaiwa for 40 years and that’s all I’d achieved in life.

    – As I said in my intro, my biggest low was (unfortunately) a pretty common story. I wasn’t comfortable running a business with my ex-wife. I was worried that I’d setup a business and then just as I’d built us a solid reputation, she’d scare all our customers out by shouting at me, trashing the classroom and going on a rampage in front of parents…etc. That or she’d have a loooong depressive mood (say 2-3 weeks) where she cold-faced me, refused to acknowledge my presence and psychopathically put on a happy face for everybody else (while they’re sitting around going ‘WTF?!? Something is NOT okay here… fucked if I’m gonna leave my kids with this couple, they’ll probably get murdered or something!!!’) She wasn’t stable and neither were we. She WANTED me to run an eikaiwa so that we had a stable business in Japan (and couldn’t leave) but she wasn’t willing to work on her personality defects (which were severe). Don’t wanna spend too much time sledging her but she abducted our daughter (through the nastiest means) and tried to murder me so that she could be with her new boyfriend that she’d just met online (a weirdarse right-wing Japanese nationalist who hates gaijins). Sounds uncommon but a lot of gaijins end up getting divorced. I’m glad that despite how fucked up my split was, I had no financial hooks attached to my ex or Japan. Juat saying… it’s a big risk and you’d wanna be ABSOLUTELY certain your relationship’s stable enough. It’s not a good gig for somebody who’s been forced into a shotgun marriage and is struggling to find a decent job in Japan.