Hello all,
I was just wanting to see if anyone here had recently gone through the second interview for Altia Central, and what to expect, particularly from the Japanese interview component.
I’ve sent my demo lesson and they’ve seen this and also contacted my references.
I have told the company my Japanese is very much beginner and basic, and not yet conversational, but they clearly wish for me to try and speak with a Japanese person in Japanese. Any advice as to what to expect?
Thanks in advance.
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It’s amazing that these companies (from what I’ve seen) have atrocious work hours (9 hours per day at least), and they pay terribly (220,000 – 250,000) AND they expect you to go through multiple interviews AND speak Japanese? It’s crazy to me how bad the japanese teaching scene appears from what I’m used to in Korea 🤣
My interview was a very, very long time ago, but the Japanese component was very basic. I was just asked to introduce myself and talked a bit about myself.
Honestly though, your Japanese level will almost certainly not make or break the interview. Plenty of people work for Altia with nearly zero Japanese.
As an aside, the guy who ran the interview (a Canadian fellow who is still with the company) is a complete tool. He chastised me for pronouncing his name slightly incorrectly and then suggested that it was because I’m an American.
The Japanese language interview is just so they can tick a box. If your Japanese is above basic greeting level, they’ll tick the box that says you can be shipped somewhere and be お願いします’d into T1ing loads of elementary school classes.
If you have next to zero Japanese, they’ll tick the box that will ship you off to a place where you’ll be T2ing at Elementary and JHS.
When I did my second interview it was when I was back at home and when Japan was slowly opening up due to Covid(I think at the time they allow people who were coming in for work/students) the Japanese was basically a self introduction but I didn’t get the job. They said it’s because there were people who were more fluent in Japanese that’s why they didn’t pick me. But I think it was because I was still in America and it would be easier to pick someone who is already there. Which as of now I don’t blame them.
I did an interview with them years ago. I spoke with the at the time CEO who was Japanese. Her questions were pretty simple. I couldn’t answer some of the harder ones in Japanese, but I understood what she said and answered in English. She was fine with it. Good luck
Altia aren’t are a professionally run outfit. Avoid.
It’s basically just going to be stuff you would put in your self-introduction- I think they ask where you’re from, what your hobbies are, and maybe why you cam to Japan, and see if you can explain that in Japanese.
The big reason why they prefer people who can speak some Japanese is because Altia caters HEAVILY to elementary schools (teaching English to kids is where the market has been for years now), and the vast majority of HRTs- who are supposed to be running the lesson- don’t speak much English themselves. They can string enough English together to give the basic gist of a lesson to the ES kids, but actual communication, especially with the ALT… well, they prefer it to be in Japanese.
Had my interviews a couple months ago.
Don’t worry about the Japanese portion too much, they’ll ask you to introduce yourself, talk a bit about why you want to be a teacher, maybe talk about your hobbies or what you’re doing now and then at the end my interviewer asked me what I want to say to children learning English, like to give them a message.
It wasn’t very difficult and the woman that did my interview was extremely friendly and easy to talk to.
Worked there. Hated it and got unfairly treated. Avoid.
Hello,
I submitted my demo lesson video, and the initial interviewer informed me that Graham would contact me for the second interview. Graham eventually reached out, but I encountered some issues as I couldn’t provide a native Japanese referee. In response, I suggested an alternative solution, which involved providing details of my former Japanese language instructor.
He mentioned that Graham would contact him and get in touch with me as soon as they receive a response. I reached out to my former Japanese language instructor to confirm if he had been contacted, and he indeed confirmed it. However, I haven’t received any communication from Graham regarding my second interview. I’m worried. Please advise. I really want to be an ALT.