Throwaway account for obvious reasons.
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I was recently given an offer from ECC Japan to teach english. I am based in the USA and was hired after attending one of their recruitment sessions to start in the New Year. Everything seemed pretty good and professionally presented.
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However, they have informed me now that there would be no formalized contract prior to actually moving there, as well as a mandatory health checkup (x-ray + urine test etc) to be paid out of pocket $$ before going.
The contract would also be based on a training agreement form paid at 1,000 yen/ hr for the first 2 weeks (contingent on passing, with no liability on their side apparently if they decide not to proceed for any reason).
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Neither of these points were explained in the recruitment session and has brought up some doubts about going with them. I guess it’s the nature of the industry..
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Does anyone have experience with ECC, if so, could you leave some of your experiences?
14 comments
This is pretty normal for an eikaiwa. I’ve never heard of anyone not getting a contract after finishing the training. Maybe if you don’t bother showing up to the training or if you do something really bad but otherwise if you just show up, participate, you’ll get a contact.
It’s also normal for them to have “trial periods” just in case you’re not a good teacher. You can’t get fired in Japan for just being a lazy or bad employee. So this is their way of legally letting you go and you can’t turn around and sue them.
This is the same reason why your contract will most likely only be for one year. And you’ll re-sign at the end unless they decide to let you go for some reason.
They are saying you’ll only be paid 1,000/hour during training?
That’s just their way of getting you to work for cheap.
Their training is bullshit anyway, as the only thing they train you to do is to follow a set lesson procedure that you’re not allowed to deviate from. It is in no way analogous to training you in methodology nor does it give you an understanding of pedagogy.
If they are asking you to do a health check *before* you leave the US, before you sign the contract, that’s also par for the course. You have to suck it up and pay.
As for not signing a contract before arrival, this is also typical in ESL though it is atypical in other industries. But don’t worry, it’s highly doubtful that once you’ve gone through visa procedures they’d renege on the offer. Once you have that visa, they’ve accepted you. As the other poster said, once you’ve gotten the visa and gone though training, you’d have to do something pretty egregious for them to pull the offer.
And yes, you’re right to feel it’s suspicious that they didn’t explain all of this in the recruiting session. There’s a lot they don’t tell you because rolling it out a little at a time lessens the impact.
The job of the recruiter is to make the job seem as attractive as possible, so they talk up the positives and neglect the negatives. This is par for the course for any recruiter, which is why you always need to have your BS detector turned on – you were right to ask about it in this forum.
That said, ECC is one of the better of the big eikaiwa. They have a union and the union has managed to improve conditions little by little. They generally follow labor law, even if they do still retain some shady practices like not paying you in full for training.
Read up on this by googling General Union Japan ECC or Tozen Japan Union ECC. That will give you the inside info on all the language schools.
Unless you are hopeless or completely uncooperative during training, you’ll be fine. I assume they have you slotted for a position at a particular school already and that school is expecting you’ll be there after training.
I worked for ECC years ago and this was a similar system, although I was recruited from inside Japan. I don’t know how much it has changed since then but they are legit and do everything by the books. While the low pay for training sucks, its not that bad and will make sure you know their teaching system.
I was there 4 years and enjoyed my time. The staff and other teachers were great, students were nice. Kids classes were well organised and fun for the kids. That was a long time ago though, so I don’t know how much had changed.
English teaching in Japan is BS. These companies are one step away from a scam.
I was told the same about no formal contract until I get there, and for a different company. Seems fairly common.
I also enjoyed my time working at ECC. They have a really great course and I thought their training was really good. I would also feel uneasy in your situation but I would take the risk as they are one of the better eikaiwas in Japan.
Former ECC office staff here. This is normal. ECC is **by far** the least bad eikaiwa to work for, so if you want to live or teach in Japan, it’s a great foothold. Just make sure you join the union immediately after training (General Union, **not** Tozen). If you don’t smell like the bottom of a compost pile and manage to make it through core training without a major medical emergency or groping incident you’re basically guaranteed a contract. ECC has to fork over a ton of money to complete the recruitment process so they’ll only bring you over if they’re confident you’d make it through the training and be a fit for one of the schools. Paying for the medical check-up is normal. You’re not yet an employee, moving money overseas is a bureaucratic pain in the neck for ECC, and you’re not covered under Japanese labor law until you cross the border with your COE and get the passport stamp.
ECC training is a huge, tedious waste of time (they have online training modules that lock you out after each page and then ask you to type what was on the previous page, etc, while asking you to type explicitly wrong definitions of language teaching terminology as… an obedience test? To see if you can say the corporate definition? I don’t know. One of the modules was about all the ways you’ll be punished if you are late, so that’s the standard lmao), but it is not particularly hard. I did all 4 days of training and then declined the contract when I learned they were hiring scabs. It’s kinda shitty that they won’t give you the contract beforehand, but it is what it is. You can easily find better jobs once you are in the country.
Wow. Are they paying for your flight over?
I worked for NOVA but it was years ago and you had a contract that defined your salary -no silly training salary – included your flight and a bunch of details. Once you interviewed you were basically set. Show up in Japan.
I guess if this is the way you have to go, then make the best of it. They almost certainly will accept you after training because otherwise why bother. It is a fair amount of work to hire from outside of the country. Make sure you are breathing, sober, and look decent and on time.
Where was this recruitment session?
I’m on the JET program. The x-rays and health check and whatnot are par for the course. I had to pay all my test and medical exams out of pocket as well. Because I got caught up during COVID (2021~2022) we weren’t allowed into the country. Had to renew the health exam every 6 months if I recall correctly. I do believe they refunded some of that amount in the end, especially as I ended up doing 3 batches of these tests…
All this to say: medical exams are paid out of pocket, sadly. Even on government programs.
Hi, current trainee at ECC here. I’m training in their Kinki District HQ and they pretty much tell you that you have the job if you make it through training, which is to say just show up and you’ve got it. From what I gather from the trainers and existing ECC employees, they’re really hurting for native English speakers right now so you’d have to do something really egregious to not get the ticket (think along the lines of verbal or physical harassment/assault). As for the training pay, in the Kinki District the minimum wage was bumped from ¥1000 to ¥1070 per hour (chump change, I know) though with the airline reimbursement and transportation reimbursement the end of the month pay does end up being quite similar to what you would get in an average month of pay. Also, they are currently offering a ton of overtime at a 1.5x pay rate because they need more teachers so if funds are what you’re worried about, there will be opportunities to make it up.
All of that to say, ECC is still an Eikaiwa with business on their mind (see the union strike from last year for higher wages). But, they are the best Eikaiwa out of all of them (I’ve heard some pretty gnarly NOVA and Borderlink horror stories) that pays more than most dispatch ALT companies do and will most certainly get you to Japan by Spring.
Its a Canadian company with dumb Canadian language rules that no one cares about. Canada needs to get their shit together and join the rest of the world where we actually speak normal English.