Maybe this is not the best place to post this but I’m feeling helpless at work. I enjoy teaching and I love my students. They’re the best part of my day. My coworkers are very nice but we don’t have time to communicate and know each other better. The company is good at operating according to the laws. My struggle is with a manager/main teacher who is also the school owner’s spouse. The owner is always acting according to the manager’s decisions. Since I started working at this workplace, I’ve had many colleagues quitting their job because of the management. Now, the manager is making everyone’s life more difficult by giving more workload than before, and in some cases, teachers are left alone with a significant number of children which put them in unsafe conditions. I’m afraid this company will not be successful if this issue cannot be addressed and honestly, I don’t want to be part of this kind of “family business”. Please, let me know if I’m not seeing the big picture or if I’m misunderstanding what’s happening. Is there more to a foreigner without qualifications and basic Japanese than teaching English, restaurants, or factories? I’m feeling lost.
13 comments
You’re being squeezed for every last drop of blood by a desperate company. There isnt going to be some epiphany or turnaround by the owners. Time to jump ship, before your pay starts having problems.
Time for some harsh truths.
You came to a foreign country of your own volition with, from your own words, no knowledge of the local language and no qualifications to make you stand out from the crowd of other foreigners who did the same thing.
Apart from quitting and jumping to another entry-level job, you don’t have any options. There isn’t a golden ticket that you can only find as a foreigner in Japan. Being there doesn’t suddenly make you special. You still need qualifications and language skills if you want to find a good job. This shouldn’t come as a surprise.
That’s why research and preparation are important when you move abroad. When the magic wears off and you realize living in Japan is just like anywhere else with bad jobs and bad managers, and you have to work full time to make ends meet, it’s only then many realize they could have stayed home and made the same amount of money for less stress.
So you need to quit and jump to another job that could be better. Or you can go home. Qualifications and language skills are going to take a lot of time, so the sooner you start taking them seriously, the better.
>Is there more to a foreigner without qualifications and basic Japanese than teaching English, restaurants, or factories?
I’ll be blunt with you; the answer is no. Japan has an emphasis on qualifications, meaning they’re what gives you options. When it comes to English teaching, without an education license (教育免許状) your options are far more limited. This is something that you *need* in order to give your words weight; someone with no choice but to stay is at the whims of those who keep them there, but for those whom the world is open, there’s a bit more leeway to push back. The ability to be valuable enough to go somewhere else, valuable enough to be noticed when you’re gone, is what *lets* you push back against demands.
And yet before we can even talk about the possibility of getting relevant qualifications, the fact that you cannot even speak to the people around you with the level of language ability needed to ask hard questions means that you are by all measures dead in the water. Communication, nuance, not only what you tell something but *how* you tell it is a major deciding factor in settling these kinds of issues. But if you have only basic Japanese, it’s not even the ‘how’, but the ‘what’ that you will struggle with in communication. You’ll need a much higher level if you have any hope of challenging the wife.
Now, as for what you *can* do; go to glassdoor or something similar, leave a negative review (though not all the time, a fair number of foreigners do check it before working somewhere), and then find somewhere else as quick as you can. The level you need to be at to challenge something ingrained like this is far higher than ‘foreigner without qualifications and basic Japanese’, so it’s not worth fighting and destroying your own spirit.
It’s popular for folks on the Internet to bad-mouth the chain schools (with justification in many cases). But as you found out many ‘mom and pop’ outfits are fronted by a bunch slave-driving crooks.
Join the general union and fight the company. Also start looking for a better job.
It is possible to get a good, well paying job without language ability or qualifications. It’s just very difficult. Also, without those accomplishments you will need other accomplishments.
>Is there more to a foreigner without qualifications and basic Japanese than teaching English, restaurants, or factories? I’m feeling lost.
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Of course not, why would there be? Currently, you are an **unskilled migrant.**
Can you code/program? You could do IT – I know many people who speak poor Japanese who do that and make more money than teaching
If no, get qualified/improve your Japanese (in that order). It falls on you to hit the pavement if you want to succeed. If not, you should move back to your home country ASAP. You don’t want to be 35 and working at an Eikawa/ALT with no future prospects career-wise
OP – What is your back story?
* What brought you to Japan?
* Are you married to a Japanese?
* Did you go to college?
* How old are you?
Please name the school. Name and shame. They can’t continue to get away with shit like this.
I know many many people who doesn’t speak Japanese only Konichiwa that are being paid way more than teaching, restaurants, combini.
But it all depends on what your proficiency was before coming to Japan, one of famous jobs doesn’t require Japanese is engineer, coding, finance, recruiting/headhunter , lawyer , marketing at global company
If you used to be expertise in one of them I suggest you change your job immediately because your current job seems terrible.
If you are not expertise of these I suggest you start studying or gain experience with it while working at your current job.
It’s globally common that depending on your proficiency your pays differ. If you were only teaching before coming to Japan, then it’s indeed difficult to get a better job than teaching but you can always start your job and build your career from scratch.
Good luck!!! I hope you find your dream job.
Are you working because you need a visa or just need a job. If it’s the latter check out GSA Academy they may be a better fit.
I worked for an Eikaiwa work a while and then went independent. I taught private lessons for 10 years and made a decent income at it, but it was a constant hustle. Never turning down work because I wasn’t guaranteed the next job would come. When my work load became too much for me, I hired other private teachers and farmed the work out to them. Most of the people I hired couldn’t speak Japanese but it made it harder for me to work with them as I had to book all their lessons and handle cancelations because they couldn’t on their own.
You can ABSOLUTELY make it work on your own if you have the drive to. Target mother’s groups – if you get group lessons of young kids, you can charge 1000yen per head and get 10 kids per class – then you’re getting 10,000 yen per hour. Value your time and don’t take anything for less than 4000 an hour or so. Charge for travel time and charge extra for home visits etc. You can totally make it on your own.
Also, if you don’t want to teach English, you can piecemeal your income as well doing various gigs like working as a wedding minister. I agree with everyone else though, even if you find a good job that doesn’t require Japanese, your life will be so much more fulfilling if you can connect with the people around you in a meaningful way. It makes all the difference
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