Hi, I'm planning to move to Japan this year as an English teacher in order to do something a bit different after graduating. I studied an arts subject, and don't have a TEFL certificate (yet). I'm not planning on teaching long-term, and I'm not worried about building up my savings – just want to explore a new country while I'm young and free 🙂
I have a few questions if anyone is able to answer them.
- I've applied for Interac just under 3 weeks ago, is it normal to have no response yet?
- Is getting a TEFL certificate worth it?
- How easy is it to settle down and make friends if you're not fluent in Japanese?
- Are there any smaller ALT companies I should know about? I've applied to Aeon, Interac, ECC, Borderlink, Heart, Nova, etc, and heard negative things about all of them.
- One of the things that I worry about is moving with a bad company and then being stuck in a foreign country and not having much support. Does anyone have any insights on this, and could share how they dealt with difficult situations?
Any advice would be amazing, thank you!
by Icy_Cook_1953