I am currently a teacher at a private high school in Japan, and have what is essentially a permanent position (well…..kind of a grey area. Pretty much I can work until retirement age if I like, but without all of the benefits). I actually didn’t expect to be here for as long as I have, but the school has been good with giving raises (though I may have hit the ceiling), and the job provides a lot of autonomy. Also, there are worse places to live than my current location.
I have an MA TESOL (though no BA….I was accepted into the program through teaching experience) and have been teaching in and out of Japan since 2004 (quite a bit of experience at the highschool/junior high level, as well as K-12). I have applied for some university positions (ones that I think I may somewhat of a chance at). I have had a few interviews, but with no success. After asking for feedback, one said that it pretty much came down to lacking uni experience/publications (perhaps I was a second choice in case anyone backed out). Another one said that it came down to my lack of BA (some of the hiring committee members were apparently distrusting of the “MA only route”). For the third, most recent one, I am not exactly sure why I didn’t get the position, the feedback was vague (though they were interviewing from in and out of Japan, so I’m sure it was very competitive).
My goal WAS to eventually try and find a university job, but at this point I am wondering if it’s even worth it? My main reason (by far) for wanting a university job is for the potential amount of time off, and also possible lack of mandatory office hours. Honestly though, I don’t really like the idea of writing research papers (though would be willing to) or attending conferences. I don’t even really know if I like the idea of teaching university students, though I am sure this would really depend on the teaching context (I’m sure there’s a vast difference between teaching Engineering students general English, and teaching English majors who are likely much more motivated).
I am wondering if it’s best just to stay put. My current salary is, not getting into specifics, comparable to a low/mid level university position (non-tenured). I realize that the best route would probably be finding a part-time job or two, and then throw out a few publications, but I actually don’t know if it’s even worth it. I suppose I have also been considering finding work outside of Japan – partly for a change in environment – which has made my motivation even lower.
Sorry for the rambly post (way too long I think). Maybe needed to vent a bit (and moreover, get any insight from others). I think there’s some consensus that Uni = top of the foodchain as far as English teaching jobs go, but I wonder if this is always the case. I think in my case it’s a bit of an uphill battle (my MA route, while not a deal breaker necessarily, likely doesn’t help either).
22 comments
Hello there,
It sounds like you have a pretty good work situation. As we all know, English teaching can be an absolute grind and so many of us are in contexts, teaching levels, or have schedules that don’t suite us.
I am in a similarish situation to you. I am working full time at a university for a different organization. It’s a bit of a unique situation but it’s Monday to Friday, day shifts, uni students, a yearly contract, none of the bonuses that a professor or lecturer would get.
I have been applying for uni jobs and have been rejected a couple of times. However, I’d be on that 4 year merry-round of always having to find a new position at another uni or being lucky and getting a tenured position. Recently, I’ve been thinking the same, ‘is it worth it’?
One thing you could do is work on professional development. For example you could get a BA. You already have an MA in TESOL so you could do a BA in something you’re really interested in. Also, you could start working on getting published. As you said, you have lots of autonomy in your classes so it could be easy to set up an action research project. It’s way less daunting than people (me included) think. Publications like ‘Modern a English Teacher’ publish articles that are much less research heavy and more action research or opinion pieces.
You never know when our contexts (as safe as they seem) could go south and we then have to look for a new job. Adding publications and a BA could really help you if you need to apply in the future.
Hope that all makes sense
It’s a tough market at the moment. This year there have just not been many jobs advertised. I’m hunting as well (7 years experience with 5 publications) and it’s not looking too good so far.
The jobs ads for 5 year contracts now say PhD preferred. While this isn’t reality yet it seems to be that unis would prefer PhD holders in those roles with MA holders as part time teachers. It might not be long before that starts to become reality.
The way around this, without a PhD, will probably be to have a distinguished track record in publications and conferences.
I’ve thrown down on uni teaching and it’s worked out so far, but I’m not sure it’ll last the 25 years I need until retirement. In fact, I’d say there’s no chance of that. I’m kind of kicking myself because I had the chance to move to a really good high school, and chose uni over it.
Anyway, you could always try and pick up some part time work to see if you enjoy uni teaching. There’s not a lot going at the moment but might be a flurry before the new year.
I teach at a university with a BA unrelated to teaching, and I think most of my colleagues are the same, so I don’t know why you were told that matters. May just be that particular school.
Whether it’s worth it to change depends on what you want. If you want stability, stay where you are. At universities you have to find new work every five years. You also don’t need to publish at your job, which it sounds like you don’t want to do.
Can’t say whether it’s worth it monetarily unless you tell me your current salary. In an entry-level full-time university position I make 54 a year.
I get like three months of vacation a year so that could be worth it depending how much you get now.
You definitely don’t have to teach at a university to feel like you made it as a teacher in Japan. There are benefits to staying where you are as well. Just depends on your priorities.
The Uni market is getting tough. I know people who have been on full-time contracts that can only find part-time work now. And I know some people doing part-time contracts that can’t find anything and are screwed/have to go back to Eikawa
Honestly, you might as well stick to what you have. Yeah, a full-time Uni position would probably be slightly better but you are already close to the salary and have more stability. Many Unis would be spooked by the lack of BA (to be honest, I would find it weird too) during screening time so that may be harming you.
If you have a decent gig, don’t throw it away.
I think realistically with no BA you have very little chance of getting a university contract teaching gig.
I’m a high school teacher, but my friend has applied to universities. She has an MA, but doesn’t have a published work portfolio of any kind. She believes that is the reason that she’s been overlooked for university jobs. They want to see published works.
You didn’t state your salary, but if you are permanent/seishain and getting roughly 5-6 million yen a year, it’s safe to say that you are doing well. You will most likely get a 2% pay raise per year as well.
From what I’ve heard, it is very difficult to get a permanent uni position. Most of the job listings I’ve seen (on JALT anyway) are contracted and renewable only up to 4 years.
You mention that you don’t get any benefits. What benefits are you missing as a permanent employee?
My two questions for you would be:
What kind of work do you need to do to fulfil you (however you define that)?; and
What kind of lifestyle do you want to live?
If you current job is not satisfying some deep seated itch that needs to be scratched, maybe start looking. If a job is just a job to fund your lifestyle (part 2), will the potentially risky jump to uni teaching be worth it.
As for the second, for me it’s the most important thing. I frankly couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss about “work” in the sense of turning up and doing something I am not particularly interested in for someone else for the rest of my life. But, if I am going to do it, it bloody well better fund my lifestyle.
So, for me it comes down to lifestyle, security and pay to fund the lifestyle. I would rather earn less and know where I am going be when I am 65 and enjoy building that lifestyle. It differs for everyone.
I’d say stick with what you’ve got. I’m in quite a similar situation. Been in a private school for ten years, been a ‘made man’ for about eight. I’m have a BA, CELTA, and a MAppLing. I also have a fair degree of autonomy in what and how I teach so have been able to do some interesting things.
I’m not a fan of the extra teacher duties, like standing on the street as the girls come in to school, etc, and the holidays are a bit worse than they used to be, but…
I have stability. I don’t need to string together various part time gigs for a few years until I’m perceived to be experienced enough. I don’t need to do spurious research to justify my next position.
And, I can ride my bike to work.
Id like to change some time, just to be doing something different, but in teaching in Japan these days, I don’t think I could do any better. And worse can be quite a lot worse (salary wise anyway).
You don’t want to do office time? What are you going to do when you have to grade research papers? I teach 6 classes a week and spend 35 to 50 hours a week at work working. Between the research and keeping up with grading I can’t even finish all my work within work hours, lots of my personal research ends up getting done in my free time.
As far as your interviews go, they want publications to prove you actually have deep knowledge of the subject you will be teaching. Working in primary schools in Japan will work against you because all of your “experience” has nothing to do with university teaching.
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Sounds like you like the idea of university teaching but you are, yet another, person that is unwilling to do the work the position requires. It isn’t a “stand in a room” position, it takes a lot more work than most people realize which is why nobody wants to hire people that have zero experience.
“My main reason (by far) for wanting a university job is for the potential amount of time off, and also possible lack of mandatory office hours. Honestly though, I don’t really like the idea of writing research papers (though would be willing to) or attending conferences. I don’t even really know if I like the idea of teaching university students”
I think I’ve identified the reason you are failing interviews.
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Ahh the old you need experience but nobody will give you experience story. Japan uni is quite strange. Seems the best option is to get experience outside Japan and come back
Every thought about military service???
Definitely go for it. You can alway go back if you don’t like it, don’t improve, don’t get more experience.
Just publish some papers. Are you confident that you are able to ?
It sounds like you’ve got a pretty good job now, so things could be worse. You’ve probably discovered that universities in Japan require a BA, MA, 1 year university teaching experience and 3 publications. If those aren’t on the CV, it goes no further. However, because of immediate staffing needs, the experience or publications can be overlooked on condition that the publication threshold is met in the 1st year of employment. I do not mean to totally discourage you, and wish you the best of luck. It’s a supply and demand market, and if a school really wants you, they will try to get you in. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of demand at the moment. I do think that knocking out some papers and presentations regularly would likely pay off at some point though. You’d meet people already at universities who could recommend you, and it demonstrates ongoing professional development. You may have to work long term at this.
Keep your job, keep applying for uni gigs. Also, DM me I have been teaching at universities in Tokyo for a very long time. I have gotten a number of people in based on my referrals. That is the ideal route, but because I don’t know you it is best we connect via DM and get to know you better and make some suggestions.
I would say that university teaching IS the top of the food chain in terms of salary, but it isn’t the most rewarding work. University students are notoriously lazy in Japan.
If you become a full-time part-timer, then you will probably get what you are looking for. You teach your 10-20 classes/week for 8 months of the year, then you have 4 months off. This can be lucrative. I know a lot of people earning well over 500k a month during term-time. However, as many of these guys found out over COVID, there is a downside to not being a regular employee, which is of course job security. In my area there certainly seems to be a lot of consolidation of part-time workers going on since the pandemic. This is good for some, but not great for others.
If you manage to land a full-time full-time position, sometimes you will be able to take longer paid vacations, but it really depends on the school, and also how long you have bee working there. Everywhere I have worked the rules seem much more relaxed than JHS and HS though. worst case situation is you get a lot of office time, but if you have your own office, that can actually be a great opportunity to work on projects outside work if thats what you are interested in doing. A lot of places are introducing work from home as well, and obviously you can take advantage of that opportunity how ever you want. The monthly pay as a full-timer may seem worse at first, but it will increase every year, and you get bonuses, and loads of other pension, childcare benefits too.
Recently tenured university teacher here. I’m late to the party, but OP, if you have a moment, I hope I can offer you some perspective from someone on the inside.
As you said, I have flexible work hours (minimum 7 hours a day, 4 days a week). As long as I attend meetings and am in my classes, I can essentially decide when I come to work and when I leave.
The reality, however, is that I have so many classes, committee responsibilities, and other commitments that during semesters I typically work 10-12 hour days 5 days a week. (Yesterday was a 14 hour day for me. Clocked in at 6:30 am, caught up on emails, class prep and admin-related work in the morning, had classes from 10:30 to 4ish, then had back to back to back meetings until almost 9.) The flexible “office hours” as you call them are nice because when necessary, I can dip out and take care of errands and personal business, but generally speaking, I am at work just as much or more than as I was when I was a salaryman in my previous career.
As you said, there is also potential for time off in between semesters, but at my university I still have to clock in 4 days a week during break periods unless I want to use paid leave. It makes it easy to take long paid vacations. But again, the reality is that the breaks in between semesters are full of various committee responsibilities, conferences, visits to partner unis abroad, etc. When I DO get extra time, I need to use it to catch up on whatever research projects or grant proposals I have going on at the time. There is very little downtime.
It’s not the cushy job that many imagine it to be, but it’s not a bad job either. As I said above, my previous career was as a pencil pushing salaryman. It was soul crushing, and I still scratch my head when I see so many people on the Japan subreddits say they are desperate to get out of teaching to land a job in the business or IT sector. Despite the long hours, I get immense satisfaction from being able to hold research seminars for third- and fourth-year students. It gives me an opportunity to help shape them into critical thinking and open-minded adults. I also learn as much from many of them as (I hope) they do from me.
OP, after some soul searching, if you decide it is worth the effort, I sincerely encourage you to go for it. The publication requirement seems daunting at first, but once you get used to the routine of it, it isn’t as difficult as you might think. I strongly recommend that you look up your local chapter of JALT and start there. You’ll meet other teachers who are also itching to get published, so it will be (relatively) easy to find potential collaborators and co-authors. You can also start building networks that will come in handy when you are looking for university work. Getting your foot in the door is largely about who you know, so networking is extremely important. Finally, I just re-read your post and realized you do not have a BA. To be honest, that may make you a non-starter–I don’t know if MEXT has any such regulations for MA-holding instructors. If you proceed, you should start by checking on that first.
Good luck to you, OP, with whatever you decide.
>I think there’s some consensus that Uni = top of the foodchain as far as English teaching jobs go
Not at all. I love my university teaching job. I would trade it for a highschool teaching job if it meant I didn’t have to look for a new job every 5 years.
If I were you, I would look for another high-school position that offers all the benefits and does not have any limits on the length of employment other than a specified retirement age. The conditions at unis are in perpetual decline and the perpetual motion charade that non-tenured teachers put through is very stressful.