Has the bottom fallen out of the Japanese English teaching market permanently? What’s your opinion?

31 comments

1. Now’s the time to switch careers if you can.

2. I don’t think there is a bounce back for the eikaiwa industry that offers an hour of conversation with an unqualified foreigner. You say your school is IELTS focused, which is not a fantastic focus. Eiken and TOEIC are the biggest money makers in Japan. My company focuses on academic/school English and Eiken and have actually become busier throughout the pandemic. I do TOEIC and IELTS, too, but I only get a couple students for those per year. Cheap online classes will always beat out generic conversation classes, but the number of cheap online teachers who have expertise in Japanese school English and Eiken will be much, much smaller.

   Also, such schools give kids a chance to study with their friends (shown in research as being why many Japanese students actually LIKE the cram school system) and get out of the house. They don’t want to sit online at home in front of the computer while their mom is cooking a few meters away.

3. Many online Philippine classes have a wide range of abilities in their teachers. I can’t fathom how parents can stand to pay for the ones who have horrible accents.

   As for free materials online, it don’t mean a thing if you don’t have a teacher to implement said materials. Most parents can’t teach English.

   I’m not in the “business side” (well… I am, private school), but I’m not sure I’d count local classes out, you just need to have the parents in to show them what the benefits of being taught locally are.

4. This isn’t a conversation about a school and teaching, this is a conversation about a business and tutoring. The conversation around market competition for your program and what your selling is a completely different one than would be had for the field of teaching in schools and the pressures they are feeling/will feel due to the availability of online conversation tutoring.

   With that said, if what you’re providing at your business doesn’t beat out online tutoring from non-qualified foreigners that are completely out of the context of the Japanese education system, it might be time to switch focus/standards. Getting undercut and out competed by free material and online tutors means you’re either not providing or not advertising anything that would give people confidence that your tutors are better than a foreigner off the street. People should want to pay for the expertise and experience of your staff and the results they can guarantee, if people look at your service and don’t see a difference between that and self-study with free materials or meeting a rando from another country online I’d say there’s a fundamental problem with either your PR or the level of your staff.

5. Back in the early 2000s I would say it was peak Eikawa. Nova was opening schools left right and center and you could easily make 270,000 a month working there. With a bit of overtime you could pull in 300K no problem. Then in 2006 Nova went bust big time and the bottom fell out of the market. Since then it’s been a race to the bottom.

6. Bottom fell out a looooong time ago, I’m afraid.

7. There’s money to be made still at the top of the market but not at the bottom end. Think corporate instruction, tutoring for elite university entrance, international school teaching.

8. Yeah. It’s def going to start another free fall. As you said Philippine online lessons undercut us. Badly. I’ve seen some lessons that are literally a few hundred yen an hour. If this trend continues, I’ll be working construction by the end of the decade

9. A group of four people asked me to teach them. I told them my rate (¥1800 per) We figured out the best day, time, and place to meet. One day before the first lesson the ringleader called me and said, “can you teach as a volunteer?” Me: “No, it’s ¥1800 per person. Even if you’re absent you have to pay.”

   She started dithering and I just said, “Oh, forget it,” and hung up. That’s when I made up my mind to find a new profession. I will be starting it in two weeks. No more teaching for me.

10. Yes.

11. When there is almost zero barrier to entry the only thing that can happen is a race to the bottom. If a teaching qualification, or significant experience was necessary to become a teacher then the salary would be higher.

    Personally i think the teaching bubble burst a long time ago, but you can make good money if you grind. Establish yourself in a local community. Teach your kids friends. Teach at your local community centre. Volunteer and make friends with your neighbours.

12. You know.. I was once asked if I wanted to own my own eikaiwa one day. Hard pass. I am so glad I work with benefits and at a real school. (Non ALT, T1) I have a couple of friends who own their own eikaiwas struggling a lot. A lot of them hace families too…

13. Not an English teacher, but my Japanese spouse tells me the Filipino teachers are just as good and way cheaper so that’s the trend for hiring now.

14. There never was an English teaching market. Long ago, back before 2000, there was what is called a [“white monkey”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_monkey) market where foreigners could make lots of money just being a foreigner. As time passed more and more people tried to get in on the easy money and the market became flooded. Like any other market, when supply is higher than demand people won’t pay a lot.

    The “pay me because I’m a foreigner” days are long over. The current wages reflect the jobs being done. When they require more than McD’s or 7/11 does, wages will rise. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen and young people will continue to get scammed. All we can do is warn people before.

15. There are just WAYYYYYYYYYYYY too many ppl trying to teach English here. The labor market is oversaturated.

16. This thread is fifteen years too late.

17. Interesting to see what everyone has to say about this topic and a lot of good points.
    My opinion as a small English (Eikaiwa) school owner is that while it is over-saturated, there will always be a market in Japan for English language education, whatever form that may be. The issue a lot of teachers and businesses are facing is that the environment is always changing.
    Businesses and instructors who aren’t able to adapt will find problems. English teaching used to be a no-brainer but nowadays it’s the assumption that it’s a no-fail industry that has bottomed out.

18. When I worked at an eikaiwa it was mainly used as a cheap hourly daycare for parents on the weekend. As far as I know they are still doing very well.

19. I just want one more year in Japan.

    I’ve also noticed that younger kids aren’t as respectful as they were even 4 years ago when I started.

20. The bottom hasn’t fallen out, it’s just being ambushed by those more savvy and smart e.g. Phillipines folk. I’ll take a wild guess that eikawas will take a few more years to figure out how to adapt to the new circumstances.

    IELTS is an interesting one because it seemed to be on the up before the pandemic. Its obvious that Japan is having a hard time getting past the pandemic, it wouldn’t surprise me if that has had a big impact. Apparently, the number of people actually taking it here is significantly down. But the vibe we had a few years ago, teetering on the brink of embracing the outside world, has been squashed.

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22. Been here since 1989. Yes, the bottom has fallen out, more like fallen off a fucking cliff. Yes, it is permanent. I started with Berlitz, making 500,000-600,000 yen per month was no problem. Starting teachers are now offered about 270,000/month, last time I checked. I worked there for 15 years. I then went to work for a high school, basically because they offered to pay me my full salary for the full year, while giving me all school vacations off. So 6 weeks in the summer, 3 weeks at the end of the school year, and 3 weeks in the winter. No weekends. I was paid 450,000/month. I worked there for 16 years, never got a raise, but I did not care. The last teacher they hired was being paid 260,000/month, she was asked to take care of the English Club, was asked to do demonstration lessons when the school was recruiting new students, was asked to make herself available during summer vacation to help students who had fallen behind. I was unceremoniously “retired” after the first year of covid, at the age of 64. Again, I did not care, after teaching full time for over 30 years, I was done. I now do short term contract work, which can range from a couple weeks to a couple months.Nothing long term. I really feel for people who come here now. Tokyo is an expensive place, and the wages being paid are not sustainable in the long term. Come here and work for a year or two, sure. But thinking about teaching English for the long term is a fools game.

23. I am really sick and tired of posts bashing teachers who come from non-white, non-“inner circle” countries like the Philippines and blaming them for the downturn in salaries for eikaiwa teachers and ALTs.

    Those teachers have as much of a right as anyone else who can pass the visa screening process and get hired. They are no better or worse than any other unqualified person coming to Japan with the desire to live and work here. No. Different. What it boils down to is one unqualified immigrant population attempting to shit on another unqualified immigrant population out of insecurity and fear, as well as ignorance and – let’s get real – racisim.

    What you are saying is no different than what Brits have been saying about immigrants, what Americans have been saying, what every country populated by Caucasians have been saying, which is akin to “DEY TOok OuR JERBS!”

    The reason the bottom has fallen out of the market is not that simple or that black and white. Many factors have contributed, and this downturn has been coming for a very, very, long time, and was easy to see as well as absolutely inevitable.

    First and foremost, economic conditions have tightened household budgets. Wages are stagnant, and have been since the late 90’s. The tendency in Japanese households is to stop spending and save more, which means cutting out the unnecessary extras, of which a major component is spending on hobbies. This has had a major effect on eikaiwa, as the majority of their customers are studying English as a hobby and not out of necessity. Also, the popularity of studying English as a hobby for bored housewives – the cash cow- took a huge dive when companies like Geos and Nova went bankrupt. There just isn’t the interest that there used to be, and that was inevitably going to happen no matter what, because, as we all know, trends come and go. The eikaiwa trend is largely over. The biggest markets now for unqualified teachers are for ALTs in schools and teachers for kids lessons, which parents see as an educational necessity and not a hobby, which is why they are willing to spend money.

    The next issue contributing to the downturn is simply the larger numbers of people coming to Japan to teach. In the 80’s, as some other posters noted, salaries were high regardless of qualifications or experience simply because there weren’t very many foreigners coming here to work. That number has increased steadily over the years, and now that immigration has opened up a bit more making Japan more accessible, and tourism surrounding the popularization of Japanese pop culture has made Japan a choice destination.

    Another nail in the coffin is the ow birth rate – fewer kids means fewer teachers. This has especially hit colleges and universities hard. It’s not just the English teachers, either – pretty much every feild, but especially humanities, has seen cuts in budges as the number of students entering goes down every year. This means more adjuncts and lower salaries. Uni teachers will all know what I’m talking about, as we have seen this coming for a while now.

    In fact, this decline has been clear for a long time. Eikaiwa and the dispatch companies that provide ALTs and university teachers read these changes in the air a long time ago and began re-creating their business models accordingly. They stopped hiring full time teachers, cut pay, began using temp contracts and limiting the renewals, and started recruiting from abroad – and this all began as far back as the early 2000’s. It has only sped up since then.

    Then the pandemic created an entirely new market as everything went online and companies realized there was profit to be made in providing online English lessons, and the lack of overhead meant they could still make a good profit while undercutting brick-and-mortar schools. You can blame them, too, since they allow anyone to join their platforms and call themselves a teacher, which is what recruiting companies have done for ages – so this is not a new idea.

    There is no one to blame here – it is a amalgamation of many different factors, mostly due to economics and the usual rush by Big Business to eke out profits wherever and however they can.

    **Anyone who came to Japan to teach, failed to see this fall coming, and didn’t upskill to other, better-paying teaching contexts or other fields, is now going to be facing hard times.**

    **You’re pissed off about that and looking for someone to blame, so you look not at yourself, for your own failure to adapt, but are looking to other immigrants who are no different from you other than that they don’t come from an inner-circle country.**

    **The only way to describe that kind of knee-jerk reaction is “racist”.**

24. I was so happy when the Internet arrived and I was finally able to leave English teaching behind when I started my company, which is J-List. Salaries had shrunk from 1991 to 1996, and I’m not surprised they haven’t gotten any better. I often get asked how can people come to Japan and work, and I try to steer them away from this ridiculous industry.

25. Lol. The bottom fell out a long time ago. Who knows where the bottom is. I think there’s a while to go and chances are it will never bounce back. you would do well to get out asap. Yes there are lucky people who are doing well, but that’s the exception not the norm. Don’t wait until the elevator crashes into the basement to jump out.

26. The eikawa market died in 07 with the death of Nova and Geos. Tightened economic conditions meant no money for expensive luxuries like English conversations. As for ALT work- the dispatch companies cut prices to win contracts, and to cut prices you have to cut salaries.

27. [deleted]

28. There’s an old adage

    Those who can’t do, teach

    And those that can’t teach, teach at Eikawa

29. In my opinion, there’s more people willing to do the job for less, whether that be the Western Weaboo, or the South East Asian Weaboo.

    Neither of them are going to fight to raise salaries, and some of them might even double down on the wages because it’s the biggest paycheck they’ve ever seen coming straight out of school, or a country with a very low take-home.

    Some of them may want to blend-in, but that will never happen as they are not Japanese. Japanese companies will praise them in order to pull the wool over their eyes, give them extra compliments that were not there when the old guard used to teach, so that will lower their defenses to a point where they will say they are lucky to be making a low salary.

    I’ve already seen it happen with both Westerners and Filipinos, they’re working for way less, but getting participation trophies, and lots of compliments for being underpaid.

    So this whole competition between Westerner and Filipino is stupid, and counterproductive.

    The Japanese companies used to love to play the Foreign Teacher against the Japanese Teacher to justify the low wages the foreigner was getting when salaries reached 250k yen a month. Hanako would then complain that she was only getting 140k a month or 800 yen an hour, and that it was unfair leading to a status quo where other foreigners would then support Hanako.

    *OMG, think of the Japanese staff, how dare you!*

    *That’s all well, and good. But, when has Hanako thought of me?! You know, besides being envious that I get paid more.*

    ELT companies bring in the Filipinos, get their egos high, and whisper sweet nothings into their ears, and suddenly Western Teachers are the enemies. Damn them for demanding higher salaries.

    *You know in filipines a teacher makes 180 usd a month!!*

    The English teaching companies are your enemies, not the Western foreigner who is trying to save up money to buy his next Dragon Ball PVC action figure. Perhaps you, yourself are your own enemy for not knowing how much your skills are worth to a country which after a century cannot grasp a simple language.

30. Just my 2 yen: Eikaiwa and ALT work is really scraping the bottom of the barrel here and it will just get worse from here for those at the bottom, but if you’re qualified and bilingual (MA, JLPT1, experienced) there seems to be plenty of opportunities around. Friends of mine who are all similarly qualified (and have permanent residency as well) have all found decent work (universities, private high schools, etc) and all seem to land on their feet when they look for another job.

31. I’m from the Philippines, living in the US now. The South Koreans visit the Philippines to learn English, cheaper than traveling to the West.