Continue attempting to make a career out of English teaching, or quit and find something else?

27 comments

1. Hey , why not start an online MA or MEd? Both will get you some opportunities. Or a Trinity DELTA course if you want to go beyond ALT. I did my MEd when working as an ALT- lots of free hours in the day!

   Uni contract jobs usually pay in the 4.5 million yen range per year, often with extras for housing, research, etc. Plus 12 plus weeks off per year Not a bad gig…

2. Aw, just finish the course. You will have a teaching license, at least, and more importantly, knowledge about how to teach, which can be applicable in many situations, such as corporate training.

   You probably don’t have too much free time, but try to learn design programs as you make worksheets, and maybe pick up some coding.

   At any rate, don’t quit anything until you’ve got a solid plan in place to do something.

3. Is it your dream to continue working in English education? If being a teacher is what you’re passionate about, and it’s truly what you want to do with your life, then I would think it’s worth the risk.

   I’m also not sure where you’re located in Japan, but realistically it’s important to keep in mind that the kind of job opportunities available are possibly limited if you’re outside of the big cities. Japanese people also have a hard time switching careers after around 30.

   if you’d prefer to have a backup safety net of some kind, and you have the extra time while pursuing your license, you could get qualified in something else that is more transferable, in a field unrelated to English education. Or like, consider moving into HR or recruiting for an English school or education-adjacent facility maybe?

4. 33 isn’t too old to start the career if that’s where your question lies.

   If teaching is your interest/passion, keep it up.

   If you want a backup plan, build valuable skills that you could use freelance or something, with the possibility to turn full time If it turns into the better option.

5. Some countries/states if you’re american will allow you to change your Japanese teaching license over, if you ever decide you want to go back and teach there.

   I would finish it – you’ll pick up skills even if you don’t become a teacher.

6. I don’t think it’s worth your time.

   English will basically always be seen by most Japanese people as a “joke” subject, where you get to have a laugh/play games etc..

   Try to get into something more worthwhile that will earn you more money.

   If you really want to be an English teacher, head over to China. You’ll get much more bang for your buck.

7. I did the Temple MEd while on the JET Programme. Started at age 28 and finished at 30. Been teaching tertiary ever since, for 30 years, in five different countries and preparing for a new assignment in a new country to start mid-September. So, yes, it’s possible. At least it used to be. With a teaching license, the international school system will open up for you. A former Japan colleague made just such a transition to an international school in Taiwan, where’s he’s been for the past two decades.

   But only you know if this is what you want to do.

8. I want to pursue a teaching license here, too. Either that or an IB Educator Certificate. Is it okay if I DM you some questions?

9. You have the order backwards, you find something else then quit.

10. If you have found a career that you love then you have solved something that most people never do. I would keep on the track you are on.

    Perhaps though consider also learning another skill as well if time allows. A qualified teacher who, for example, knows some accounting or general business studies will have more options than “just” a teacher. Or perhaps learning to teach another subject as well – be an English and History teacher, for example.

    The world needs teachers and if it is something you love doing then don’t be discouraged.

11. enjoy your privilege of being a “native english speaker” – not matter what at least you won’t starve

12. This is all tied up too deeply in your own values and priorities for anyone else to really tell you what to do.

    All I can suggest is methodology.

    Make a spreadsheet that represents progress on things you care about.

    I care a lot about money, so I built a sheet to know how much I need to save each year to meet my retirement goals. I put in conservative estimates about my expected future earnings. I put in stuff like sending kids to college for a certain price in certain years. I include the possibility of buying a house at a certain age at a certain price.Having that model, and seeing how I’m doing against its critical dates, makes me feel much more comfortable about the state of my life, and then acts as a reminder to push harder when I need to.

    Your version may or may not be as financially-driven as mine. Maybe you care more about the number of countries you’ve lived in, or the age you start a family, or whatever. That’s fine. But make some kind of model of what you want, and see if the path you’re on is consistent with your goals.

    Of course, real life will come along and totally fuck almost any plan you make. That’s fine and to be expected. No battle plan survives its first encounter with the enemy. But the act of thinking about what you want in a rigorous structured way, especially with the unforgiving tradeoffs a spreadsheet forces you to confront, is invaluable.

    Then you can work backwards to whether teaching, the certification, etc., are consistent with or in tension with your goals.

13. Others have mentioned good ideas but one possibility. Owning and running your own English school while been a fully qualified teacher would be an exceptional draw card. My wife runs her own school but is only qualified in America, so while that is advertised having a Japanese qualification might ease people’s minds a lil bit more. It’s a lot of work but once you get some students it can grow quite quickly and then the pay is good

14. It’s awesome that you are trying to take your life to the next level.

    Stay the course. Finish the course.

15. Finish the course. There’s nothing else you can do to get a higher paying job. Unless you study IT like everyone and their dog.

16. I’m 33, became a homeroom teacher in Japan. I hated it. I hated all the Japanese bullshit I was thrusted into. I realized 3 years into this job that I couldn’t take the cake of relaxing ALT tasks and also eat it too (being treated more like fellow staff). I hated all the meetings, dealing with parents and creating curriculums along with teaching during the day. I lived the last 3 years with just work on the back of my mind. I would sometimes go home crying over some bullshit a parent accused us of doing/not doing with very little support from the top dogs. It was also hard on days when a student acted up, and I went home just thinking about it all night until I got deal with it the next day. Rinse and repeat on top of planning for all my classes, and whatever other bullshit events my school planned to attract students. I realized I didn’t want to live like this and quit.

    I never got properly licensed but worked my way up to this job. I thought it was what I wanted. It wasn’t.

    Instead of asking yourself if you want to teach, which it seems like you have a passion for, ask yourself if you’re 100% willing to make TEACHING IN JAPAN your life. Because yeah, some teaching job have it better than mine – but it doesn’t vary by much. If you good students, you might have one less thing to worry about. I was already considered “lucky” because I didn’t have any club activities in my job description. But teachers in Japan are overworked to hell. You don’t have to give up on teaching, because you can just teach just about anywhere and I think you should continue it if you love teaching, but just be prepared that this country might not be the place where you use your skill.

    PS: To your second point about changing industry. I don’t know yet. I hope so. Ask me in 3 years.

17. Some thoughts:

    1. Do you want to be a teacher or an English as a second language teacher. It seems like being qualified teacher gives you more options, and even a route out of Japan if you wish (expat schools, etc.)

    2. I have been translating professionally (as a side job) for decades, and always heard about how machine translation was going to doom translators but never really worried about it. I don’t really worry about it now, because I made a conscious effort to move out of the field to free up time for other things. But I would think very seriously about <starting > a career in translation now because the AI are getting very, very good. So it seems conceivable that barriers between languages could breaks down and language teachers become unnecessary during your life time. That is is my uninformed view, but I would expect to see people starting to ask “why do we need to learn a foreign language when we can just get SIRIGPT (or whatever it will be called) do it for me”

18. you love being a teacher, so be a teacher

    work on your ceritifications and pursue a teaching career

    the vast majority of us will stop doing our jobs the minute the company stops paying us

    a job that one loves to do is a blessing that not many people can find

19. While I think the plan to stay in Japan as a credentialed teacher is *not terrible*, you will always have to deal with Japanese xenophobia, language issues, ageism, and an aging society with a weakening economy.

    You will have a much larger set of options back in the US. That’s just a fact. If you are willing to take out student loans, you can also study many things in the US.

    In the short term, moving to the US is likely to feel like a mistake. Moving itself is expensive and traumatic. The value of your Japanese ability will immediately disappear. You will, in many ways, be starting over from zero.

    But your upside is huge. In Japan, as a foreigner, it’s harder to go beyond certain levels of success. Sure, people do succeed—but it’s so much harder, or involves crazy dumb luck.

    You absolutely would have to work hard in the US, too. But the potential rewards are much broader (not just financial), because you wouldn’t always have the cultural and linguistic friction to deal with.

20. 4 years is going to pass whether or not you do the degree, you will be 33 at some point regardless. You may as well get to 33 with a qualification you can use!

21. Three more years is a long time – another option which takes about one year is the Moreland Teach Now Washington DC teaching license. You could teach in International Schools in Japan (although the legit ones are extremely competitive but I have heard of people starting out there after Teach Now via personal connections) but also in any IS school in the world.

22. Hi u/elhombreleon, I was in the same situation as you, at the same age: I had a teaching degree, and was on JET, and wanted to continue teaching. However, I just couldn’t see myself doing it forever in Japan. By 33 I had left Japan, and had also left teaching (there were no teaching jobs in Canada). I became a JE translator, and then a marketing copywriter. I now work in technology marketing. For about 8 years I also reported on Japan for an online journalism non-profit. So there is life after teaching.

    I ultimately decided not to pursue teaching in Japan because of low wages, and the precarity of contract teaching positions. I had a young family, and I was the sole provider. I was also bored with “teaching English”, which meant my heart wasn’t in it. While I wanted to teach, I just didn’t want to teach English. I also was interested in pursuing journalism and writing.

    The move to Canada was pretty hard. This is because 30 yo or so is an important age. Most professionals at that age have spent about 5 years working in their field, building skills, a resume, and a professional network.

    I found that the so-called “lack of skills” wasn’t the challenge when changing countries, and changing careers at age 33. It was the lack of a professional network. I had to build one from the ground up in Canada, and it took about 3 years for me to start doing interesting and well-paying work. Ironically, after about 3 years I started doing interesting television JE translation and rewriting work for a Tokyo agency, even though I was in Canada. Remote work wasn’t a thing at the time. It was extremely difficult to transfer video files. There was no Skype, even (this was around 2007).

    While I would have loved to have remained in Japan and raised a family there, I couldn’t see myself teaching English. There are good jobs at international schools, though, but it’s super competitive, and those positions typically require a masters in teaching.

    I also lived in inaka (Fukui) for my entire 10 years in Japan, so it was practically impossible to find any work besides “teaching English.” There were way more options in Tokyo at the time, especially if you spoke and wrote Japanese at a professional level like I did.

    But, coming from teaching, I didn’t have the first idea of the business world.

    I now know that teaching skills are very transferable:

    – Public speaking, reading a room, and managing a situation

    – Curriculum / content planning, and creating concrete tactics for achieving deliverables

    – Content creation in a variety of formats

    – Understanding audience, and understanding what the audience needs to be successful and achieve an objective

    – Assessment and reporting out, and also determining how to frame an evaluation according to the specific needs of specific stakeholders

    I use these skills these days in marketing and communications, but you can shift them to different sorts of job functions. You’re not stuck with training or teaching (but training and teaching are also great jobs, if they meet your aspirational and financial goals).

    A book that really helped me at around age 30 was What Color Is You Parachute? There are jobs out there, and there are people out there who want to hire you. It’s just figuring out how to transfer your skills to what they need.

23. Most are. I did mine with USQ in Australia. My son will start his with Ottawa University this fall . Lots of options for sure, depending on where you are from.

24. Get a masters or get out.

25. If you really love it than just continue. I was in a similar situation when I was 27. I got a degree in hotel manage and I worked in hotels and it was pretty fun work but I didn’t feel rewarded well enough so I changed careers completely to become a tradesmen. That way I’d have a real skill forever and be employable anywhere

    There were many times I doubted myself and wanted to quit but just stuck it through and surprisingly passed each level. I didn’t get my certs till I was 32.

    If you want it bad enough you won’t fail, it’s a sink or swim experience and you will not only come out with a cert but you’ll know yourself greater than before. Just grind through it, you’ll be happy you did when you reach the end.

26. It’s not too late for you. I came here at 33, took a few years to realize that I wanted a career in teaching English and started a masters through distance learning. At 38 started teaching at university part time and publishing little by little, landed a uni contract job at 44 (6mill) which was made tenured at 46 (10mill+).

    The job was not difficult, other than the bureaucratic paperwork and incredibly long meetings but the job flexibility, prestige, working conditions and very generous salaries and allowances made it as close to ideal as any job gets. The downside is the lack of guarantee that you get a tenured position. Part-timers can get by but they don’t have a career. It’s a dead end.

27. its never too late to learn a new skill and go into a new field. 30 is still young…just do what you like and stop worrying about the future….live in the present and if you enjoy teaching maybe you can get your credentials and teach in your home country or in japan…nothing is a waste of time and you can always change careers