So I am an Australian highschool student looking at spending 6 months in japan (first half of 2025 so long ways to go).
From what I’ve gathered to teach at an eikaiwa or such you need a working holiday visa, which you would normally need a bachelors or 3 years work experience for. However Australian passport holders can get this working holiday visa with no degree from age 18-30.
Does this mean I can teach at an eikaiwa during a gap year with no degree as long as I have the working holiday visa?
I’ve seen some people comment anecdotally about working at eikaiwas with just working holiday visa and no degree, but I thought maybe this is not the norm for a lot of language schools.
also does Jap level matter for employment? should I take a JLPT test? I think I would be around N3 level by then based off the kanji requirements.
7 comments
The degree is just used for the working visa.
It’s not necessarily a requirement of the actual workplace.
So yeah you can get a job on a WHV once you are in the country.
I did that (also from Aus) and then because I had a degree I was able to easily change it to a regular working visa and stay here long term.
I’d advise to come visit Japan first if you haven’t already. If you get an English teaching job, you’ll be spending most of your time working and not making very much. If you are at an eikaiwa, chances are you will be working weekends too.
Usually the eikaiwas I see are staffed by college kids but since you’re a native speaker I’m sure you could find one that’ll hire. Also you can Google Japan English part time jobs or English arubaito and see some recruitment or job board sites and find something that isn’t just English teaching. Good luck OP.
Eikaiwa will happily employ a high school graduate on a working holiday visa. That is the whole reason the job exists. The degree thing is for a work visa not the job, something most in that job seem to forget.
You’ll probably make more money working part-time in food service, and you’ll have many more opportunities to ‘immerse [your]self in the language and culture’. Some *eikaiwa* even have explicit prohibitions on using Japanese.
From what I can see you are looking to experience Japan. The best approach would be to have your own savings to live on, and use your new job as additional cash to stretch out your savings & time. Have four independent weeks ready and then with a part-time job you should be fine…
You would be better off looking at programs that place you with a whv specific job, like at a skifield. It’s not uncommon to start there, then make connections or get ideas locally for spending the summer.
An eikaiwa would be a bad idea for you. It’s more of a job-job, ie dressing professionally, paid to a local bank account. Not to mention, you are very, very young to be doing that kind of job.