Teaching in Japan - How Hard is it?
Although there are 3 basic roads to teaching in Japan most recent graduates use to start their teaching careers, the destination in terms of salaries and working conditions are fairly similar.
Teaching in Japan “Eikaiwa” The Most Traveled Road
“Eikaiwa” refers to the teaching of English conversation and it’s billion dollar industry in Japan. These consist of your large chain schools like ECC, Berlitz, Geos & Aeon. They employ thousands of English teachers all over Japan and can be found in all but the tiniest cities. There are literally thousands of “eikaiwa” schools dotting the country side.All of these schools are attempting to carry out the daunting task of teaching English to the Japanese.
What You Need to Teach
In order to get a job teaching English in Japan, you will need to be a college graduate from any field – (sorry but 2 year degrees won’t cut it.You need to be a native level fluent speaker of English. There are some that do find teaching jobs in Japan even though English is not their first language but this is more an exception than a rule.
Most English teachers make roughly 250,000 yen per month before taxes.Most work weeks will be 5 days. Don’t expect western stuff like weekends off. The “eikawa” business whirs like a motor on weekends and someone has to teach the students right? This means that most teachers work at least one Saturday or Sunday with another weekday off.Most school’s vacation packages are remarkably similar. 2 weeks of paid vacation and a handful of national holidays off is the norm. Schools differ on which national holidays they observe but the norm is 8 to 10 per year. It’s worth noting that ECC has the best vacation package of the monster chain schools and arguably the fewest complaints. To see a comparison chart outlining: working conditions, salaries, perks, accommodations, vacations days and recruitment methods for Geos, ECC, Berlitz and Aeon, click here.
You should expect roughly a 40 hour work week. Although each school is a little bit different, nontheless, expect 20 to 25 actual teaching hours and a few administrative or office hours.Many schools will subsidize your health insurance or pay for it out right. Typical office hours are filled by grading student work, taking class notes, preparing future lessons or just chatting with students. Furthermore, teachers are sometimes expected to hand fliers as well. No joking here folks, by the end of an average day, you’ll know you worked. All in all when all the hours get counted, your typical teacher works about 40 hours per week.
Huge chain schools, mentioned in the previous paragraph, all have fixed curriculums. What this means is that you’ll be using their textbooks and other teaching materials. For those who don’t have a lot of teaching experience it’s a helpful in reducing stress (there already is quite a bit in adjusting to the culture and learning the language etc.Creative types will probably find it a bit stifiling.
ESL teachers typically teach all ages. Literally from 5 to 75 year olds. Some schools deal specifically with children like Amity and Peppy Kids Club. Other large chain schools like Gaba cater to only adults or adult private English lessons. Because of the competitiveness of this industry, most schools cater to all ages. Student wise, you can expect a healthy dose of children and young professionals like office ladies and salary men as they’re called to make up the bulk of who you teach.
All most all of your large chain schools will provide their respective teachers with some kind of accommodations. This is a very big help as it’s difficult to find accommodations on your own without the help of a Japanese national. And it’s definitely not cheap. But the type provided will vary, you should expect things to be half the size of what you might find in most western countries. Furnishings are usually sparse and typically will be collections of things from departing teachers.
Related Articles
- Teaching in Japan with TEFL Certification Does this global meltdown got you worried? Unless you've been living under a rock it should. Economic destruction of the U.S. and the beat up American economy and thrown countless
- The Cheapest Way To Help You Kids Learn Japanese All parents want their kids to do well and receive a solid education to help them in life. Some parents encourage their kids to take up piano or guitar other
- Where is the Homeschooling Information Available Parenthood is a complete around the clock activity. Every parent wants to give the best of everything to his child. Homeschooling is a very important way of showing your care
- Credit Cards For Teens There are times when parents forget the importance of teaching their teenagers how to manage their money. If they have bad spending habits of their own, the children are going
- Facts about Potty Training that You Need to Know to Acquire the Best of It Potty training or so called toilet training, toilet teaching or toilet learning is the method of teaching babies or very young children to go to the bathroom on their own
- Sacramento Hosting Premium Corporate Learning And Development Conference The staff training and development field has planned lots of great things to do as it prepares for the yearly worldwide meeting of those engaged in teaching and developing white
- Geting fit with Martial Arts There are numerous kinds of martial arts and you're probably wondering what is involved in mixed martial arts. MMA is a combination of many styles of martial arts. A lot
- Improve Your Reading Speed and Your Comprehension You might have heard that if you learn to speed read you can take in information considerably more quickly than usual, thereby enhancing your skills as well as upping your
Comments
Leave a Reply