Teaching in Japan

[GirlJapan]

I wanted to know if there will be a forum area where we can give our own personal experiences on schools to avoid etc so we can help others not go through what we did or more or less help them to make their decision to take the job or not?

[bolt_krank]

Schools to avoid - those between Hokkaido and Okinawa...

[Behan]

I'm all for it!

[Greji]

Schools to avoid - those between Hokkaido and Okinawa...

[canman]

On a related note, I wonder now with the sky high price of fuel and most other costs, how many young starry eyed foreigners will head over to Japan to teach English. I think the days of teaching for a while and then flying off to Thailand or Korea etc., are over. Also with the closing of Nova, and G-Com not doing so well, that would have an effect as well. I was talking to a former Jet who told me that what she heard from other OBs is that by and large the program is being outsourced and the pay and conditions are nothing like they used to be. The outsourcing company is getting the same money, but the business class tickets are gone, the training sessions all over Japan have been localized to the area they teach in. And the long summer and winter holidays have been replaced with part time jobs at community centers or other places to maximize profits.

[james]

i'm told jet was a sweet ride, but quite frankly i see it as little more than a waste of my municipal taxes, which have gone through the roof. nothing against the jets personally, they're great people, but the programme itself is a boondoggle and a waste of time.

hire qualified / experienced native teachers, hire locally first, and let them design or use a curriculum and for that matter, let them be in charge. start early, say grade 1 and stop shuffling everyone around so much. there's a jet here teaching in the elementary schools... all 11 of them, so he sees each group of kids maybe once every two months. absolutely pointless.

the whole of english teaching here is a farce anyway with far more being done wrong than right, and for those of us who try, what the school system does (or more accurately - undoes) is a slap in the face. i'm looking to get out of this, at least from a hands-on basis sooner than later.

[Behan]

Canman, you are right. The ALT placement companies are driving their salaries down. If you look at sites like gaijinpot you can see ALT jobs under 250,000 yen now but that used to be the minimum.
I think they are shaving off pay for the school breaks, too.

[Charles]

Canman, you are right. The ALT placement companies are driving their salaries down. If you look at sites like gaijinpot you can see ALT jobs under 250,000 yen now but that used to be the minimum.
I think they are shaving off pay for the school breaks, too.

I don't think that's actually legal, my understanding is that you cannot get a work visa if the job is less than 250000Y.

[Behan]

Maybe these companies will hire only people who already have visas.

But you are right. To sponsor an 'expert in the humanities' (or whatever they called teacher visas before), an employer was supposed to pay 3 million yen (250,000 monthly) a year. I don't know if that was a law or just the government's suggestion but that's about what most jobs offered that I saw in the Japan Times through the 90s and this decade.

The Monday edition of the Japan Times was likely one of the most popular places to look for eikaiwa jobs. At least in the Kanto area.

Recently on gaijinpot there was ALT position posted offering only 200,000. A lot of other ads are between that and 250,000.

I don't know if it's the competition for the Board of Education contracts or just the greed of these dispatch companies that is the cause in the dropping of wages.

There seem to be more and more dispatch companies all the time, too. Maybe it's a lucrative business.

This year there have been three advertisements for the same sub-250,000 yen ALT position in my hometown. It would seem that means two people have quit already.

Here's an example of one company paying under 250,000 yen(http://www.gaijinpot.com/job_view.php?jid=25303&rid=10&tr=14&cat=&full_part=&position_type=&keyword=&location=12&selang=all&offset=0):

Borderlink
Type Entry Level
Full/Part Time Full-time
Salary from 230,000 - 250,000/Month

Location Various Locations, Kanto
English Level Native-level
Japanese Level Basic
Date Posted 2008-06-18
JOB ID 25303
Requirements Native-level English level

Description of position

Further down it says:

Benefits of working for Borderlink:
1. Borderlink provides visa sponsorship

It could be that the lower side of the pay scale is only offered to visa holders but I think companies are paying lower and still sponsoring. I wouldn't bet my life on it.

Actually, I really want to know more myself as I am an eikaiwa slave.

[Mike Oxlong]

I don't think that's actually legal, my understanding is that you cannot get a work visa if the job is less than 250000Y.

AFAIK, that requirement was dropped some time ago. The language is a bit more ambiguous now...

http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/appendix1.html

The applicant should receive no less salary than a Japanese national would receive for comparable work.

[Behan]

AFAIK, that requirement was dropped some time ago. The language is a bit more ambiguous now...

http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/appendix1.html

That's scary. What do natives get paid as eikaiwa slaves?:confused:

Thanks for the information, Mike.

[Hawaiibadboy]

Working for other people sucks period. I never liked it much anyway:confused: