Teaching English Conversation in Japan
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 English Conversation in Japan “Eikaiwa” The Most Heavily 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. These organizations employ thousands of teachers throughout Japan and can be found in practically every single city in Japan irrespective of size. There are literally thousands of “eikaiwa” schools dotting the country side. All of them carrying out the task of teaching English to the Japanese.
What You Need to Teach
You need a 4 year degree from an University to get a job. (2 year degrees won’t cut it.).You need to be a native level fluent speaker of English. Some do succeed in finding work in Japan, even though English isn’t their first language but the overwhelming majority of postions that get filled are filled by native level fluent teachers.
Most English teachers make roughly 250,000 yen per month before taxes.Most work weeks will be 5 days. Don’t expect weekends off. Saturdays are usually work days. 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. Vacation packages are quite similar for most schools. Expect 2 weeks of paid vacation and most national holiday off. Of course there will be a bit of difference between how many national holidays any given school observes, but expect 8 to 10 per year. Something worth noting is that ECC English school has the best vacation of all the large chain schools. Here is a handy chart to help you compare salaries and working conditions for huge chain schools like Geos, ECC, Berlitz and Aeon.
Expect to work close to 40 hours per week. Each school is different but you can expect roughly 20 to 25 actual teaching hours per week with the rest being office hours. Most schools also will provide you with health insurance or subsidize it. Typical office hours are filled by grading student work, taking class notes, preparing future lessons or just chatting with students. And (depending on the school) some teachers are expected to hand out school advertisments. No joking here folks, by the end of an average day, you’ll know you worked. When the dust settles, your typical teacher workds roughly 40 hours per week.
Larger chain schools, mentioned above, have fixed curriculums. This means you’ll be using their in house texts, tapes and other support materials for teaching. 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.
Students assigned to a typical teacher schedule will probably be of all ages. Literally from a mere 5 years of age all the way up to 75. Some schools have only children as students like Amity English school and Peppy Kids Club. Other schools like Gaba concentrate on adults.Because of how cut-throat competitive this industry is, most schools cater ot 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.
Most of your large chain schools will provide you with some type of accommodations. This is a huge help because it’s tought to find accommodaions without the help of a Japanese national. Not to mention it’s also quite expensive. 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.
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