It’s been 6 months since I came home from Japan. It’s probably safe now to announce the semi-obvious: yes, I worked for NOVA. I didn’t have a pleasant time. This wasn’t because of the students, I might add. I had a great time getting to know them and befriending them, and I still keep in contact with a group of them.

No, what gave me the irrits was the extremely corporate nature of NOVA. And yes, it’s a corporation, with an aim to make profit. But there is such a thing as ethical profiteering, as well as corporate social behaviour. NOVA is an example of why the stock exchange is evil. Before I even arrived in Japan, the share price for NOVA had been dropping. Then in May this year, it was announced that NOVA was expecting a net loss of 3 billion yen (about US$30,000,000) due to expanding the number of branches to the point where each school was fighting not to lose students to another NOVA branch. All this resulted in NOVA trying to save money and make money any way it could, just to make the shareholders happy.

It was simply stupid business management. NOVA had a number of “satellite” schools that were staffed by teachers and admin from the main school in the area. These satellite schools would have a very small number of students, be open only a few days a week and would cost more in rent and overheads than the income received from the students.

Did you ever hear that story about how McDonalds refuses to close any stores? At best, they will relocate them, but never close them down, because it looks “bad” to the general public. Well, NOVA seemed to have much the same policy, despite the obvious losses they were incurring.

The large number of schools meant that they were always understaffed, and would basically hire any monkey who had scrapped through a year of college. The teachers were often disgruntled, due to some of the illegal activities and bizarre policies that NOVA perpetuated, as well as the constant overtime pushed onto them, whatever personal gripes they had with Japan and finally the stress that radiated off the Japanese staff.

My gods, I felt sorry for the Japanese staff. They would sometimes receive the treatment that some students received and get heckled by some teachers. They were under a huge amount of stress to get the numbers of sales up, keep the teachers well informed and the student customers happy. I wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with them for the world.

At one point, NOVA announced it was cutting back on all expenses in branches except paper, cleaning products and light fixtures. It went one step further at my school, where the Japanese staff were desperate to get some savings on the books - they stopped providing plastic garbage bags for the bin lining. The teachers were asked to fork up 1000 yen of their own money, per month, to cover the things like garbage bags, pens, paper and whiteboard markers that NOVA would no longer supply.

We told them to go stuff themselves.

One of the Japanese staff ended up paying for it all out of her own pocket.

NOVA did not give a shit about it’s stakeholders: the staff, teachers and students - the people who actually made it operate and turn a dollar. Instead, NOVA milked them all dry to appease the shareholder. Even to the point of illegal activities that are now being fought by the General Workers Union.

Another well-known example is NOVA accomodation. Oh gods. If it wasn’t for the Accomodation section, I would’ve perhaps worked there for longer. Lies, lack of answers, refusal to answer calls, rudeness, avoiding all the issues that tenants may bring up. THEN overcharging them. If you ever choose to work for NOVA, fine. But don’t live in their apartments. It will save you untold amounts of stress and frustration.

I completely understand that NOVA exists only to make a profit, not to provide gaijin with a cheap holiday. But anyone with basic business knowledge can tell you that their methods of operation were on the extremely dodgy side. If you want students to buy more tickets, then make sure that they can use the ones they already have, at the times that they want. What’s that? Don’t have enough teachers to fill the demand of lessons? They all seem to be quitting? Well, maybe you should try and keep your teachers happy with their jobs, by giving them the basic tools and training that they need. Don’t throw them in the deep end. Don’t make life difficult for them back in their apartments. And don’t tell them that they lack company spirit and threaten them with degrading their reports when instead you could be listening to their gripes and trying to fix them.

I’m convinced that the shareholder-over-stockholder nature of NOVA was what caused the awful behaviour I witnessed in some teachers. I met a large number of assholes whilst working for NOVA. But I did also meet the loveliest people. Teachers and students. There are good guys in NOVA and you don’t always have to look hard for them. I’d say that they’re better people than me, because they have more patience and will take being raped anally repeatedly without any lubricant.

When I announed to the students that I was leaving Japan and heading home, they threw me a great farewell party. I was given gifts and told that I was the favourite teacher of many students in the branch.

Damn, that made me feel vindicated. For the last 10 months, NOVA had been telling me that I wasn’t doing enough and had to put up, shut up and get on with it. Keep complaining and they’ll have to downgrade my “company spirit” mark, as if I were still in freaking high school. But I was a good teacher. I knew I was a damn good teacher. That’s why all the people I keep in touch with from Japan are my old students, and none of my old work colleagues.

So, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, it’s time to say that I will no longer be writing for the Teach section of 3yen. There’s not a lot for me to write now that I’m home, and most of what I could write would be secondhand anyway. I’ll still be around on other sections of the site, so please keep reading. There’ll be a new blogger here before long, with all the latest news, gossip and advice for teaching in Japan, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I hope I was entertaining and informative for you.

Ja ne.

A recent comment:

hey there, first of all I’d just like to thank you for this wonderful website, you have certainly put up a lot of useful information about NOVA and teaching in Japan in general. My name is David, I am a student who lives in NZ and am interested in participating the NOVA program.I am thinking about applying in the beginning of November when all my exams have finished (this is my last semester b4 I get my BA)….Does NOVA usually recruit teachers around that time ( the end of the year, Christmas)? and if I’m granted an interview, what sort of questions do they usually ask you? would be great if you can help me out…looking forward to hear from you

Hey David,

First of all, until you have properly graduated (that means, you have the diploma in your hands and photos of you in a silly hat framed on the wall), you will not be considered a graduate by the Japanese Government and will not be eligible for a work visa (at least, not the work visa required for teaching English). Being eligible to graduate is not enough. You must have graduated.

If you can’t wait that long to get to Japan, then NOVA is your easiest option. They will hire you for Flexi-Time work (part time) and you can do that on a working holiday visa, which is available to New Zealanders, I believe.

About the interview, have a read here and here, they’ll give an idea about various eikaiwa interview processes, including NOVA’s. It shouldn’t be to difficult to get accepted by NOVA although you may want to be warned: The best times to be hired are in September and May. If you tell them that you’re open to leave for Japan at any time, that will help your chances.
Good luck!

Remember a while ago I interviewed Mark Beattie, whose software Easy Eikaiwa was designed to help minimalise the administration time of small conversation sachools by taking it to the web? Well, it’s now gone live.

The interface is non-branded (ie: your URL could be “bobsenglish.liveschedule.net” and can be changed from English to Japanese and back at any time. The software is hosted on Easy Eikaiwa’s own servers. This means:
- Clients are free from having to download, configure or install anything
- Ongoing maintenance is included in the price, there’s nothing else to pay
- When a feature is added or enhanced, every client gets it immediately
- Easy Eikaiwa bear the costs of hosting it on powerfull dedicated servers to keep the prices affordable without compromising performance
- It only takes a minute to sign up and get started
- You can try it for 30 days for free and cancel at any time without having paid a cent (or yen), or investing more than a few minutes getting started

It also includes a database to keep teacher details and even photos, and has a nifty Ajax calendar to keep track of lessons.

Easy Eikaiwa is ready to get your schedule online now. All you need is a web
browser and an internet connection, and you can take care of everything from
any computer, any time. Upload contact details and photos of your students
and teachers. Set up lessons on the AJAX calendar which includes daily and
weekly repeating events.

It only takes a few minutes to get started with the easy setup helper. There’s
a completely free plan to try out, and all our pricing plans come with a free
30 day trial. There’s nothing to download or install, so you can get your
schedule online today.

Link:
Easy Eikaiwa

Summer in Japan is a dead time, as far as getting an English-teaching job is concerned. I’m not enirely sure why, but I guess it’s because many students disappear for their summer holidays. Some schools, like NOVA actually sell them travel packages and homestay trips, where they can practise their newly-acquired English skills in an English-speaking country.

So, if you’re trying to get a job in June, July and August, don’t be terribly surprised if you’re rejected. This trend is even more apparent now that schools like NOVA and ECC are reportedly hiring more people from inside Japan than outside, to save costs.

So when is the best time to get hired? September and March, it seems. I can vouch personally for September, because when I wanted to delay my arrival in Japan from mid-September to mid-October, my eikaiwa told me that wasn’t possible, that they needed in in Japan as soon as possible. April is also when schools start their year in Japan, so many students sign up in March and April to supplement their studies at school or university.
So, that’s one factor you might want to take into account when applying for teaching jobs in Japan.

An Austraian by the name of Mark Beattie has recently been developing an online lesson reservation application. It uses the common ticket system that most eikaiwa have and it will go live in the near future. I asked Mark a few questions about his application, Easy Eikaiwa.

1. What made you decide to write the Easy Eikaiwa web application? What did you have in mind?

I decided to write Easy Eikaiwa to make a simple, affordable booking system available to language schools and private teachers without the need to purchase, setup or install any complicated or expensive software. The intention is to give anyone who needs it cheap and painless access to a tool that was designed specifically for them.It’s basically a ticket-based booking system. You could think of it as having an extra virtual receptionist who can take bookings and cancellations 24×7 online. It might not be as cute as a real one, but it should free up the phone and help put more bums in seats, so to speak.

2. What’s your previous experience? (Former eikaiwa teacher? Professional web developer?)

A bit of both really. Professionally my background in Australia is in electronics and communications, but my first experience with the web in Japan was at a Japanese web studio back in 2001. I spent a year there as their in-house code monkey before inevitably finding myself teaching, part-time at first, but eventually it ended up being full-time for a few years.For the last few years I’ve been working in Japan as a freelance web developer while teaching on and off at a school which is using an early version of the system. It’s been good first-hand experience with how the expectations of students, teachers, school owners, and also myself as the developer can vary.

3. How long has it taken you to write?

I spent a few years developing the earlier version actually. That was a learning experience in the importance of PC adoption amongst your customer demographic, or a keitai interface for those without (on the wishlist for the new system).It’s taken 6 months to completely rebuild it from the ground up in a new application framework since then. My previous experience showed how important it is to develop web applications that give the user just enough tools to get the job done and then get out of their way, so the redesign has been aimed at creating a tool made specifically for the job at hand instead of trying to be a Swiss army-knife.

4. What would you ultimately like Easy Eikaiwa to become? (ie: do you want it to be adopted by The Big Four? Or for private students/smaller schools? Everyone?)

Well, I could be tempted by a juicy contract from The Big Four, but that would really be counter to the real mission, which is to keep everyone else in the race. The size of the big four has forced them to drag prices down and let “feature bloat” creep into their services. I think the best way for the rest of us to stay competitive might be to not compete - at least not on price or even services like at home video lessons.Ultimately I’d like to enable anyone with a language school or private students to stay lean and agile by helping you to make the most of you existing resources without having to compromise your price or services. An easy, affordable booking system can increase utilisation and give value-added convenience. Easy Eikaiwa is designed to scale from private teachers out to schools with several campuses without making much difference to your fixed expenses.The bigger players probably have a large enough IT budget to develop their own in-house solutions, so I’m here to offer the same services to those who need a cheap point of entry. We host the application online, and take care of maintaining, upgrading and improving it as part of the price. The monthly subscription model is cheap, and saves you the time and money required to develop and maintain this kind of service yourself.

5. Any last words?

We’re just starting out and venturing into new grounds as we go, so I’d like to thank you for taking the time to lend us your attention. If you keep an eye on us you should see some exciting developments as we try to close the technology gap by making it easy and affordable.

Anyone who’s interested in getting their scheduling and bookings online should check us out, and we’d love for you to spread the word. We’ll be opening our doors for business shortly and look forward to hearing from you. Please email any questions to info@easyeikaiwa.com. Thanks again.

Easy Eikaiwa also has a webpage and blog.

Gaba is another eikaiwa, which has tried to distinguish itself from the rest by offering only one-on-one (or, as they say, ‘man-to-man’) lessons and by integrating computer technology to the lessons. There is apparently a webpage for every lesson taught and students can access material and progress reports online.

Unfortunately, Gaba have also distinguished themselves amongst English teachers as perhaps the lowest-paying school out there. Teachers are paid ¥1400 per lesson, which is less than half of what some schools pay. There is also no bonuses such as holiday leave or payment of transportation, because each teacher is employed as a contractor. Things like transportation and clothing (you are required to wear a suit, and highly recommended to buy the GABA approved version) are tax-deductible, but that doesn’t help the average English teacher in Japan who has little Japanese language or bureaucratic knowledge.

Another thing about Gaba is that they will not sponsor any visas, at least not until after you have already completed a four month contract with them, and they decide they want to keep you. They only hire from within Japan.

Gaba, while apparently awful, does seem to do things by the books. I can’t find any examples of where Gaba do things illegally (like may eikaiwa have done in the sub-clauses of their contracts). I might be wrong on this count so please comment and correct me if you know something I don’t. It’s because you are a contractor, and not an employee, so Gaba have a lot of leeway.

You will miss out on a lot of employment benefits while working at Gaba, and the pay is very low. But it is a well recognised company in Japan, and perhaps working one-on-one and with the aid of computers will suit your style.

Link:
Gaba

There’s a lot to be said about NOVA. It is the largest of the Big Four eikaiwa and has probably around 50% of the language school market share. It can be seen everywhere: on television, newspapers, as sponsors for movies and other shows, plus hundreds of train posters. Because of it’s size, there are many stories that have arisen from NOVA, many of which are controversial.

NOVA is of course primarily a language school. It focuses mainly on English, but Spanish, Chinese, Italian, French and German is also offered. NOVA also has a few minor business interests in travel services and technology, but these are mainly for the staff or students already with NOVA.

In terms of teaching English, NOVA follows the same format that many eikaiwa do: small classes of students with one instructor (but the option of 1 on 1 classes are available at the student’s request). There are also Kids classes which is the fastest growing business for the eikaiwa today.

NOVA also offers a Voice room in most branches which is basically a free conversation room with a group of students. Students can have lessons that prepare them for TOEIC and TOEFL tests (an official test to measure your English skills). Finally, the lessons can also be done via webcam at any time with the staff at the Multimedia Centre in Osaka.

NOVA has a mascot, a pink rabbit (with a beak, for some reason) known as Nova Usagi (Usagi means rabbit in Japanese). It is marketed heavily and has reached the same level of mainstram success as other company mascots like NHK’s Domo-kun and the DoCoMo Mushroom.

All of the instructors are English-speaking natives, ie: foreigners. They make up 70% of the company’s employees. NOVA itself has said that most of the instructors stay with the company for less than 2 years, but after speaking with friends that work for NOVA, they liken it to an outbound call centre. That is, a high turnover with many people staying only until they get themselves settled in Japan then moving on to other jobs.

NOVA has made the news on several occassions because of accusations of unlawful employment practice. Some have accused NOVA of preying on unsuspecting foreigners’ ignorance of Japan’s work laws, for example, over-charging instructors for the rent on optional NOVA accomodation. Friends working at NOVA have also told me of a culture where instructors are not allowed to speak to students about NOVA policies under any circumstances. This has caused clashes which have on occassion led to lawsuits because of some other contradictory practices.

The most notable of these is the anti-fraternisation policy. NOVA does not allow instructors to socialise with students outside or work and will terminate the employment of instructors who do. Again, my friends have complained that this can be difficult because they are expected to be very friendly and likable to the students at work but when approached by students outside, they cannot talk about the anti-fraternisation policy when excusing themselves. An Australian man had taken the eikaiwa to court over the policy because he claimed it interfered with his life, and reached an out-of-court settlement.

Other issues raised by instructors led to the formation of a NOVA union which has lobbied the company and the Japanese government to end what it says are unfair practices. The union has had some positive but also negative feedback - an editorial in the weekly English magazine Metropolis claimed that the union’s activities actually interfered with the ease with which foreigners could find work in Japan.

NOVA seems to be one of the very few eikaiwa that allow foreigners to work part-time but this is only available for a few countries with the appropriate visa (mainly Australia and New Zealand). There are rumours, however, that part-time teachers will no longer be hired in the near-future, due to a problem with these teachers not turning up to work.

Controversy aside, my NOVA friends have pointed out that the pay is considered normal for an eikaiwa, and that there are still a few instructors who stay with the company for years. If you are considering working for NOVA, check out some English teacher forums for the opinions of those who have worked or who are working for the company. NOVA will be different to different people. My only suggestion based on what I’ve researched is that I wouldn’t recommend taking NOVA accomodation.

Links:
NOVA’s recruiting website
Wikipedia’s article on NOVA

I wrote briefly about The Big Four eikaiwa a while ago, but now that I’ve been here for a while and I’ve talked to different teachers, it’s time to be a bit more in-depth. These aren’t going to be the be-all-and-end-all descriptions of eikaiwa but hopefully they’ll give you a bit more info.

First up then is AEON. They are small, but big enough to throw around some advertising - mainly on trains but occassionally on late-night TV. I always find it amusing to see three or four eikaiwa posters next to each other on trains. They usually are NOVA (of course), AEON and ECC.

AEON however, takes a slightly different approach in its ads. NOVA or ECC always show blonde-haired women in their instructor roles. AEON on the other hand, has many posters of Japanese men and women.

Some of these are meant to depict satisfied customers (One train poster shows a young woman saying “I want a fast car, I want a expensive handbag, but most of all I want to succeed at English!”) but apparently many of these poster models are meant to depict instructors too.

Yes, AEON actually hires Japanese people to teach English. The Japanese instructors teach very low-level students, so that if necessary, explanations in Japanese can be made. After the students are deemed capable enough, they are then moved onto foreign native English speakers.

One Japanese AEON employee tells me that there are 4 Japanese instructors at her branch (a few are part-time) and the rest are foreigners (who are all full-time. No part-time foreign instructors are hired at AEON).

The foreigners that are hired by AEON are offered accommodation and if they accept, then rent is paid for, up to a certain amount. The difference and any utility bills must be paid for by the tenant.

AEON branches are not very visible. There are no big, illuminated signs everywhere and are quite often hidden away in some empty space in an office building or shopping mall. They are usually located near a train station though.

AEON is one of the eikaiwa that does allow fraternisation (that is, drinking and socialising) with paying students outside of school hours. As far as I can tell though, it is not expected of instructors to socialise.

Overall, after drilling many AEON friends, there have been few complaints about the company. The foreigners like the working conditions and the offer of rent being partly paid for, while the Japanese employees like the option of working part-time or full-time.

The only complaint I have heard is that training for some things like Kids Classes takes too long and requires the instructor to go on a kind of camp where social life is apprently inhibated. Other eikaiwa like NOVA seem to complete all their training in a day and during work hours. Oh well.

Link:
AEON recruiting page
Wikipedia’s article on AEON