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.

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.

From one of our readers:

I just got back from New York yesterday, where I had an interview with NOVA. I heard about it from a friend of a friend I met in a bar and since then have been pretty gung-ho about the possibility. I have been beelining towards NOVA because it is the one that that guy told me about, and perhaps unwisely neglecting to do too much research past the NOVA site itself. The interview was fine, whatever, and frankly I was surprised at the low quality of the other candidates- they were all just twenty somethings like me, nothing special. The interview itself was subtlely off-putting, and the corporate nature of NOVA began to become apparent as the interviewer rapid fired through the lightning round and refused to move on until she had something to fill the space on her sheet for the semi-unanswerable questions.

Today I decided to poke around for information on the internet, and I have not been very happy. Malevolent rants aside (of which there are a few…) I see a consistent negative opinion of NOVA as being a corporate giant full of malcontented or alchoholic gaijin. While I understand a lot of the experience depends on the luck of where you are placed (I asked for an urban area) and who is around you, I am deeply and genuinely concerned about the recent insurance scandal and the unnecessarily draconian fraternization policy.

Are all the eikawa run this way? Are any of them better than NOVA? I began to look at ECC and, at least just from their website, they look more reputable in terms of how they treat their workers.

Let me be clear, I know NO japanese and not all that much about Japan (although the general knowledge I do have is fairly fleshed out). I didn’t even consider applying for JET because of this, even though the majority of the people I know who are over there did JET and like it. BUT, I really don’t want to sell myself short as an English teacher… I just got a degree in English and have spent years teaching music lessons (a subject more similar to language than you might think…) I was especially dismayed to learn that the Bachelor’s degree is a requirement not of NOVA but of the visa application, essentially showing me that NOVA just wants english speakers and that’s it.

I want to go to Japan for the cultural experience, to learn and to see (and to watch, too :) ) I want to stay there for a year, maybe two. While I may not pursue a career in ESL, I absolutely don’t want to just breeze through the teaching- it’s important to me that students learn! Given my credentials, is NOVA really the best option for me?

Sigh. NOVA. What can you say? I read all the stories about NOVA before I left for Japan too, and while I was a bit sceptical that these were legitimate complaints as opposed to enthusiastic bitching, most of what I’ve heard has been confirmed since I arrived.

Firstly, I think it’s a good thing that you’re thinking about why exactly you want to teach English in Japan. I should warn you that you will be an odd one out. I’ve been studying the foreigners that come to Japan to teach, and it seems like there are three main reasons that they have decided to come to Japan.

1) They have no career prospects and getting a job as an English teacher is easy. You noticed this when you sat the interview. The quality of candidates wasn’t high, but I’d bet good money that all of them are recruited. NOVA in particular is said to be under recruitment quotas so I’m told the interviews are more or less just to check that you don’t dribble when you talk or have Tourette’s Syndrome. It’s sad, but the majority of people here fall under this category. Many of them are bitter and cynical and bitch the most, the “malcontented and alcoholic gaijin” you mentioned, but that is a generalisation. There are also great people from this category. Another point is that you’ll find them in every eikaiwa, not just NOVA.

2) The people that actually want to become teachers. My housemate is one. She came to Japan because it’s an easy way to get teaching experience, especially since in countries like Britain, the rules and laws surrounding working with children make it difficult to get some experience on your resume. It is amazingly easy to get teaching work with children, even with no formal teaching qualifications. It’s also just a fun lifetime experience to be in Japan. They tend to stay here for a couple of years before going home to continue their teaching careers. They are pretty common, but by no means the majority.

3) The people here for fun. I’m one of these and I suspect you are too. These are the people who aren’t thinking about teaching careers, they just want to be in Japan for whatever reason. My reason is the fashion and the anime. But learning the language, or being interested in design are other popular ones. Maybe they’re the round-the-world backpacking type and have now stopped in Japan after trekking in South America. Maybe they’re the kind of people that had highly successful careers at home but got bored and wanted a seachange. These kinds of people are teaching because it’s the easiest job you can get quickly in Japan. They aren’t interested in teaching (not to say that they neglect the job) but the focus is more on being in Japan and the job simply funds their stay. These people seem to be the ones that move on to other jobs or go home in a relatively short space of time (around one year or less). These people are also pretty rare.

I should point out that there are of course the people that came here and were only planning to stay for a year, but ended up staying here for ten! Getting married, having kids, establishing successful careers. They’re hardly foreigners anymore. They’re home now.

I can really only tell you my opinion as a person from the third category. You will have fun in Japan, but you may not have fun at work. Especially now that you have doubts about NOVA, I wouldn’t recommend you going there. All of the eikaiwa have a similar teaching standard, but each eikaiwa’s culture is different. In my experience, I love teaching the students, but I hate being in the staffroom. What you said about different areas and branches is true too, but of course, in the case of NOVA, there are some things that remain the same, like the anti-fraternization policy and the legal hiccups.

NOVA hire as many English teachers as AEON, GEOS and ECC put together. It’s big. The majority of teachers that you’ll meet are NOVA teachers. Keep in mind though, that the English teaching scene is changing. Stories that you may have heard from people who taught in Japan years ago may not necessarily hold true today.

But I’m getting philosophical…

Is NOVA a crappy company to work for? All signs point to yes. But depending on who you are and what you want from your time in Japan, it may not matter. Are other eikaiwa better to work for than NOVA? Again, signs point to yes. But I’m told there are some aspects where NOVA have been more flexible with their staff, for example, the ability to change branches, swap or change shift schedules and so on. I can’t really vouch for the accuracy.

Don’t worry about your lack of Japanese. Any eikaiwa will take you, even the small ones. It’ll make your life a little rocky but every foreigner in Japan has that issue. And especially since you asked to live in an urban area, you’ll get by.

It’s great that you want your students to learn and not just pissfart about but you’ll find some students that aren’t really there to learn English. Their reasons may range from being-there-because-their-mother-said-so to wanting-to-marry-a-gaijin-man. So keep this in mind when you teach.

I guess my best recommendation is: hell yeah, come to Japan, you’ll have a grand time. The easiest way to get here is by working for an eikaiwa (on a side note, none of them require bachelors degrees, it’s all only for the visa) and the easiest eikaiwa to get into is NOVA. If you don’t like them, you can always move on once you get settled. Or, you can save yourself some grief by working at another eikaiwa (if you ask for a recommendation, I’d say AEON).

If you do end up working for NOVA, don’t let it ruin your stay in Japan. There are plenty of options open to you once you have the visa and are in the country. The one thing I wouldn’t recommend doing is accepting NOVA’s accomodation, no matter how much they insist. It’ll be more work on your part to find a place to stay, but you’ll save more money that way.

Sigh, this isn’t even a quarter of my views on the subject, but it’ll do for now, I hope :)

It’s only psuedo-fame, we are only “micro-celebrities” but it sure does give you a warm fuzzy feeling when 3yen.com gets listed under the Best of the Blogs section in English magazine Japanzine’s “Best on the Web” feature.

Thanks to the beauty of alphabetical listings, we are also listed first, teehee.

Wow, this is cool. And I completely forgot to add Japanzine to the article about English publications in Japan, too.

We were sent an email about teaching in Japan - feel free to send more of your own!

Hello,

I’m 19 years old and earning a degree in Celtic Studies at a
university in Canada, though I live in the US. Recently I’ve been
giving serious thought to a career teaching English in Japan, but I
have several concerns which you may be able to help clear up.

Firstly, I’m like any penniless college student, and by the time I’m
finished with my BA I’ll have wracked up around $50,000 USD in
student loans. Is it realistic to work in Japan AND expect to earn
enough to start paying off these loans?

Also, how likely is it I’ll be able to obtain a work VISA for more than a year?

Thanks for your time,
Rachel

Hi Rachel.

If you plan to graduate before you travel to Japan, then the degree that you have will allow you to get a work visa for Japan, without too many troubles. You will, however need a company in Japan to sponsor your visa. This may mean getting a job lined up before you arrive in Japan, but getting the visa after you’ve arrived is also feasible, just more difficult.

In most cases, visas are only issued for 6 months or a year - you will need to extend it when it gets close to expiration, but this is not too difficult. I’m not entirely sure of the rules of Canada or the U.S. but I suspect you can continue renewing it until you are considered too old to work in Japan (I think the age limit is 45?). Check with your local Japanese Embassy for better details.

About your student debt - there are many teachers in Japan in the same situation as you. And while they may grumble at having to send home their hard-earned money, or grumble at the lousy exchange rate, that’s all it is. It is still affordable to live in Japan while paying off a debt at home.

Hope that clears up your concerns.

Cheers,
Chidade

A letter from Eydie:

hi, im 17 and i live in canada.

im deciding to go on to learn Japanese and eventually get a degree in English.

i want to go to Japan to teach english at a school, any school may it
be elementary or high school.

would it be wise for me to start at this age? would i survive with the
pay i will get teaching english? is it hard to find a job there as an
english teacher. i dont know anyone who lives in japan, only a
godfather of mine, but i dont know him. please reply =/

Hi Eydie,

Teaching in Japan is a pretty well paying job, and unless you have an extravagant lifestyle, you should probably be able to save some cash on the side ;)

The main obstacle in front of you is your age. To work in Japan you need a work visa or at least a working holiday visa. To get a work visa in Japan, you need to have completed a degree in anything. To get a working holiday visa, (at least, in Australia) you need to have completed at least a year of tertiary studies.

I’m pretty sure the rules for Canadians are similar to the rules for Australians, but you may want to check the Japanese Embassy in Canada website.

There are many websites that will help you find a job, and once you’re there in Japan, there are dozens of classifieds published offering English teaching jobs.

But again, you’ll need a work visa (it’s more difficult to find work on a working holiday visa - you’re only allowed to work part time) so maybe you should consider doing a Japanese degree, or at least a year of it, before heading off to teach English?

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Take care!

Regards,
Chidade

Anyone, please feel free to email questions (chidade AT gmail DOT com) and I’ll try answer them as best as I can.

Japanese students are willing to learn. Making them laugh is a different matter. Some of them are what we in the staffroom call super genki and will laugh at anything you say, even if you were serious. Others laugh out of nervousness. Others laugh when you laugh, because you’ve given them the cue.

It’s been interesting trying to get laughs out of students. The higher level students are ok, occassionally they’ll get a word joke - an amazing feat since they are, after all, speaking their second language. My proudest moment was when I managed to get a laugh with this pearler:

‘Ok, please try to complete this sentence: “People think that London is just a concrete jungle, but actually….” got it? I’ll give an example. “People think that London is just a concrete jungle, but actually…there are no monkeys”‘.

AND THEY GOT IT!! Well, 2 out of the 3 students got it. And those two could actually explain the joke in English to the third. *sniff* I was so proud of them! *sniff*

For your students to understand plays on words is a pretty rare thing indeed. Sarcasm will never make sense to them. Very often, you will get that intense look that means ‘…nani?’ so it’s best to avoid sarcasm altogether.

If you want to make your students laugh, the best technique is to go for the ridiculous. And that may mean losing some dignity. Most stand up comedy in Japan is based on silly antics. Waving your arms around in class and yelling will get their attention at least, if it doesn’t make them laugh. Another tip is to say things that are obviously silly, like “There are many dangerous animals in Australia” and they’ll nod and say “Ah, yes, sharks and crocodiles” then you can counter with “Yes but the deadliest of the all is the KOALA!”

It’s silly and quite often juvenile. But if you can make your students laugh and enjoy themselves, then it’s more likely that they will stay your students in the future.

Well, I have been in Japan now for a little over a week. I’m sorry for not posting earlier everyone, but getting internet here is harder than you’d think. But what’s even more difficult is finding time.

I have started teaching classes in one of the big eikaiwa branches in Yokohama - the training is intense and in this particular eikaiwa (although it’s probably the case for all of them), you’ll be actually teaching complete classes by the end of your training period.

The textbooks you are provided with are the basis for your lessons, although I have already had one student that didn’t bring in the book, spoke randomly in Japanese, and just spent the class chatting with me about Australia and what I liked about Japan, hehe.

The level of English that these people can speak will amaze you. Even if they only took classes in junior high school, you can actually have a conversation with students (and most Japanese people in general), even if there is a lot of gesturing and sound effects involved. Even higher than their ability to speak the language is their ability to read it. All this, combined with the textbook, makes teaching relatively easy.

It can also be very enjoyable. Students pay quite a lot of money to go to an eikaiwa and study English. They want to be there, so you have their full attention (which might not be the case in a high school, for example) and quite often they will be keen to contribute to the discussion - something that isn’t really encouraged in the education system.

The Japanese also have a great sense of humour (look at the commercials!) so the lessons can be a real riot.

Maybe it’s just beginner’s luck, or maybe it’s just how the way things work in metropolitan Tokyo/Yokohama, but I’m having a great time here. I’m hoping I won’t jinx myself and be completely jaded in 6 months time, but so far, all is looking great.

Apologies in advance for posting rarely, but I’ll only be getting internet in my apartment in 5 weeks time (and that’s another story). Once I have 50Mbps ADSL goodness, you’ll be hearing from me daily, I promise!

The eikaiwa I’m working for has finally told me where in Japan I’ll be located: the Minami Ward (Minami-ku) of Yokohama. I’ll be living in an apartment leased by the eikaiwa, which means no up front costs and rent deducted from my salary, which is great, financially. However, if I’ll be working in Tokyo city (I won’t know for sure until I arrive and do orientation) that means I’m going to have a long train commute. The eikaiwa claim that no one will have to travel more than an hour to get to work but
a) I’m not sure I trust them, and
b) I don’t want to stand, breathing in people’s armpits for 2 hours each day.

If that’s the case then I’ll probably consider moving out into a gaijin house somewhere closer to where I work.

The apartments are meant to be furnished, but I think there’ll still be a few things I’ll need to buy on my arrival. For starters: a rice cooker. All the apartments are said to have cutlery, crockery and basic items for cooking on your gas top stove. But there’s no mention of rice cookers! And I want to try out some of the rice cooker recipes around!

I’ll also need to set up an internet connection, which may cost even more if there’s no telephone line in the apartment.

Hairdryer, portable media player for the long commutes, mobile phone, stereo system with mp3 support, USB key, external DVD burner for my laptop…..

I’m looking forward to shopping in Akihabara!

17 days to go…