Even though I’ll be an eikaiwa sensei (conversation teacher) I’ll still be making use of a textbook supplied by the eikaiwa company in my lessons. Textbooks can be a great way to supplement your lesson, but don’t feel the need to bring huge books of your own from home. Apart from the fact that they’re heavy, pretty much everything you’ll need is already in Japan, and provided by your eikaiwa.

Firstly, these textbooks aren’t standard textbooks. They’re designed to stimulate conversation, being primarily made up of pictures and lines of conversation. The textbooks give a starting point to create roleplays, to walk the students through typical conversations, and lets them practise their vocabulary by describing pictures and scenarios. They are NOT designed to teach English grammar, because this is taught extensively in schools and universities. The conversation classes are designed to put into vocal practice what the students have learned throught their education. The textbooks supplied by eikaiwa (both prescribed and others) supplement this.

In fact, the only English grammar textbook you may need is for yourself! It’s not uncommon for a Japanese student to correct their native-speaking teacher on points of grammar. That’s how high the emphasis is in schools. Still, eikaiwa will often have grammar textbooks in their resource libraries so there’s no need to bring your own from home, but it is recommended to brush up on grammar before you leave.

If you tutor or if you don’t work for an eikaiwa, standard textbooks from home probably won’t help you teach. What you may want to consider bringing are items like photo albums, scrapbooks, magazines - even take-away menus from your local restaurants. Items with images or clearly ordered information are much more interesting for your student to look at and learn from, and like the eikaiwa designed textbooks, can be used to stimulate conversation and roleplays.

I am not a morning person. I am very much nocturnal. So after staying up til 4am watching Peace Maker Kurogane, I was not amused when my mobile reminded me at 8am that I had to attend a compulsory “pre-departure seminar” in a little under an hour’s time.

It wasn’t that terrible really, but like I said, I’m not a morning person. Those of you like me will know all the unsaid frustration and general crankiness I went through.

They covered the stuff you’d expect them to cover - what will happen once you arrive in Japan, what life is like in Japan, some expenses that you can expect to have, what to bring and what not to bring. None of it was particularly news to me, I had either heard it all before from the eikaiwa or researched it on my own. The only really beneficial part of the whole seminar was the video shown of an actual class taking place. After watching what was done in that class, I felt a lot more confident that I could do the job myself.

Interestingly enough, the level of the students you can get is deceptively high! This video showed 3 young Japanese adults who could answer questions fairly well, could give creative and impromptu role play performances and who I think I could work very well with in a class. It seemed to me like these students had mid to high levels of English skills, but according to the eikaiwa’s ranking system, they were on second bottom level! It was such an immense relief hearing that. I think I should be okay in the classroom :D

What was mildly annoying about the day was the woman brought out to speak about life in Japan, because she really couldn’t tell us much.
What’s the food like?
I can’t really judge, I’m a vegetarian.
Is it worth bringing over my computer/laptop?
I can’t really say, I didn’t do it myself, I bought a second hand one there.
Is it easy to connect to the Internet?
I don’t know, I didn’t try it myself.
How about my mobile phone? Will it work there?
I’m not really sure (note: another hired teacher told me that it would work so long as it was a triband phone)

Geez.

I still can’t get decent information on how to get internet in my apartment in Japan, and this is frustrating. I don’t fancy being internet-less over there. My main concern is that there may not be a telephone line in the apartment, so I may have to try to get some “mobile broadband” card which is only new technology in Australia, although I’m sure it’s been in Japan for years.

Anyway, despite most of the seminar being pointless, I’m glad I went to see that video of a class in action. Plus, all the photos and video footage of Japan made me want to be there right now. I suspect those pictures are what draw in prospective teachers the most, heh.

This post will be an ongoing work in progress, because I’m sure I’ll learn more about just how much is needed in your first month in Japan as I actually go through that first month.

Firstly, though, I should mention costs you may experience in your home country while you are overseas. I have a few of them, unfortunately. You have two options when you leave: you can sell all your wordly belongings minus the suitcase or two full you’ll take with you to Japan. Or, more likely if you plan on staying only a year, you can leave your belongings somewhere safe. If you have a nice friend or family member to look after your things, great! Just be sure to catalogue your items and get the babysitter something nice as a thankyou gift.

If you don’t have someone lovely to help you out, you’ll have consider secure storage. This can vary in price depending on how big a space you require and whether you want additional insurance on your belongings (recommended). I’ve been quoted on a space 2m x 2m x 2m at $150 per calendar month. Keep in mind that is an Australian quote. I’ve had to cull a lot of my belongings to fit into that space, too. My poor DVD collevction was sold at less than half what I bought it for *sob* and most of my electronics are gone too.

Other things you may need to pay for (and therefore need to budget for) while you are in Japan include: car registration and insurance (you never know if may tree land on your car while you’re gone!), loan repayments, your mortgage (if you have one), home security and so on. If you want to return to your life in your home country just as you left it, you may be paying two sets of monthly expenses. One for your life in Japan, and one to maintain your life at home.

If you want your family and friends to be able to contact you easily and cheaply while you’re gone, you can introduce them to the internet! But it’s possible that you won’t have easy access to the internet while in Japan, or your family and friends don’t have internet access at home. In that case, a mobile (or cell) phone will help you out. Many providers will set up a system where people in your home country can call your mobile phone in Japan for the same cost as if you were still at home. The difference would be payable by you in Japan. Quite often though, if anyone in Japan rang your mobile, they would pay for a call to your home country, even though you and your mobile is in Japan! It’s an expensive system and not efficient if you want to be contactable by people in Japan, but it can provide ease of mind to your family and friends back home. Just make sure that they don’t call you evertime they have a flat tyre or when the pet budgie dies.

Alternatively, if you have the internet in Japan but your family and friends don’t, you can set up a Skype In account. For a fixed annual fee (30 Euro at time of publishing), Skype will set up a phone number in your home area. Whenever somebody calls it (for the cost of a local call, presuming they are in the same area code) then you can answer the call at your computer in Japan. If you’re not at your computer, the caller can leave a voicemail message.

Next time, I’ll post about the things you’ll have to pay for in Japan before you start receiving your salary.

About a week after I made the initial application for the eikaiwa job, I got a phone call for an interview. Be there at 10.30am sharp, in the city.

I managed to get there at 10.45am.

Ooooh, how the Japanese lady at the reception desk looked down on me! Even though I was the one standing up…

Lesson #1: DO NOT ARRIVE LATE! The Japanese revere punctuality and the people who’ll be interviewing you will have at least lived in Japan for many years, if they aren’t Japanese themselves.

Fortunately I didn’t miss much, there was only a session explaining everything that was already on the website. It was almost pointless except for the interesting personal stories that the staff shared. You could also ask them questions that you couldn’t easily ask a website. The information session was basically a reiteration of “Please read this information before continuing”. Like I said before, eikaiwa like to cover themselves.

After the info session we had to sit a grammar test. I don’t think I had any problems with it but anyone who wasn’t particularly brilliant in their English classes may want to brush up a bit before they sit this.

Next was a one-on-one interview. It involved going over what you had written in your original application (eg: reasons for wanting to live in Japan) as well some very fast paced questions. That was interesting. You were asked a question that you had to answer within three seconds and using no more than 2 or 3 words. It’s to get you to say the first thing that comes to your mind, rather than a speech you had constructed earlier. Some of the questions I was asked were “How would your friends describe you?” and “What kind of people don’t you like?”. As you can see, they’re definitely questions you hope you have good honest answers for.

Finally there was a roleplay session. The interviewer was one of your Japanese students and you were teaching him or her just like you would in Japan. There was a textbook passage to read, then you had to make up questions about the passage to ensure the student had understood what they had read. You also had to field questions about definitions or scenarios in the passage.

The roleplaying was an eye opener. It made me realise that I’ll be on my toes all the time during classes. It doesn’t really compare with the homestay conversation classes I did a few weeks ago, but that was still worthwhile because it taught me how I would need to prepare for classes.

But after having described the interview process like that, I have to say that probably isn’t so hard to pass. I say this because a friend of mine who applied online but then decided against going to Japan was called up again 3 months after he turned them down, to ask if he would reconsider. It seems this eikaiwa need a lot of teachers for September (I think because it’s the start of the new school year then). Edit: Apparently the Japanese school year starts in April. So I have no idea why teachers are in such high demand in September.

So I guess the interview was really to make sure that you spoke fluent English and weren’t dribbling or shouting “Monkeys!” randomly.

Kinda depressing, after all the stress I went through waiting for a response.

Ah well.

I haven’t posted in a while. Gomen nasai! But in all honesty nothing has happened since I last posted, and it’s not likely that anything will happen for another month. But today I thought I’d go back in time a bit, to my initial application process. This might not be exactly how it goes for all eikaiwa, but it does seem like pretty standard stuff that you can expect to do yourself.

I applied online, and judging from the response that I received, that was a strange thing to do. It seems most applications are received at career fairs at universities or even from employment classifieds. But going directly to their website and applying online? They’ll always remember you for it!

The form requires you to fill out pretty standard stuff - it also asks for a resume with references, so have one prepared. Then it gets into the specifics. The eikaiwa like you to know what you’re getting into. There were many “Please read this information before continuing” messages, that explain things like salaries, class size and structures, what the eikaiwa will help you with and what you have to do on your own (and so on and so forth). These eikaiwa like to make sure that their butts are covered, so that no nasty legal preceedings can happen. They can always point and say “But this is what you signed up for, remember?”.

You’ll also get asked somewhat personal questions about why you want to work in Japan. Now, I don’t know about you, but is there ever a really innocent answer to that question? Sure, you can generalise and say “To experience Japanese culture” but I suspect what most people mean is that they’re otaku freaks (like myself) and want to live a real-life anime lifestyle, preferably in Akihabara. Or worse, they want some Japanese man/lady action because they can’t get any from any race at home. Similarly, “To try living in a foreign country” translates into “My parents/friends/ex-spouses want the money back that I loaned from them several years ago but I blew it on alcohol and gambling and need to get away”.

Cynical? Moi?

So, I filled up my application with gushes about Japan’s unique culture (although I kinda let on my fangirl side by mentioning “pop-culture” quite extensively) and history and how I’ve been learning Japanese for years (read: 5 months) and would like to try my hand at living there. Lots of lies, but like I previously mentioned, you’ll have to do quite a bit of lying in this job.

The embarrassing bit was when they questioned me further in the interview about the reasons I had put down for wanting to teach in Japan. I had to repeat the same bollocks face to face. Lucky for me, I do bollocks well.

Anyway, that was the written application wrap-up. I’ll talk about the interview process in the next post.

Just a short post today, because not much has happened and this is why:

Everything has been paid for, all papers have been filled out, all visas have been issued….now I must wait for the eikaiwa to tell me what’s next.

And I won’t hear from them until about three weeks before I leave (which, remember, is in September).

I can deal with the overpriced flights and with the convenient insurance that serves only to make them more profits. I can deal with their administration fee and the allegedly crappy conditions I’ll be forced to work under. I can deal with being given accomodation that’s far from my work and probably overpriced.

But WHY must I wait until three weeks before I leave before finding out where in Japan I’ll be living and working? They’ve been given 3 months notice!

Bah! Bureaucracy.

Things are starting to happen.

Firstly, I found out today that I’ll be leaving 14th September. It’s a surprisingly long flight to Japan, longer than from Sydney to LAX, but at least it’s broken by a stopover in Malaysia. The company who hired me have specially booked flights, which are more expensive than your standard Student Flights flight, but apparently they make up for it with a extra 20kg baggage allowance. Which is nice, but having to haul around two suitcases by myself will be interesting. Also included is transfers and luggage delivery to my apartment. Which is a relief, because hauling two suitcases around Narita will be bad enough, I don’t fancy tackling the Japanese rail system with them. So, while probably still a money making venture for the company that hired me, it’s too convenient for me to try and be a bargain hunter.

Also finalised my travel insurance, which is also quite possibly more expensive than your standard Student Flights insurance, but those booklets have so much to read, and it’s all written in the third person, and they give me headaches, so I’m just going to trust them when they say “oh yes, we get a commission for selling you this insurance, but it only just covers our costs for organising it for you” and also just use their travel insurance for convenience. The Excess Buy Out clause is a puzzle though. May write a post on it when I figure it out later.

Next I have to organise a visa. Hooray for passport photos! Although, I like getting stamps and stickers in my passport, so I’m not complaining too loudly.

Will report back on Monday on the visa process. It looks…..interesting.

I had a conversation class today with a few Japanese high school girls here for homestay. This class was one of the most nerve racking experiences I’ve had in recent times. All went well overall, but I think I could have done better.

Firstly, remember the Scouts Association? They dress up in horrible khaki uniforms and run around legally with Swiss Army knives. They have a motto: Be Prepared. Given that I’m a scout myself, I should have remembered this.

My main problem was that I ran out of topics to talk about. All of the suggested topics were covered quickly. Hobbies (shopping, chatting with friends), what you do after school (shopping, chatting with friends), what you do on the summer holidays (shopping, chatting with friends), what you want to do when you grow up (shopping, chatting with friends…no wait, teacher!) and other basic topics were all given one word answers and moved on.

It didn’t help either that they hadn’t seen any of the tourist attractions in their two week stay (not that Melbourne has many) so there wasn’t much about Australia we could discuss (What did you think of footy? Ah, so so. How about Australian food? Ah, so so!) not even what they thought about the animals, because they hadn’t seen any!

Towards the end of each hour, I resorted to showing them pictures from a photo album and pictures of my pet lizard on my mobile. They were entertained, but not much more educated, I think.

They were lovely girls though. They all wanted to have a photo with me at the end of the session O_o

I think I’ll try again, but next time I’ll come up with more questions that’ll force them to answer in sentences. Any suggestions, anyone?

If you want to avoid the private corporation death trap, another way to teach English in Japan is with the government-run JET Programme. The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme is operated through a number of government agencies, including (deep breath) … the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; and the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (or CLAIR).

Because it is government run, it seems that the teachers are better….well, treated, I guess. The pay seems to be higher, but health insurance deductions are taken from the ¥300,000 you can earn per month. A great perk (just pointed out to me, thankyou Jeff!) is that JET pays for your flights and generally provides free or heavily subsidised accomodation.

The major drawback to the JET programme is that they only hire once a year, so if you’re itching to get to Japan ASAP, JET might be a let down.

The actual English teaching happens in primary and high schools as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher). You would be an assistant to the English teacher already at the school.

If teaching a bunch of kids isn’t your idea of fun, then you can also be recruited as a CIR (Coordinator for International Relations), where you’ll work in the offices of all the organizations involved in JET.

Again, English is not a requirement to apply, but again, having a bachelor’s degree is.

Links:
The (not very attractive) JET website

There are four major private English conversation schools, or eikaiwa, that you can work for in Japan. They’re collectively known as The Big Four.

NOVA – Easily the largest of the four, its market share is approximately 50%. It was listed on the stock exchange in 1996. It is commonly located near train stations and is marketed as such.
The NOVA recruiting website

GEOS – This company has 510 schools in Japan plus more worldwide. It seems to operate under a similar format to NOVA but they do not offer part-time positions. That means you’ll need a bachelor degree in and field in order to gain a working visa.
The GEOS recruiting website

AEON – This school has 3000 employees in over 300 branches across Japan. It was founded in 1973. The company operates two programs: AEON which focuses primarily on adult education with some kids classes, and AMITY which is solely for teaching English to children. Like GEOS, it doesn’t offer part time positions, so a bachelor degree is required for a working visa.
AEON’s recruiting website

ECC – ECC stands for “Education through Communication for the Community”. It began in 1962 as a language school, and while it still conducts private language education, it has broadened to include school and college programs and even a research department. Again, a bachelor degree is required for application, as part time positions are not offered.
The ECC’s (not very flashy) recruiting website

It is interesting to note that all these schools also offer language classes in other languages, so if you’re fluent in any other language, you may also wish to apply to teach in languages other than English. However, English is easily the language most in demand, and therefore, the easiest to find a job with.