One thing I noticed since I arrived in Japan is how my own ability to speak English has gone down the squat-style toilet. When you listen and read to broken English everyday, it’s a given that you’ll start to speak and write it, too.

Does anyone actually ask “What are your hobbies?” in the English-speaking world? Maybe on the forms you fill out for dating services.

My words tend to jumble up, and my grammar ability has given up and stomped off somewhere else where it still gets respected. Writing on my blog and at 3yen.com has probably saved me from a complete Engrish takeover.

I’m not the worst affected teacher I know, though. There have been others that pronounce their words the same way that the Japanese students would – katakana style.

“Wat ah yoor hobbeezu?”

Sheesh. Hopefully it’s not a permanent impairment.

One of the risks of being a teacher – any kind of teacher – is that you can come into contact with sick people. In an eikaiwa, this is especially true, as you are usually teaching between 1 and 10 people, in small, air-conditioned spaces (ideal for re-circulating the germs).

Also, many eikaiwa have kids classes, and most kids haven’t gotten the hang of not coughing into sensei’s face, or wiping their noses after they sneeze on you.

So, if you’re thinking about going into eikaiwa for yourself, it helps if you have an immune system of steel. Especially at this time of year. Rainy season, or typhoon season (depending where in Japan you live) starts in about June every year. But it seems to have started earlier this year. So on top of students giving you their germs (despite the best efforts of alleged flu masks), you’ll have to walk to work in the rain, suffering wet feet and over-zealous air conditioning.

It finally brought me down last week. My housemate isn’t happy with me giving my cold to her either.

It’s not fun recovering when you’re in a profession that requires talking all day either. On two occassions so far, I’ve had to leave my class to have a coughing fit. The students are generally pretty good about it but I have heard from other teachers that students were saying “Ah, Chidade was coughing in class yesterday and today I woke up with a headache”.

Yay.

*cough*

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

A while ago, I wrote about how 80% of students came to learn English for fun. I wrote that after 5 months of teaching. Now after 8 months, I want to revise that slightly. There are students that go to an eikaiwa to learn English, there are students that come to eikaiwa to have fun and make friends (with both foreigners and other students). But there’s a third category that I didn’t mention last time. It’s a rather small minority but it can affect you and the way you teach. They are the students that have come to the eikaiwa because they have to.

Mostly, they are young, high school kids on orders from their parents. It’s another type of cram school for them. They may or may not act bored and uninterested in the lesson. Each person is different.

There are also adults that have been pressured into going to eikaiwa to learn English. Most are on orders from their employers – the lessons have been paid for them. Like the high schoolers, they may or may not be interested in the lesson. Other adults are being pestered by their families. I have at least two students that are considered “leeches” by their parents (as they are unmarried and still living at home) so they’ve been ordered to make something of themselves by learning English.

The last category is the most disturbing. These are students that have been told to come to eikaiwa by their doctors. Unfortunately, mental health in Japan is pretty poor. There are stories of shut-ins, suicides and mental health institutes that practise solitary confinement and restraining patients to their beds. There are the salarymen who cracked after being overworked and stressed out, particularly after the economy bubble burst.

These students are told to come to eikaiwa so they can practise being sociable and learn how to communicate with people again. It also gives them a hobby. Learning English is an added bonus, although in the majority of cases, these people are often poor students.

Eikaiwa often advertise to prospective employees that they will be teaching enthusiastic students that want to learn English. And while this is still true in the majority of cases, a professional attitude is required for the other types of students. Just try to remember that you are not their doctors, their counsellors or not even necessarily their friends (although it doesn’t have to stop you).

In an eikaiwa, you can’t pick your students.

Your students will ask you a lot of questions about you. They’ll also gossip with each other about you. So if you start talking about something in your life that just happens to be relevant to the lesson, be careful about what you say. You may find that your stories about your life are spread around and repeated back to you in a later lesson. It might also end up slightly warped, Chinese Whispers style.

Below are the most common questions you’ll get from your students. I find that it’s best to give them a lighthearted, funny answer where possible. Even if it means lying a bit. They’d probably love to hear all the intricate details about your life but you may not like what they do with that information. They have blogs too, you know.

Anyway!

Q. Where are you from?
I usually find it’s best to say the city and the country. Especially since after simply saying “Australia”, the student will almost definitely ask “Aaah. Sydney?”

*grrrr*

“No, Melbourne. It’s further south”
“Aah. Olympics! 1952!”
“Um *tries desperately to remember* …yeah!”

Q. How long have you been in Japan?

A pretty easy answer, but be warned! It will almost immediately be followed by this one:

Q. Do you like Japan?
ALWAYS GIVE A POSITIVE ANSWER. And don’t do the same faux pas that I did by teaching them the concept of a ‘white lie’ later in the same lesson. It’s quite possibly demeaning, but some students can get narky over your Japan-bashing and complain which might mean the eventual loss of job. Or, permanently unfriendly students. So, happy happy joy joy answers, please.

Q. Do you speak Japanese?
This is all dependant on your actual skill, but since I barely speak anything, I tend to go for the comical answer, which is waving my hand in front of my face in the Japanese fashion of saying ‘no’ and saying “Nihongo dame!” (pronounce dah-meh, meaning “not good!”).

Q. Why did you come to Japan?
Again, try a comical answer, such as:

“Anime”
“Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?”

That was so worth it.

There’s a lot of websites about Japan on the web. They all cover different aspects, like focusing on finding jobs, or finding accommodation, travelling or a mix of everything (heh, that would be us).

Because there’s a good portion of foreigners coming to Japan to become English teachers, it would be great to have a website that collects all the websites out there that would be of interest to those people.

Jamie from Japan English Teacher has done just that. His website is a collection of links, under different categories (’Teach in Japan’, ‘JET Programme’, ‘Japan Guide’, ‘Other Resources’ and more) which make it a one-stop place for links of interest to English teachers.

You can also share your stories about teaching English in Japan.

But what is most interesting about this site, is that it offers free job advertising. So companies that didn’t feel they could advertise at other sites due to the fees, can advertise freely at Japan English Teacher. It’s an opportunity to find jobs advertised that you may never have found online before.

It’s also building every day. So check back often for teacher-related material.

Link:
Japan English Teacher

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.

It’s somewhat depressing to realise that when you teach English to your Japanese students, you may also be giving them a general education.

This is not the case for ever student, of course, but I have had students of all ages who seem to be learning basic geography, or history, or world issues through their English classes. The courses aren’t designed to teach them these things – it’s just a topic that they can use to practise English. It can give them an example to practise their formal speech, or how to express an opinion, or how to give preferences…but for some reason, the content of the lessons seems to be new to them as well as the English.

This is understandable in some cases, where the lesson is about going through Immigration or ordering in a restaurant – the students may not now what the process is in an English-speaking country. But with higher level students, the lessons become more focused on describing detail, expressing opinions and so on. And there have been a few occassions where I’ve been taken aback by a student saying something like “I don’t have an opinion about global warming, I’ve never thought about it before”
“Well, can you tell me what you’ve heard about it?”
“Nothing, I don’t know”

Or worse:

“Excuse me, what is meaning ‘Holocaust’?”
“(Mental note: vocab low) During World War 2, when the Nazis were killing Jewish people. That time is called the Holocaust”
“What is that?”
“During World War II? Many Jewish people were killed in Europe. Death camps. Gas chambers, you know?”
“No, I don’t know”

Thankfully, she was the only student in my class that didn’t know.

There is a lot of talking about current issues and common subjects like music in lessons. Some students are great, they can talk about lots of different things, even if they are low level. But some students – geez. I wonder how they even knew there was such a language called ‘English’.

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