Japan Nos

Teaching English in Japan – What’s It Really Like?

For recent grads, there are 3 roads into teaching in Japan but “eikaiwa” is the most heavily traveled road.

Teaching English Conversation in Japan “Eikaiwa” The Most Heavily Traveled Road
“Eikaiwa” refers to the teaching of English conversation and it’s billion dollar industry in Japan. These consist of your large chain schools like ECC, Berlitz, Geos & Aeon. These organizations employ  thousands of  teachers throughout Japan and can be found in practically every single city in Japan irrespective  of size. There are literally tons of private English schools dotting the country side.All of these schools are attempting to carry out the daunting task of teaching English to the Japanese.

What’s Needed to Teach
You need a 4 year degree from an University to get a job. (2 year degrees won’t cut it.).You need to be a native level fluent speaker of English. There are some that do find teaching jobs in Japan even though English is not their first language but this is more an exception than a rule.

Most English teachers make roughly 250,000 yen per month before taxes.Most work weeks will be 5 days. Don’t expect western stuff like weekends off. The “eikaiwa” or English conversation business whirs like a motor on Saturadays and Sundays and someone has to teach the students right? This means that most teachers work at least one Saturday or Sunday with another weekday off.Most school’s vacation packages are remarkably similar. 2 weeks of paid vacation and a handful of national holidays off is the norm. Of course there will be a bit of difference between how many national holidays any given school observes, but expect 8 to 10 per year. It’s worth noting that ECC has the best vacation package of the monster chain schools and  arguably the  fewest complaints. To see a comparison chart outlining: working conditions, salaries, perks, accommodations, vacations days and recruitment methods for Geos, ECC, Berlitz and Aeon, click here.

Expect to work close to 40 hours per week. Each school is different but you can expect roughly 20 to 25 actual teaching hours per week with the rest being office hours.Many schools will subsidize your health insurance or pay for it out right. Typical office hours are filled by grading student work, taking class notes, preparing future lessons or just chatting with students. And (depending on the school) some teachers are expected to hand out school advertisments. No joking here folks, by the end of an average day, you’ll know you worked. All in all when all the hours get counted, your typical teacher works about 40 hours per week.

Huge chain schools, mentioned in the previous paragraph, all have fixed curriculums. What this means is that you’ll be using their textbooks and other teaching materials. Those with little teaching experience often like these teaching conditios becasue it reduces stress and makes the headache of lesson planning go away.Creative types will probably find it a bit stifiling.

Students  assigned to a typical teacher schedule will probably be of all ages. Literally from a mere 5 years of age all the way up to 75. Some schools deal specifically with children  like Amity and Peppy Kids Club. Other  schools like Gaba concentrate on adults.Because of how cut-throat competitive this industry is, most schools cater ot all ages. Student wise, you can expect a healthy dose of children and young professionals like office ladies and salary men as they’re called to make up the bulk of who you teach.

Most of your large chain schools will provide you with some type of accommodations. This is a very big help as it’s difficult to find accommodations on your own without the help of a Japanese national. And it’s definitely not cheap. But the type provided will vary, you should expect things to be half the size of what you might find in most western countries. Furnishings are usually sparse and typically will be collections of things from departing teachers.

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