The Price you pay for Showing Up
 

Every now and then, you have to pay out a little bit to do your job. Here are some of the expenses of being an ALT.

Kyushoku (Lunch)-Probably one of the cheapest meals you will eat in Japan and most likely one of the worst from time to time. Price-4,000 yen a month

Enkai-Quarterly or so booze parties for the staff to get together and unwind. Why do they do this on nights when you have school the next day, I have no clue. Price-3,000 to 5,000 yen per enkai

Gifts-You go somewhere and they expect a souvenir (omiagei) or someone gets sick and they collect money. I personally don't buy omiagei. Kissing ass is not an admirable trait to me even if it is a cultural thing. Sick money-2,000 yen.

For the Kids-The students however, I have no quarrels bribing them. Foreign candy is always popular and an easy way to make your the other teachers jealous of the kids and dislike you. I also give out stickers for good work, but they love getting signatures just as much. Some even ask me to make a signature for their name. Price-however much you want to spend.

Big vs. Small
 

Fairly accurate article on teaching in a large company versus a smaller one. Bigger is not always better for Japan's English teachers | The Japan Times Online

thinking about teaching engish
 

My husband, 2 children and I were thinking of going to Japan to teach english. What are your thoughts in doing so with 2 children ages 6 months and 5 years old. We were thinking of going with Nova. I am 30 and my husband is 35. My husband has a degree but I do not. I have a college diploma doing my Early Childhood Education with 7 years experience working with 3-5 year old children. Where would be the best place for us to go?

Hola everyone, hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day and recovered quickly. S-93, here is my few words of advice for your situation.

As far as I know you will be just fine getting a teaching job with your degree in Early Childhood Education. Also with the experience you have, you may even be in a better position to find a job faster than your husband. I would not recommend Nova to just about anyone. I have rarely met teachers who are thrilled to be working for them. They do have Nova kids' schools which may be what you are really interested in, but I have heard that Aeon is a much better company to work for and from the offers I have seen they pay more. They also have a special branch of schools that are specifically for children.

I would also keep an eye out for companies and shools seeking a couple to work for them. You will occasionally spot these types of postings on ohayosenei.com. Maybe they would be willing and able to schedule the two of you in a way that makes it possible to have one parent at home with the kids all the time. This would not be the case if you were both doing the ALT thing like me. You would both be out of the home during the day so in that case you would have to think about finding childcare.

Now all this being said, Nova might be a good solution for the two of you if you can't get work from a private conversation school or somewhere like Aeon. But I would definitely recommend at least one of you working in a conversation school so that they may be able to make a schedule suitable for taking care of your children.

Any questions about children, I would put them to Nyororin who has the thread "I Live in Japan!" She is always helpful and knows much more about this aspect of Japanese life than I do. Best wishes to you and your family, JBvr

Hello Jason, I'm sorry about making a new thread about teaching in Japan, I only skimmed the first few pages of this thread and didn't see exactly what I wanted to know. I've also today, read the first 7 pages and things have only skimmed what I want to know. I plan on majoring in Japanese, taking a full 4 year program. All I really want to know is if there a need in Japan for native English speakers who want to teach there?

Yes English teachers, whether or not they have formal qualifications, are desired almost everywhere in the world. In Japan there are thousands of us but the market is such that it can support the numbers and in fact still needs more teachers. Jobs are available year round since most of the teachers are not in Japan indefinitely and the average teacher only works for about two years in one country before moving. The second reason being that after gaining a bit of experience and acquiring contacts, many English teachers that stay in Japan move on to more profitable teaching jobs or a completely different line of work entirely in Japan.

Since you asked, I will break down the need for English teachers by country. China is really wanting English teachers but the income of your average Chinese family is such that they are not able to attract the number of foreign teachers that Japan does. South Korea compensates their teachers very well, but you have better be prepared for Korea and the fact that you are practically owned by your company. Not only that but there are new stipulations that not only do you have to be born in a selective list of English speaking countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), your degree has to be earned at a university in the country of your origin. That means if you are British and go to school in the US, they will not grant you a work visa. Singapore there is less a need for teachers and those who are needed have to perform at a much higher level. Taiwan pays better than mainland China and on par with Japan but again the expectations are higher.

The bottom line being that Japan is one of the most desirable places to teach English in Asia. Things are convenient. Japanese are polite. The pay is sustainable even without experience or qualifications. While this does make getting a good location in Japan a bit more difficult since we are all competing for that dream position of some little eikaiwa off the beach in Okinawa, there are still plenty of jobs to go around and with the economy picking up steam will be more and more of a need for native speakers.

Thank you so much, because I'm really nervous about spending my money on getting this degree because my family is very against me doing this. They have the misconception that everyone in Japan speaks English already and that I'm pretty much going no where with this.

Do you know anything about the University of Findlay and their japanese program. I mean.. I've been researching it like crazy and it seems absolutely wonderful to me, but I haven't really been able to talk to anyone who has been there.

Can't really say that I know anything about Findlay. I am from NC originally, but I can offer this word of advice. You should probably double major or something. Majoring in Japanese will help you get a job teaching English here, but then again you could get your bachelor degree in something like art or something and still get a job teaching here. What I am suggesting is having something to fall back on or something that allows you to transition easily from teaching English. I really wish I had done something like international business instead of international studies which is more political science and culture oriented. It would make getting a business job a lot easier after I finish teaching in say two to three years.

I kinda agree with this. I am planning on doing a computer science degree, and learn as much Japanese as I can before I come over. (In about 5-6 years) I want to then maybe teach English for 1 or 2 years. I am hoping my Japanese is good enough after that to get a normal job in Japan.

NOVA in Korea!
 

What!? I don't know how long they have been there, but apparently Nova has expanded into South Korea so they can rip off teachers in two countries! Check it out, Gaijinpot-Nova Listing I really want to meet one of their South Korean teachers, but from what I hear about hagwons Nova are probably angels by comparison.