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Hi all, Im new to the forum aswell but ive been reading everyones tips on teaching in Japan. Monday I had an interview with Nova i also intend to apply with JET. my query is over NOVA, I have read some mixed articles relating to the company hitting big financial problems recently. I was wondering if anyone had any concrete advice for me such as whether I should risk taking the position if the job is offered to me?

Sorry, I know this has probably been answered before, but masters in what? Teaching?

(Sorry if its a stupid question, I still have no idea how college works. I just found out yesterday the difference between an undergraduate and graduate. :mtongue: )

Removed for the fun of it.

It would be a graduate program in teaching English as a second language. Also known as TESL, this program is different from a doctorate or master's in teaching and/or teaching English because as the phrase "as a second language" implies, your students do not speak or use English in their daily lives.

The positions I was talking about our mostly private schools and universities. Another thing about teaching at the college/university level, I have since writing that post long ago met teachers without these qualifications. However they have previous experience in teaching and are working under people with real qualifications (a degree). For tenured and high paying jobs at a good university, I stand by my original statement that you are going to need both a master's or more and be published in your field. This means writing a book or a few peer reviewed articles on the subject of teaching English as a second language.

(TESL is also called TEFL by some universities since they replace "second" with "foreign.")

If you are choosing between JET and Nova, JET all the way.

Don't go near NOVA. I know they are still recruiting and sending people over, but those people will probably never see a paycheck. They were two weeks late paying their AT staff, and the big boss has been sending faxes quoting the bible, and more recently faxed 'we're in trouble, sorry'. They had a cash injection, but that's supposedly went on paying the AT staff, so that's gone. On the 5th NOVA needs to answer for after hours stock trading (the cash injection was likely a loan with their stock as collatoral), not many people are expectng it to last longer than that.

How very right you are. No one can find the japanese president now. and the other is about to fly the coupe.

So your an English teacher huh? And you took the time to write all this for everyone? Not bad. Send me a PM with your private email and discuss further from there. I am sure you can do more here in Tokyo then teach english. Can you work a computer?

I offer my input as someone who went through the JET process (only to get stuck as an alternate:( )

I think that an important thing they look for is friendliness and an outgoing personality. I had two friends who also applied the same time as me, and they both made it. I think I was more qualified from the "interest in Japan", academic performance, and experience working with kids perspectives; but they both have more outgoing personalities than me.
Both actually had two years of formal Japanese language study (I had 1) so I think that JET doesn't necessarily discriminate against it.
Ultimately, though, it will vary from person to person and I won't ever know why I didn't make it and they did.

But in any case, from what I've gathered from them, JET is a far better experience than the private eikaiwas on many levels. The pay is better, the benefits are better, and the social circle and support network already in place is much bigger.