"Just a Teacher." Realities of Teaching in Japan

Comments · 236

• DM

  @dmacleod3843 · 2 months ago

  I've been in Japan for 32 years.  I've taught in eikaiwa, private businesses such as Subaru and Mitsubishi, public schools from elementary to high school, private schools (again, from elementary to high school), kindergarten (by far the most fun), dispatch companies as a substitute, and have done some private tutoring.  I'm currently in my 26th year at my private school, and in all of my experiences, private schools are the best.  My salary is much higher than my peers in public schools or in conversation schools.  I am currently an assistant homeroom teacher; I have my own classes (where I am in charge--no Japanese teachers are present--and yes, I have a Japanese teaching license which allows me to be in the classroom solo).  I've taken my students to Australia for home stay programs, and I design my own curriculum.   In other words, a regular teacher, but I wasn't fluent in Japanese when I started out, so some private schools (ones that are almost like international schools), don't require fluency in Japanese (obviously responsibilities and pay will increase if you take on more of a workload--which requires Japanese language ability).  My current salary is over 500,000 yen a month, so it is possible to earn a good living here without teaching at a university.  Next year will be my final year of full-time teaching, but I can honestly say that teaching in Japan has been the most rewarding and satisfying experience of my career because I know that I have made a difference (I've kept up friendships with former students over the years who are now parents--and I have even taught their kids).  It's been a great ride!

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• FO

  @FooJinSama · 2 months ago

  I’ve taught English for about 4 years now. It’s not a lot of pay but I’m happy with my life. And if you plan to teach English in Japan, patience is key. I’ve heard from many Seito-san that they’ve had to change Eikawa because their last teacher would get impatient with them and really soured the one-on-one atmosphere they paid for.

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• SH

  @ShuOnMobile · 2 months ago

  YES THE PARASOL.!!!!🔥🔥🔥🔥

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• AI

  @airdavio4236 · 2 months ago

  it's been so long since the announcement, that I was starting to think the parasol wasn't coming 😭🙏

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• JU

  @jul7291 · 2 months ago

  I haven&apos;t seen every single comment, so I don&apos;t know if any covers this, but I think one thing for people new to Japan should know, is that a huge number of jobs across education are dispatch jobs. So you might be working in public or private education, school or university, but your employer is a dispatch company. So you are on dispatch company pay and conditions. This is a part of the whole race to the bottom in English language education in Japan. So as well as the education inflation, where they&apos;re asking for higher and higher qualifications, the pay and conditions have been driven down over the years.<br><br>I think it&apos;s worth spelling out, as people who aren&apos;t familiar with the landscape here, might assume that eikaiwa means you work in that school&apos;s building.<br><br>Plus, it would be interesting to hear how online teaching has affected the industry in Japan. Are many people in Japan now learning English from teachers not based in Japan, and is that putting downward pressure on pay and conditions?<br><br>Obviously these are opening whole new areas to talk about, more than you could possibly cover in a single video.

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• TH

  @thegroundedjourney · 2 months ago

  I came in 2007 and started off with Eikaiwa. &nbsp;Did it for 2 years and actually really liked it, just didn&apos;t care for the office politics which is why I quit. I came back in 2012 as a JET, &nbsp;after JET I was hired by a neighboring towns Board of Education. &nbsp;I enjoyed being an ALT but so many, usually other foreigners, were somewhat judgy about it and others tried very hard to convince me that if I wanted to &quot;make something out of my like&quot; and not &quot;waste my time here&quot; to go for private school teaching. &nbsp;I finally did, great school, loved it. Had opportunity to climb the ladder of success. The pay was not that much more than my ALT salary but the commute and responsibilities were more than doubled. <br><br>Had I been single, and not a parent, I probably would have stayed. But I was a parent to two kiddos under the age of 6 and I barely saw them anymore. I guess you can say my priorities changed. &nbsp;I eventually got another ALT direct hire job in the country side. I oddly enough get paid more than the private school paid me, and I get bonuses twice a year. My students may not be the best students academically, but they are great kids. I get to see my own kids off to school every morning and arrive home shortly after them in the afternoons. <br><br>It&apos;s been 19 years since I first started teaching in Japan. It has been quite a journey. &nbsp;To me it is very clear that every situation is unique and I feel super lucky to have the hours I do for the salary I have. That I have the time to volunteer in my community and be there for my kids, more than they probably want me to be lol. I may not be a teacher in the in the traditional sense of the word, but I found that once I gave up on that label the job became much more satisfying. I do have a &quot;special teaching license&quot; from Hokkaido, but it is collecting dust. <br><br>Thank you for sharing your experience and story.

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• RE

  @Redz1900 · 2 months ago

  i was expecting the parasol to be more pink and frilly 😂

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• TI

  @tickyj45 · 2 months ago

  I&apos;ve been in Japan about 4 years now. First two years I worked at a big nationwide Eikaiwa, then 1 year ALT middle school, now 1 year local Eikaiwa. Local eikaiwa has been far and away the best experience. So much more respect, responsibility, levelheadedness, healthy communication, etc etc compared to the two other jobs. If you want to work in Japan usually you need to go through a nationwide eikaiwa first to get in as the local ones don&apos;t recruit from abroad. So I recommend working there for a year (get experience, feel out Japan) and then start applying to local schools, who will appreciate that you have some experience but more than that you are already here!

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• AL

  @aliciajohnson6571 · 2 months ago

  That park was beautiful! 😍 Thank you for the walking tours. And I enjoyed learning about the different teaching tracks. I feel like being an assistant would be fun especially if one doesn&apos;t yet know much Japanese. I don&apos;t plan to be a teacher there any time soon, but I am planning to visit next year, so I&apos;ll have to check out the app you mentioned. As of now, I have an &quot;Essential Japanese for Travellers&quot; and an &quot;Essential Kanji&quot; book I&apos;m looking through to practice recognizing hirigana/katakana and looking up kanji. :)

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• DC

  @DCS_World_Japan · 2 months ago (edited)

  I&apos;m 12 years into teaching at private uni in Tokyo and a few of the points you hit on are things that have pushed me into a quasi state of burnout. The lack of disciplinary actions you mentioned sometimes works its way up to uni level students, which becomes a major emotional drain having to manage 18 year olds who need a drill instructor more than they need an English teacher. The education inflation as well. I squeezed into a closing door of stable work (for now) with just an MA and pubs, but it&apos;s incredibly deflating to watch new positions demanding higher and higher qualifications with worse contract conditions while the birthrate collapses. The other thing, at least in my experience, is all the time-wasting tatemae with committee meetings that accomplish nothing, the lip service given to quality of education while they continue to build curricula around 90-minute monologues, one-size-fits-all regulations, and the unprofessional level of cliquism within departments. I&apos;m teaching 10 koma as a full timer and they still dump all that on to me to deal with WHILE expecting research. Honestly it gets a bit absurd at times.

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• BI

  @billanderson1214 · 2 months ago

  Was a JET in a town in Kyushu in the late 90s. Taught junior high school. It was an incredible experience but Paul is 100% accurate when he said the kids can do what they want. I literally had a few students who would climb onto the third story (open) rooftop during class and walk around up there. Crazy! But overall, the kids were great and I highly recommend JET!

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• SQ

  @squanto2 · 2 months ago

  Yes, subscribe! &nbsp;Paul puts a lot of work into these presentations, and they are all fantastic &quot;inside baseball&quot; topics about life in Japan. &nbsp;Just one million subscribers. &nbsp;Not too much to ask. &nbsp;🤔

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