Mikeru
後輩
- 2 Jun 2015
- 16
- 0
- 16
Hi all
I've recently learnt quite a deal about the eikaiwa and Assistant Language Teaching (ie. English as Second Language ESL) jobs in Japan and I am currently quite keen to pursue it as my main ambition from now, an student out of college equivalent to western countries. I have not decided what field of study I want to pursue in university yet, but at the moment, I'm not that interested or confident in other careers.
1. How important is English related degree in getting ESL jobs? I already intend to get the TESL as I understand that most employers in the ESL sector value it.
a. At the moment, I am currently deciding between whether to take a part time course or a full time course in my home country. The reason being that I feel that I should start working as soon as possible to make myself financially independent and not burden my family on the tuition fees, and attend night/weekend classes of study. I am also considering to take a full-time private course in Mass Communication or Marketing (as those are a few options that I have with my grades in high school).
The reason why I am considering the public vs private, full-time vs part-time course issue is because in Singapore, there are cases when employers may value part-time degrees less than full-time ones, or offer less starting pay to private degrees, which are generally seen less prestigious than local degrees. Will such a discrimination occur among employers in the ESL sector of Japan, or do they value interview performance and other teaching qualifications and experience.
b. To what extent do employers value the relevance of the degree of the application to English and teaching? Is it advisable for me to get a degree based on an alternative career choice in case I don't get or want to switch out of ESL?
2. What do you deem as some of the most important things one must learn about the work culture in Japan before embarkation to the country?
3. According to what I've read, there have been some negative reviews about ESL in Japan, such as labour abuse, bad working conditions and harassment of students. The trend is how some students join lessons for the wrong reasons - males sexually harass teachers, females seek for unhealthy student-teacher relationships.
What are some concrete methods of mitigating such issues, apart from joining a Union?
Are working conditions and the hours as bad as some describe it? I feel that I can handle as I have experience studying long hours and working longer than 8 hours a day so I feel that it is manageable by my standards. I feel that I am sufficiently interested in teaching and like the place and thus will carry it out with good ethic, so I don't think I'll run into brushes with attitude problems during the stint.
5. Bias against teachers not Western? I am actually a Singaporean-Chinese and I understand that Chinese is one of the majority races in the country behind the 98.5% Japanese. Most ads of ALTs and eikaiwa make their courses seem more appealing by showing pictures and ads of Westerners as teachers, but in reality, are Asians welcome as teachers? I currently have a mix of opinions on this.
6. How are future job advancements after initial teaching stint like?
I've recently learnt quite a deal about the eikaiwa and Assistant Language Teaching (ie. English as Second Language ESL) jobs in Japan and I am currently quite keen to pursue it as my main ambition from now, an student out of college equivalent to western countries. I have not decided what field of study I want to pursue in university yet, but at the moment, I'm not that interested or confident in other careers.
1. How important is English related degree in getting ESL jobs? I already intend to get the TESL as I understand that most employers in the ESL sector value it.
a. At the moment, I am currently deciding between whether to take a part time course or a full time course in my home country. The reason being that I feel that I should start working as soon as possible to make myself financially independent and not burden my family on the tuition fees, and attend night/weekend classes of study. I am also considering to take a full-time private course in Mass Communication or Marketing (as those are a few options that I have with my grades in high school).
The reason why I am considering the public vs private, full-time vs part-time course issue is because in Singapore, there are cases when employers may value part-time degrees less than full-time ones, or offer less starting pay to private degrees, which are generally seen less prestigious than local degrees. Will such a discrimination occur among employers in the ESL sector of Japan, or do they value interview performance and other teaching qualifications and experience.
b. To what extent do employers value the relevance of the degree of the application to English and teaching? Is it advisable for me to get a degree based on an alternative career choice in case I don't get or want to switch out of ESL?
2. What do you deem as some of the most important things one must learn about the work culture in Japan before embarkation to the country?
3. According to what I've read, there have been some negative reviews about ESL in Japan, such as labour abuse, bad working conditions and harassment of students. The trend is how some students join lessons for the wrong reasons - males sexually harass teachers, females seek for unhealthy student-teacher relationships.
What are some concrete methods of mitigating such issues, apart from joining a Union?
Are working conditions and the hours as bad as some describe it? I feel that I can handle as I have experience studying long hours and working longer than 8 hours a day so I feel that it is manageable by my standards. I feel that I am sufficiently interested in teaching and like the place and thus will carry it out with good ethic, so I don't think I'll run into brushes with attitude problems during the stint.
5. Bias against teachers not Western? I am actually a Singaporean-Chinese and I understand that Chinese is one of the majority races in the country behind the 98.5% Japanese. Most ads of ALTs and eikaiwa make their courses seem more appealing by showing pictures and ads of Westerners as teachers, but in reality, are Asians welcome as teachers? I currently have a mix of opinions on this.
6. How are future job advancements after initial teaching stint like?