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Teacher in CA looking to teach in Japan(make the big move)

Virtually all JET program ALTs know the mantra for JET is, "every situation is different". Some do lots of prep, some do none. Some are actually put in charge of a lesson, some are human tape recorders.

Again, case by case.

That's not job security. Job security is knowing you have a job for a certain length of time. In my opinion, one big problem is that you are not in charge of the students no matter if you lead the class or not. You can make your own lessons, but that's it. Many JTEs don't feel comfortable with any foreign ALT in the room sharing the floor. What I would consider a major problem is that during school breaks, many (most?) ALTs get a reduction in pay.

If you mean most students in JHS, senior HS, or college, yes, I agree. If you mean any Japanese, I'd have to say it depends on the level of fluency that is required. Most corporate situations require reading and writing of business emails as the primary function of using English. Next is phone or direct conversations with clients or sales people, and those conversations don't have to be 100% perfect. Native English speakers are outnumbered 4 to 1 nowadays, and nonnative speakers learn to use whatever English they can muster on the job. Some do better than others. In my experience (HS, univ, business English, housewives, retirees), most people don't know how to study or set goals for themselves, and that causes obvious problems with learning anything.

I'd add to one of your last comments that your job is to "give all kids the same opportunities and make learning interesting", and fun and to make them aware of how relevant the language is for their needs. Pretty much most average Japanese want it just to make foreign friends, even if they are in careers where they will need it for work.
Some feedback, but I can't be bothered to do the whole point by point thing. It's midnight on Saturday, just finished reading a book to my kid before bed, this isn't life or death....

I've never met a JET in charge of things. Maybe it does happen, but I've never seen it in action or heard it in an anecdote. Could be true though. Case by case.

Dispatch are for the most part gyomuitaku contracts. I used the word legally since it is not always in practice. Legally, with gyomuitaku, it is not team teaching.

Job security is based on your dispatch company having a contract. You're technically correct here, but even if your company loses a contract, company B will fill in and take over, and basically hire anybody who applies, particularly those with experience. So there's always a job, but it's not a good situation. Job security wasn't a good choice of term on my part. Career prospects would have been better.

Sure, make learning fun. Interesting isn't fun I guess :/. Glenski, in ten years of reading you online, you haven't changed at all :emoji_raised_hands:
 
I've never met a JET in charge of things. Maybe it does happen, but I've never seen it in action or heard it in an anecdote. Could be true though. Case by case.
Well, I have, and I've been here almost 20 years, so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.

Dispatch are for the most part gyomuitaku contracts. I used the word legally since it is not always in practice. Legally, with gyomuitaku, it is not team teaching.
Absolutely. The OP should bone up on what that means, too. In recent years, it has changed to this form of teaching, where the dispatch ALT and the JTE don't/can't plan lessons together. That is, the school is not supposed to tell the ALT what to do. I may not be describing this 100% accurately, but it is not a nicely cooperative team teaching effort, as you said.

To be honest the Jet program sounds interesting , I wouldn't mind taking a back seat and doing minimal work at least for a while, Im already burnt out on creating lessons, grading, meetings and overall running the entire show alone, and im not really looking for a job that gives me 9 hr work days.
JET ALTs are required to be at school the whole day. Of course, you may likely not be teaching all that time, but you have to be there. Your job is to assist, which could mean any type of scenario, all depending on how much the JTE wants to work with you or trusts you. Essentially, though, you are the natural sounding English voice, so hearing you speak will be a main point. Also, read up on how badly JTEs actually study to be English teachers. Most are lit majors, and virtually none have any experience in communicative language teaching, so that will be your job. Kids will have 3-5 English classes per week, and you might not be in some. The JTE will actually teach the grammar (in Japanese), so the main explanations will come from them. If you are asked to reinforce that, your English explanations (unless you know enough Japanese) will have to be delivered carefully and simply, but you are there for them to get activities done. That means, yes, lesson planning. Search for the common English textbook around, Eigo Noto, and see what awful stuff is presented to kids.

Worst case scenario I could find another gig.
With JET, that means really upsetting the apple cart, since you would be assigned to a school(s) for a whole year, and it will be hard for them to dig into a bag of replacements. Looks bad, too.

Im also interested in a postion that would give me afternoon hours (just personal preference)....I think ive settled on ALT teaching
This does not computer. You might have morning hours at one school and afternoon hours at another, or you might be assigned to the school for the whole day. If you want only afternoon hours (and I would like to know why, because I can think of one bad one), go to eikaiwa. But even those will have some morning times; the thing with eikaiwa is, they are a business, so they're open whenever they feel clients will be available. That usually means housewives and retirees in mid afternoon and evening, and kids after school. Eikaiwa also means the potential for working Sat/Sun (fortunately for me, mine didn't).
 
I've also done research on DOD schools but those are quite odd, seeing as they seem like an American school transplanted in Japan. Almost no actual English teaching.

You're not getting a DoD teaching job. You frankly don't even approach having the necessary qualifications and considering your displayed lack of knowledge of DoDDS I'm betting you don't have the necessary connections either.
 
That's the absolute number one damned thing that you had better have a firm grip on before you make a decision.

...
Eikaiwa ("English conversation") schools are make-believe schools where you pretend to teach English to people who by-and-large are pretending to learn English. It doesn't matter a hill of beans if you actually teach anything, so long as you facilitate the selling of more lessons. It doesn't matter a hill of beans if nobody actually learns anything because the Japanese are all too willing to blame themselves if language learning goes poorly, so neither you nor the fake-assed "school" will be held accountable regardless.
...

You know, @Mike Cash , sometimes I wonder if you come across like this in Japanese, too?

I know your Japanese is great, so humor me--how would you translate that last sentence? I'd like to run that by a few people and see what their reactions might be.
 
To the OP:

Overall in spite of the differences and seeing contradictions in people's posts, I would suggest they they do paint a realistic picture of how teaching in these situations might be- a lot can depend on the individual teacher and how much they really want to commit and contribute.

If you are coming into a school (where you might "teach" the same class as in frequently only once per month), I think it is important to consider what kind of contribution the licensed teacher (almost always Japanese national) can expect/hope from you. How much time should they devote to working with you, and then- bang you skip out in mid-contract after 3 months of being full of piss on vinegar on changingEnglish language education in Japan, while the "teacher" before you, showed up late, sometimes hungover, had little interest in doing anything…

Defeng Li addressed some of the challenges of CLT in South Korea which has a similarly teacher centered learning education system:

"It's Always More Difficult Than You Plan and Imagine": Teachers' Perceived Difficulties in Introducing the Communicative Approach in South Korea Author(s): Defeng Li Source: TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 677-703 Published by: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) Stable URL: "It's Always More Difficult Than You Plan and Imagine": Teachers' Perceived Difficulties in Introducing the Communicative Approach in South Korea on JSTOR Accessed: 30/04/2009 20:42

BUT I digress: The point that I want to make is that there are many factors that could make being active/ contributing in AET/JET situations challenging. I think that some of the previous posts might suggest that the issues lie mostly with the education system and the J-teachers. There are of course problems/issues/challenges from all stakeholders (including parents/principals-school admin/school boards/ publishers and so on) which is IMO why it is difficult to address these challenges and make meaningful improvements.

However, that being said, there are places/situations (as other posters noted anecdotally) where you can do so. Because you will likely go to different public schools as a JET/AET, you may find yourself in a good situation and a bad situation, depending on which location you are at and which school you are visiting.

JET - AET - Eikaiwa?
IMO, JET is a great way to start because it pays 300,000 per month and de[pending on school school board sometimes includes free or subsidized housing. It is generally 8-5, Monday to Friday. I think this a nice program to get your feet wet in, as it is relatively undemanding but you can make it demanding if you want it to be. I know of JETs that have coached clubs (English clubs and sports clubs), been very involved in school life and have taken leading roles in teaching- but this is usually only at one of the many schools they are/were assigned to.

AET This situation differs greatly depending on the company you work for, and another poster covered it. Overall, (anecdotally) I think at the start the salaries are lower than JET but do increase somewhat until capped at higher than JET.

Eikawa
This sector gets dumped on a lot- but as with everything, there is good and bad- unfortunately, bad outweighs the good in this part of the "education" industry. Advantages are (IMO) - you can easily get a job, and you are free to teach (if you are so inclined) and unfortunately you are also free to drink coffee and chit chat with "students", or do nothing, or try and sleep with your "students" - Yes, Eikaiwa has a bad rep among language teaching professionals, looking at the industry not only from the school/company behavior, but also from the behavior of some "teachers". Like most things, however, you can make the best of it and have a rewarding experience depending on how much you want to invest yourself in the situation.

And that again is the advantage of the Eikaiwa, as long as the students are happy (renewing) management general is not that concerned with what you are teaching, so you can really learn about how to teach, (in situations that you might not normally want to teach) and learn about differing learning strategies and individual learning differences, and have the opportunity to help some (not all, and maybe not even most) of your students become more effective language learners and ultimately better language "users" to meet their particular goals for language learning.

Eikaiwa can be a very satisfying experience (or not) and if that is satisfying for you, a good cottage industry Eikaiwa school (meaning if you start your own) can leave you quite comfortable financially.


Overall, I think the JET program is a great place to start - for the record, I am not a former JET - and an old timer so my perspectives many not reflect those of younger teachers.

I hope that helps.
 
you are also free to drink coffee and chit chat with "students", or do nothing, or try and sleep with your "students"

Just a word of caution...I don't think any school has a policy of allowing teachers the freedom to sleep with their students. I know this was probably not meant in the literal sense, but some people are liable to get the wrong impression from this statement. In fact, my guess is that most contract hires will have a clause in their contract that prohibits them from engaging in activity that would damage the school's reputation.

Sorry for the buzzkill, but that one sentence struck me as being problematic.
 
Just a word of caution...I don't think any school has a policy of allowing teachers the freedom to sleep with their students. I know this was probably not meant in the literal sense, but some people are liable to get the wrong impression from this statement. In fact, my guess is that most contract hires will have a clause in their contract that prohibits them from engaging in activity that would damage the school's reputation.

Sorry for the buzzkill, but that one sentence struck me as being problematic.
"or do nothing, or try and to sleep with your "students"

Yes, doubly problematic so because it should be an infinitive as well.

Majestic is correct (thank you) as I was writing tongue in cheek. Most schools have a policy about this, and ideally all teachers would conform to his policy, but…

Thanks for the clarification Majestic
 
you are also free to drink coffee and chit chat with "students", or do nothing, or try and sleep with your "students"
I was also going to mention something about sleeping with students, but majestic beat me to it. As much as tomoni said it was written tongue in cheek, I don't think it should even have been brought up.

My simple response: don't even think about doing it.

One more thing. tomoni wrote about AETs: This situation differs greatly depending on the company you work for
I've always considered AETs as being the assistants who are hired from city hall, and ALTs being the ones hired by JET or a dispatch company. Keep in mind that with city hall positions, you might get farmed out to a different bunch of schools every year as needed. That's been the experience my associates here have had. JET and dispatch companies certainly operate differently from each other (JET providing far more support, and I encourage you to look into them because of that, plus I heard that recently they have more than one application date nowadays, so you might not have to wait a full year now).
 
. I came over as a JET many years ago and have been ALTing with a dispatch company called Interac after that. Just like to add that Tomomi's JET/ALT-AET/eikaiwa explanation is spot on, except for the salaries. Some direct hire ALT jobs might end up paying more than JET, but no dispatch company will ever match it. I'd also recommend JET as the best deal for a Japan newbie.
 
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