Moving to Japan as a single parent

[Glenski]

I'll avoid the temptation to criticise your comprehension skills Glenski ....and assume you just misread my post in haste!

Thank you, and yes I did. It's been a horrific week, and I'm exhausted.

So, what snobbery have you seen anyway? And by roughly how many people in what profession?

 

[Glenski]

Tomoni,
Thanks for clarifying. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on how likely it is that her mom will be able to get an extension for a second 90 days. I honestly don't think it is very possible and I most certainly wouldn't count on it if I were the OP.

By the way, where is the OP?

 

[Dotanbatan]

Glenski,

Hope you have a better week to come ﾂ…. I've got a stupidly busy one coming up here!

In answer to your question re – snobbery i.e the behaviour or attitude of people who think they are better than other people.
I encountered this on countless occasions by many, many people.

The behaviour ranged from snide remarks and a condescending attitude to outright abuse and bullying!

The professions/positions included: JETs, a tourist guide, finance industry workers, salesmen, engineers, college lecturers, a hotel worker ﾂ…. the list goes on.

There are no doubt a lot of substandard Eikaiwa teachers around in Japan but many are also dedicated, hard-working and provide what the paying customers want ﾂ…. be that serious study or just a chat with a gaijin!

Although I personally only did this kind of work for about 6 months, I continued to get really annoyed with the way these teachers were regarded and spoken down to as if they were lesser humans or didn't deserve to be in Japan.

Those Eikaiwa days were some of my fondest memories living and working in Japan ﾂ…. It was the Tokyo bubble mind you ﾂ…. 10,000 yen minimum per hour!

 

[Mike Cash]

Saying there are substandard Eikaiwa teachers implies that there are standards, when there are none.

The government should either require all the teachers to have appropriate professional training and licensing/certification from an internationally recognized accrediting body OR require that prospective students be explicitly informed if the school's teachers possess no such licensing/certification. To do otherwise is tantamount to fraud.

 

[Dotanbatan]

Saying there are substandard Eikaiwa teachers implies that there are standards, when there are none.

The government should either require all the teachers to have appropriate professional training and licensing/certification from an internationally recognized accrediting body OR require that prospective students be explicitly informed if the school's teachers possess no such licensing/certification. To do otherwise is tantamount to fraud.

Let's face it, the problem with English language education in Japan is nothing to do with Eikaiwas, or even Jukus for that matter!

I haven't touched a nerve have I?

 

[Mike Cash]

Let's face it, the problem with English language education in Japan is nothing to do with Eikaiwas, or even Jukus for that matter!

I haven't touched a nerve have I?

I don't see how you could; I have not the slightest connection with English teaching.

 

[Glenski]

Let's face it, the problem with English language education in Japan is nothing to do with Eikaiwas, or even Jukus for that matter

There are great problems with English education here, yes, but eikaiwas are indeed part of them. Don't kid yourself.

As for my weeks to come, there is no rest.

I wish this were a live conversation because I still don't have a good grasp of what you are describing as snobbery. For example, who is giving those various attitudes? Locals or foreigners? People on vacation, residents? Other brands of English teachers, or different industry workers? It makes a lot of difference.

In the most general of terms, yes, there are good and bad eggs in the eikaiwa industry. I count myself among those who were good in the four years I taught there, although I think it is a disservice to just sit and chat. But as for the overwhelming bad image that so many people (locals and most resident foreigners alike), there are reasons, and I can't believe that you are unaware of them. Here are three.

1) As Mike wrote, the fact that it is a terribly unregulated field makes for totally unqualified people to take the helm as a language instructor. Yet, schools (I use the term loosely) touted their instructors as glamorously as possible, just to suck in the paying clients. Degrees didn't matter. Looks and personality did far more in many cases.
2) Also, many instructors never saw their role as a true job, so they just partied/party, show up hung over, and merely chat or turn on a tape recorder and sit.
3) For those that actually did try teaching, how many were actually successful, given the restrictions put on them? With no training in how to build or present a lesson, that's pretty lame educating going on. What is worse, at times the didn't even know the language well enough to explain it decently.
4) For those in the #2 category, males often got a bad rep deservedly so when they dated the female students.

I would have to say that the sheer numbers of all those bad eggs might have been greater than the good eggs, but even if not, there were/are enough to go around that it makes for a big target for derision. I ended up defending myself plenty enough, but I quickly moved up and on to better pastures.

 

[Dotanbatan]

I wish this were a live conversation because I still don't have a good grasp of what you are describing as snobbery. For example, who is giving those various attitudes? Locals or foreigners? People on vacation, residents? Other brands of English teachers, or different industry workers? It makes a lot of difference.
.[/QUOTE]

I'll refer you to my first post:

"Also, do not be scared off by the snobbery and derision meted out by many of the non Eikaiwa teaching foreign workers and residents in Japan. "
And second post:
"The professions/positions included: JETs, a tourist guide, finance industry workers, salesmen, engineers, college lecturers, a hotel worker …. the list goes on."

I haven't got the energy to trawl through my memory and list all the conversations in more detail !!!!!
Please just take my word that, in short, a hell of a lot of people I knew and or spoke to (some while outside Japan also) had this attitude of looking down on Eikaiwa teachers and treating them with disrespect without knowing anything about the individual, their abilities or lack of them for that matter. They just slotted them into a category, based on their job and deemed them as being inferior.

Maybe it is something that just *****ed at my socialist sensibilities, but that kind of snobbery stank then and stinks now.

I'll defer to your better knowledge of English education in Japan and generally agree with what you said regarding the commercialisation and bad practices of many involved in the industry; a big part of that is down to the schools themselves however and not the fault of the employees who want to live in Japan and simply take on the jobs that are available for them.

I would say that your point 3) certainly does not apply to Eikaiwa teachers only and if anything is even worse with the gaijin bankers and traders in Tokyo!

Finally I want to remind everyone of the obvious which tends to be overlooked – Eikaiwa means 'English Conversation'.

Most serious students tend to find a good teacher or school, they are out there! The majority of the Japanese students at the Eikaiwa however, just want to immerse themselves in some English … chat with a native speaker and enjoy themselves for an hour or two, annoying as it probably is to serious teachers. To this end however, a socially skilled and interesting person may be more qualified than a TEFL graduate who is less sociable and interesting.

Anyway, we've gone off on a tangent from the OP. She may have been frightened off, which was specifically what I didn't want to happen and prompted me to post in the first place.

Message for the OP:
If, after seriously looking at the PROS and also the many CONS, you decide to come to Japan, don't be put off by the prospect of working in an Eikaiwa; there is nothing wrong with the job if you approach it in the right way; it can also lead to other things if that is what you want. It did for me and Glenski to name two.

 

[Dotanbatan]

I just had a good old Shakesperean word sexualised and censored!

 

[johnnyG]

When people ask what I do, I say "I'm an English teacher." Some folks probably think that's eikaiwa, some others probably imagine it being a little upscale from that (since I'm older). Some others probably imagine that I do eikaiwa at an upscale place (small uni).

Language teaching is pretty much what I trained to do, with degrees in linguistics and communications, and I think I do it pretty well. But still...

I try to be humble about it, since my present status (tenured, full prof, 6 koma/week, private office, benefits, etc.) is really just a result of having been in the right place at the right time back in the late 80s. There, but for the grace of god. It's been ages since my school (or any other I know of) has hired anyone like me on anything other than (terminal) contract. You need a PhD and publications to even get your foot in the door for anything similar now, and I'd be counseling them on alternatives if our kids had said they wanted to be English teachers.

 

[tomoni]

Tomoni,
Thanks for clarifying. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on how likely it is that her mom will be able to get an extension for a second 90 days. I honestly don't think it is very possible and I most certainly wouldn't count on it if I were the OP.

By the way, where is the OP?

Thanks for your comments, and I am perfectly fine with agreeing to disagree.

As for the OP, I think that this thread has become more of chat among ourselves.

Cheers

 

[tomoni]

Since it looks like to OP is no coming back, let me continue the thread Hijack:
Mike Cash wrote:
The government should either require all the teachers to have appropriate professional training and licensing/certification from an internationally recognized accrediting body OR require that prospective students be explicitly informed if the school's teachers possess no such licensing/certification. To do otherwise is tantamount to fraud.

While eikaiwa certainly could use some regulation… I agree that the schools should be required to post teacher credentials but if there were professional training and licensing/certification required, but if required I am sure a Japanese standard would pop up and would be adopted over an internationally recognized accrediting body. Even agreeing on what that would be would be an administrative nightmare and it would certainly reduce the number of eikaiwa teachers and perhaps result in higher rates for students.

Is that a good thing, not sure....

But one thing that I am sure about is: most of the practices that I find most objectionable from the eikaiwa industry come from business practices, such as selling a year's worth non-redemable lessons to students, giving potential students false expectations of the results that they can achieve, not having suitable training for their teachers, not offering job security to teacher, limited contracts and so on. Poor management that leads to many of the problems that Glenski listed.
I would like to see legislation focussed on the schools/businesses.

As far as a snobbery towards eikaiwa teachers, I would have to agree that I think that there is a tendency for non eikaiwa teacher to regard them as "lower on the scale" than other positions. I think that this is in part that there has been (as Glenski pointed out) a big enough negative impact from the eikaiwa industry in general, that many teachers wish to disassociate themselves from it.

Since the eikaiwa teach position is still the most common entry position into the teaching industry in Japan, I think that some veterans many think of it as a sign of someone who did not "work their way out of the eikawa".

I further think that as JohnnyG said, when he identifies himself as an English teacher, people may think if him as possibly an eikawa teacher when he is a tenured prof . Some non-eikaiwa teachers want to make sure that they are distinguished as non-eikaiwa which perhaps contributes to the image or perception that eikaiwa teachers are "not real teachers", etc.


For my part, I am not really that interested in where people work, but more interested in that they are committed to that work. I enjoy talking about teaching with anyone who is committed to that.

Cheers

Peter

 

[Glenski]

I haven't got the energy to trawl through my memory and list all the conversations in more detail !!!!!

Thanks. You've written enough.

Please just take my word that, in short, a hell of a lot of people I knew and or spoke to (some while outside Japan also) had this attitude of looking down on Eikaiwa teachers and treating them with disrespect without knowing anything about the individual, their abilities or lack of them for that matter. They just slotted them into a category, based on their job and deemed them as being inferior.

Maybe it is something that just *****ed at my socialist sensibilities, but that kind of snobbery stank then and stinks now.

I understand, and since I was once in an eikaiwa position, I agreed back then. I just hope you understand the points I made to try explaining why people had/have those attitudes. Your next point below doesn't seem to suggest that you agree 100%.

I'll defer to your better knowledge of English education in Japan and generally agree with what you said regarding the commercialisation and bad practices of many involved in the industry; a big part of that is down to the schools themselves however and not the fault of the employees who want to live in Japan and simply take on the jobs that are available for them.

Yes, the schools themselves are partly to blame, but I am not sure whether you even agree in the slightest about the responsibility that the instructors had (and failed to take). I'm not saying all eikaiwa instructors were all scum or poor teachers, but a lot fall into those categories I described, and that should not be ignored. Your post seemed to ignore it, which is why I write this

I would say that your point 3) certainly does not apply to Eikaiwa teachers only and if anything is even worse with the gaijin bankers and traders in Tokyo!

I agree that eikaiwa teachers aren't the only ones who have a poor command of English, yet are hired to teach it. Not sure what you meant by bankers and traders.

Finally I want to remind everyone of the obvious which tends to be overlooked – Eikaiwa means 'English Conversation'.

Most serious students tend to find a good teacher or school, they are out there! The majority of the Japanese students at the Eikaiwa however, just want to immerse themselves in some English … chat with a native speaker and enjoy themselves for an hour or two, annoying as it probably is to serious teachers. To this end however, a socially skilled and interesting person may be more qualified than a TEFL graduate who is less sociable and interesting.

True, and it doesn't necessarily take a PhD in linguistics to do the eikaiwa job. Let's not go into that age-old argument. However, despite what you wrote about eikaiwa being all about conversation, the fact is that there are textbooks out there that provide assistance to improve conversation ability.
1) They review grammar that people were taught in JHS and HS. Instructors need to know how to explain this.
2) They provide audio recordings which demonstrate quasi-natural situations in conversation. Instructors need to know how to point out the nuances involved in these and encourage students to do more than just copy a book's example if they want to get by in the real world.
3) Eikaiwa usually operate under a timeline where instructors need to get through a certain number of pages in that textbook in a certain period of time. That means instructors should know how to create their lessons to achieve that.

In other words, it's more than just being a "socially skilled and interesting person". That definition smacks of the worst kind of language teacher, someone who just sits and chats and occasionally points out interesting language points with no end goal in mind, and who often ends up monopolizing the lesson instead of giving students time to practice and make mistakes on the lesson points for the day. I've seen too many of those types, and I certainly hope you didn't mean them in your definition above.

People should also realize that eikaiwa schools attract a plethora of clients. Some are school kids whose parents sent them there, thinking it will help them to get ahead. Parents in Japan are more aware of the need for English than the kids are. Second, a large percentage of eikaiwa students are housewives and retirees. These people seem to want English only to travel or for some very vague reason, and often it seemed to me that they use eikaiwa as a short-term hobby just to get out of the house and socialize with other students, perhaps a teacher, not to learn a language. Third, whether college kids or business people take eikaiwa, many don't take it seriously enough to put in an effort to learn. I've done research on business people, and it's a shame how their companies treat them with regard to needing English on the job.

Mike wrote, and tomoni commented on this:

The government should either require all the teachers to have appropriate professional training and licensing/certification from an internationally recognized accrediting body OR require that prospective students be explicitly informed if the school's teachers possess no such licensing/certification.

I'm sure Mike realizes how little chance there is of any of this happening. Eikaiwas are businesses, and most have managers with zero language teaching training at their core. They are simply out to make money. So, they make lesson payment plans they think will attract clients, they show pretty pictures of dynamic and usually caucasian teachers in their 20s and 30s to attract clients, they espouse little about the actual learning that takes place, etc. And, they certainly don't want trained professionals! The experienced professionals cringe at how they are/would be treated in an eikaiwa situation, and newbies fresh off the boat give clients something more to talk about in the classroom. In some cases, newbies who have little knowledge of Japan are ripe for the picking in eikaiwa because their naivete only perpetuates a myth to the clients that foreigners consider Japan so unique a culture. Eikaiwa choose people mainly for their personality and potential chemistry to mix with students and staff. Also, fresh off the boat people to Japan are easier to dupe with legalities and illegalities in contracts, whether they know how to teach English or not.

Many clients just want to know there is a foreigner who will be in the room talking to them (a poor way to teach if one knows anything about teaching a language). Some try to choose only the foreigners with certain nationalities, and that seems to be about the only thing that eikaiwas advertise.

Anyway, we've gone off on a tangent from the OP. She may have been frightened off, which was specifically what I didn't want to happen and prompted me to post in the first place.

Me, too, but the OP isn't here, so when/if she returns, there's plenty here to learn!

 

[Dotanbatan]

Glenski, you have given a good breakdown of the weaknesses in the Eikaiwa type language schools in Japan and point out the inadequacies of some of the teachers who work in this industry. All of which seem correct.

What I hope you are not doing however, is painting all the teachers with the same brush … you have not mentioned that there are also very good teachers in these positions too; or do you not agree?

Why should e.g. John Smith at ABC English, a dedicated and talented educator, who works hard at fulfilling his students' needs, despite the huge constraints placed on him by the commercially lead bad practices of his school's owners, be looked down upon?

The snobbery of some gaijin in Japan who think they are somehow better than John Smith simply because they are in a job that is less common is wrong, and smacks of elitism and discrimination.

The bad attitude and behaviour of some Eikaiwa teachers and the mal-practise of many Eikaiwas, does not excuse the belittling of all these teachers ….. based simply on what is written on their meishis!!

"I agree that eikaiwa teachers aren't the only ones who have a poor command of English, yet are hired to teach it. Not sure what you meant by bankers and traders."

Woops … I meant point 4 not 3!! … The Bankers and Traders in Tokyo referred to your comment on male teachers dating female students …. I have seen how these high flyers treat many of their female Japanese work colleagues like disposable sex toys!! Awful.

Anyway, I'm starting to tire, fighting in the Eikaiwa teacher's corner …. particularly as I'm not a teacher.

--- I've made my point and said what I believe about the snobbery issue.

I think I'll throw in the towel now before I get knocked out by one of the heavyweights like Glenski!

'Heavyweight' …. I didn't mean your weight or size by the way! … just your debating prowess!

まいった まいった

 

[nahadef]

The snobbery of some gaijin in Japan who think they are somehow better than John Smith simply because they are in a job that is less common is wrong, and smacks of elitism and discrimination.

This attitude reminds me of the attitude settled immigrants to Canada had of what they called FOBs. They are judgmental because they are of the same group. They tend to be apathetic of people not in the same ethnic group. Likewise, some folks (even on this forum!) have an ire for an adult teaching English way out of proportion, when they probably couldn't care less about an adult Japanese working in McDonalds or Family Mart. It's a living, and if the person is working hard and working honestly, no need to tar and feather them. The terrible teachers tend not to stick around anyway, since they're only here on a lark.

I've met rotten, unprofessional teachers, but they are the minority.

 

[Glenski]

What I hope you are not doing however, is painting all the teachers with the same brush … you have not mentioned that there are also very good teachers in these positions too; or do you not agree?

Reread my posts 32 and 38. I don't paint.

The snobbery of some gaijin in Japan who think they are somehow better than John Smith simply because they are in a job that is less common is wrong, and smacks of elitism and discrimination.

I know several university teachers who, like me, taught in eikaiwa and do not hold that sort of attitude. People tend to put a little reverse discrimination into thinking university teachers are largely snobs, too, which doesn't hold with me, either.

But it's not only that some people think they're better than a "lowly" eikaiwa instructor. Yes, some do. However, the other reasons I cited (poor behavior and crummy business itself) lead some to look upon the eikaiwa teachers with disdain. So, it's not just one color here.

Woops … I meant point 4 not 3!! … The Bankers and Traders in Tokyo referred to your comment on male teachers dating female students …. I have seen how these high flyers treat many of their female Japanese work colleagues like disposable sex toys!! Awful.

Oh, I see. Wow. Interesting, and not entirely surprising. I began my connection in Japan by working in a non-teaching field, and when the males were sent to work here for a short time, one of their biggest set of stories was about the women. Even my uncle (who fought in Korea) joked at me (not with me) about reasons for coming here then as being more about the women than the job. Sheesh.