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Working for Eikaiwa in the sticks

...business plan...??

Back in '86, my 'business plan' was that someplace here in Japan offered me a job, so I came and started work.

A few years later, after a six-month employment break, without any biz planning, I was getting married, moving to another city, and getting another job. Not really in that order, and kind of a jumble.

Kids also happened along, and tho they have turned out well, they were not part of any plan. We might even have gotten divorced in there a time or two!

Along the way some things happened to fall into place, and to this day, it looks like I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and that where I am now has nothing to do with (biz-)planning, and everything to do with luck, chance, happening along at the right time, and so on.

Look back 10-20 (30!) years, and ask yourself if you could have predicted (then) the present state of Asia. And 10-20+ yrs from now?

So I'd suggest to be a little careful with any ...business plan...
 
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Yep Johnny, you're right. However, I think written plans within the chaos can help one look at a situation realistically, even if you never follow them. But yes, I for one will be going where this road takes me rather than trying to create any rigid framework or concrete ideas. with small "business plans" to guide us through the wider chaos!
 
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At the very least a checklist or a to-do list for more immediate projects.
 
Regarding textbooks, any advice on which ones to familiarise myself with? The big ones.
Have you figured out exactly what and who you are going to teach? Can't give accurate advice without knowing that.

kiddies what age?alphabet books? songs, chants?
jr high, sr high? grammar books? 4 skills vs individual skills? teaching thru drama, music? TOEIC prep?
college students?
business people?
housewives, retirees?

IMO there are no big ones. The publishing market is flooded with textbooks. Ask at the ESL Cafe teacher employment discussion group for Japan.

Most often publishers seen are:
Pearson
Oxford
Cengage/Thomson
Cambridge
MacmillanLanguageHouse
...but there are tons more. Most textbooks run about 2000 yen or so, plus the cost for teacher manuals and supplemental CDs/DVDs. If you have students interested in improving reading, there's a whole other market (and expenditure) there for graded readers. You can often get samples of some textbooks, manuals, and GRs, but not always, and in the case of GRs, the publisher will have limits. Books in general are a huge rat's nest of issues (no pun intended) to deal with, and not just in choosing which ones for the students levels and academic needs. In addition, you have to consider whether students will pay outright for them or you will supply them. Reusability is tough because they don't lend themselves to erasing answers on such shiny paper (and you'll get students who screw up and use a pen despite being told to use pencils). With GRs, you have a lending policy to develop to keep track of them, too, as well as the need for a place to display them. Choosing what levels the students are suited to read is very hard at times, too.
 
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While I have used (and am now using) graded readers (GR) in courses, we don't use them really at all in class. Tho you can do reports, enactments, discussion, etc., I think other materials are more common, and more commonly expected, in a class setting. Still, they can suit a dual purpose as loaners to students and for your own kids. When our girls were small we easily had several dozen of these--I just went thru several of the major catalogs and picked anything I thought they might find interesting. GRs are a good variation on typical childhood reading (sorry, these have since been donated or passed on). ((And you might google extensive reading ESL, which is what these are often used for.))

When you do get here, if you are willing to pay shipping, I have textbooks that I could box and send you free. Most things are complimentary samples I've accumulated, since companies send freebies to teachers who might adopt a book. (Other samples come unsolicited.) Also, for books we reuse, the bookseller sometimes gives teachers a new copy every year, so for a couple titles I have multiple copies (some with CDs, DVDs, and even teacher manuals). Other teachers at my school have disposed of their extras on the copy room shelves--free for anyone who wants to pick those up. Actually, I've only got two years till I'll have to empty my office, and the copy room or the trash is where most of it will end up, so why not to a good home?
 
Thinking out loud, but it would seem that I should look through a whole bunch of textbooks to get a feel for them and see which ones I like. There must be a few textbooks which are dominant?? best sellers? Surely. Will see what I can find out at ESL Cafe.
At the end of the day though, I guess I have to be able to work with who and what's put in front of me.

Johnny, will definitely take you up on your kind offer. Thanks.
Glenski, as usual a definitive answer that opens up even more questions.Thanks.
 
Joe,
No offense, but if you can't even identify who you think you want to teach, let alone which of the 4 skills, why are you even getting into eikaiwa? There's no way to help you choose books if you can't decide these simple things.
 
Joe,
No offense, but if you can't even identify who you think you want to teach, let alone which of the 4 skills, why are you even getting into eikaiwa? There's no way to help you choose books if you can't decide these simple things.

Glenski, given my situation I assume that I won't be able to pick and choose, and will need to be flexible enough to deal with whatever opportunities present themselves, and it would probably would be shrewd to at the very least familiarise myself with some of the dominant textbooks for Junior & Senior High students, TOEIC prep and for general adult learners.... maybe not?

As far as the 4 skills go, are they mutually exclusive in your average job? I assume I would need to be familiar with materials for all of them?!

Yes, ridicule me for not knowing something I haven't started studying yet..... jeez, I know you're a professional and I'm just some punk trying to fast track his way into some work - I admit it! Why am I getting into Eikaiwa? You know full well why, because it's the obvious way for a non-perapera bozo like me to make a buck in Japan.

Maybe I should read a couple of introductory books and come back to this issue.....
 
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There are several things here, so let me ramble a little...

First, if Joe is working for someone else, if he has been hired by someone to teach at their "school", or whatever they might call it, they will very probably be handing him a book, an agenda, and at the very least, a few goals. So dwelling on books/materials (and what Joe intends to teach--levels, specific groups, etc.) is, on the one hand, kind of a non-issue. If Joe is working for someone, he will likely be told what to teach (in one way or another), and may even be held accountable if he has covered that material too quickly or too slowly, or how well.

Those constraints, or "suggestions", might be topical, grammatical, or something else (e.g., make sure they know this vocabulary, this grammar point, and so on).

Blah, blah, blah...

OTOH, he might get, or be given, an individual or a group, and just be told: make them happy, entertain them, keep them coming back and in your class (and paying tuition). (This could be for someone else or for classes he is doing on his own.)

In which case he might be choosing materials/books, and, while wanting to actually cover some material and make some "progress", it might be more important (financially speaking), to in some way hang onto or cultivate 'students who want to study with you.' In which case, choice of textbook (or method, or whatever) will be less important than retaining paying customers.

*

Hmm, I think I'm going places with that that I don't want to go...

*

(As a newbie) I think the hardest thing for Joe to do would be to offer that he could tutor high school students for their uni exams. At least a this point, Joe doesn't know jack about the high school curriculum, or the uni tests that high school students are trying to pass.

Still, some of those students, and the juku who are selling them courses, may be looking for a way to relieve the tedium of exam prep. So they may be interested in some enjoyable courses on the side.

*

Finally, I would only recall that at the beginning of this thread, there was some talk that Joe should stay within an hour of a bigger city, so that he could work at and commute to an established eikaiwa (rather than establishing his own). How about keeping that on the table? If that were to unfold, a lot of the later suggestions here would not be necessary, even my offer of some books.
 
Joe,
Yes, you are going to need to be flexible. My points were put forth to give you an idea of how complex it can be, even in the world of edutainment eikaiwa, but especially in your situation where you are coming in cold. Get that TEFL certification even if all it does is open your eyes to some of the things mentioned here. I treat myself as a professional, but I came at the same age as you roughly and without the language-related degree that many have. I studied at a brick and mortar school to get certification before coming, and it was not enough, but I persisted at learning what I had to do every single day in order to get the most out of my job. I have not stopped trying to learn many years later (and many people my age and younger do the same).

A good TEFL course will help you understand what books you need as well as how to use them. It should also give you some kind of foundation into theory and how to make and conduct a lesson plan. Everything falls apart when you open your mouth at the beginning of the classroom, but that's life and you need to know how to adapt to situations. Tape recorders fail. Students don't get the instructions you try to teach. Pair work is disrupted with an odd number of students. The list goes on.

it would probably would be shrewd to at the very least familiarise myself with some of the dominant textbooks for Junior & Senior High students, TOEIC prep and for general adult learners.... maybe not?
What exactly do you mean when you say "familiarize yourself" with them? If you can't look inside, just knowing some titles won't help. So, yes, get as many sample copies as you can, including the teacher manual if possible (not always, though). I have boxes of sample textbooks reserved for posterity, and after almost 20 years at this, I found early on that there are no really good ones. The eikaiwa I started at used 2 or 3, and one sucked & the other was lukewarm. If you have the freedom to adopt a textbook of your own, it has to suit your style and the needs of students both. This will take you a while to determine after you have actually taught.

If you work for an eikaiwa, yes, you might be given a book to use and some instructions, or none at all (like me), so you would have to know how to use it. There may be a schedule to follow (finish chapter 5 by May, for example). Students might repeat the course, in which case you have to know what to do so they aren't bored. Eikaiwas in the sticks are usually looking for people with some level of experience or inkling of knowing what to do in a classroom, too, especially if they are small.

In case you didn't know, eikaiwa students are not the most stellar attendees. Housewives and retirees come mostly to socialize. Businessmen falsely believe they will learn in a once-a-week lesson without homework. Kiddies really young have zero attention span, and kiddies slightly older may be yanked out if parents suspect they aren't learning what they want (which could include stuff as petty as an accent). Most adult (over 21) students attend largely just to meet a foreigner and hear their stories of exotic lands.

Some eikaiwa operate by allowing students to take classes with a different teacher routinely every week, so you might have new students joining en masse and lose coherency in a group. Oh, and in case you hadn't heard, eikaiwas operate until 9pm or so, and you may have "weekends" split like on Sunday and Tuesday (or get lucky like I did and have Sat/Sun off).

As far as the 4 skills go, are they mutually exclusive in your average job? I assume I would need to be familiar with materials for all of them?!
Sometimes yes. It depends on what your students are hoping to learn. If they are into TOEIC/TOEFL prep, they may have only reading/listening to contend with, or writing/speaking, depending on the type of exam. If your class is focused on teaching reading, that's a given that you'll have emphasis on only one skill.

One thing you need to know is that Japanese students (of all ages) don't know how to study. Period. They are spoonfed in school from K-12 and even beyond. It's not the mindset you are used to, and I can't emphasize more the fact that you need to learn what it's about (as well as what eikaiwa is all about from the students' POV). Students expect to learn a lot by osmosis or just listening passively to a lecture. They are scared to make mistakes, so many will remain silent. You can't succeed well by asking direct questions in front of the class. Students (even those in fields which will require English) might have zero awareness of how they will have to use English down the road, and those same students may have no more aspiration than learning just enough to make "friends" with foreigners. My own motivation research supports this. Plus, they might have a vague language goal but absolutely no concept of how to achieve it, and when they finally perceive (or are told) that it will take a long time with various laborious steps, they tend to cave in.

But they are often persistent, and I've been amazed at how patient they are. These are often not positive traits, by the way. Example: kids who sit through a college class they hate and refuse to do the work even minimally to pass at the standard 60% score. They will attend other subject classes and sleep or play with phones while the math, geography, social studies, etc. teacher drones on, and then cram like hell the night before the test. But they endure (gaman suru) like crazy. You have to mix good teaching with charisma, charm, fun, and relevant activities to keep them the least bit interested.

johnnyG wrote:
OTOH, he might get, or be given, an individual or a group, and just be told: make them happy, entertain them, keep them coming back and in your class (and paying tuition).
True, and if he fails at that, he runs the risk of losing his job. I've been on the discussion forums for 15 years or more and have heard this a lot. Students are learners to you and paid customers to your boss. Never forget that!

johnnyG also wrote:
At least a this point, Joe doesn't know jack about the high school curriculum, or the uni tests that high school students are trying to pass.
Learn! Ask your wife in many long sessions to relate her experiences. Ask others. Read about it.
EDUCATION
FSI | SPICE - Daily Life in Japanese High Schools
1985 http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED265741.pdf
1996 Kitao-Why Do We Teach English? (ITESLJ)
Globalization is a Challenge for Japan
http://www.charlie-browne.com/wp-content/downloadable-files/English Educational Policy.pdf

vids

see more by Jhonny Gb
comparison to Australia HS
 
After a couple of weeks too busy to go through this thread properly, some great stuff!

Joe,
Yes, you are going to need to be flexible. My points were put forth to give you an idea of how complex it can be, even in the world of edutainment eikaiwa, but especially in your situation where you are coming in cold. Get that TEFL certification even if all it does is open your eyes to some of the things mentioned here. I treat myself as a professional, but I came at the same age as you roughly and without the language-related degree that many have. I studied at a brick and mortar school to get certification before coming, and it was not enough, but I persisted at learning what I had to do every single day in order to get the most out of my job. I have not stopped trying to learn many years later (and many people my age and younger do the same).

A good TEFL course will help you understand what books you need as well as how to use them. It should also give you some kind of foundation into theory and how to make and conduct a lesson plan. Everything falls apart when you open your mouth at the beginning of the classroom, but that's life and you need to know how to adapt to situations. Tape recorders fail. Students don't get the instructions you try to teach. Pair work is disrupted with an odd number of students. The list goes on.

What exactly do you mean when you say "familiarize yourself" with them? If you can't look inside, just knowing some titles won't help. So, yes, get as many sample copies as you can, including the teacher manual if possible (not always, though). I have boxes of sample textbooks reserved for posterity, and after almost 20 years at this, I found early on that there are no really good ones. The eikaiwa I started at used 2 or 3, and one sucked & the other was lukewarm. If you have the freedom to adopt a textbook of your own, it has to suit your style and the needs of students both. This will take you a while to determine after you have actually taught.

If you work for an eikaiwa, yes, you might be given a book to use and some instructions, or none at all (like me), so you would have to know how to use it. There may be a schedule to follow (finish chapter 5 by May, for example). Students might repeat the course, in which case you have to know what to do so they aren't bored. Eikaiwas in the sticks are usually looking for people with some level of experience or inkling of knowing what to do in a classroom, too, especially if they are small.

In case you didn't know, eikaiwa students are not the most stellar attendees. Housewives and retirees come mostly to socialize. Businessmen falsely believe they will learn in a once-a-week lesson without homework. Kiddies really young have zero attention span, and kiddies slightly older may be yanked out if parents suspect they aren't learning what they want (which could include stuff as petty as an accent). Most adult (over 21) students attend largely just to meet a foreigner and hear their stories of exotic lands.

Some eikaiwa operate by allowing students to take classes with a different teacher routinely every week, so you might have new students joining en masse and lose coherency in a group. Oh, and in case you hadn't heard, eikaiwas operate until 9pm or so, and you may have "weekends" split like on Sunday and Tuesday (or get lucky like I did and have Sat/Sun off).

Sometimes yes. It depends on what your students are hoping to learn. If they are into TOEIC/TOEFL prep, they may have only reading/listening to contend with, or writing/speaking, depending on the type of exam. If your class is focused on teaching reading, that's a given that you'll have emphasis on only one skill.

One thing you need to know is that Japanese students (of all ages) don't know how to study. Period. They are spoonfed in school from K-12 and even beyond. It's not the mindset you are used to, and I can't emphasize more the fact that you need to learn what it's about (as well as what eikaiwa is all about from the students' POV). Students expect to learn a lot by osmosis or just listening passively to a lecture. They are scared to make mistakes, so many will remain silent. You can't succeed well by asking direct questions in front of the class. Students (even those in fields which will require English) might have zero awareness of how they will have to use English down the road, and those same students may have no more aspiration than learning just enough to make "friends" with foreigners. My own motivation research supports this. Plus, they might have a vague language goal but absolutely no concept of how to achieve it, and when they finally perceive (or are told) that it will take a long time with various laborious steps, they tend to cave in.

But they are often persistent, and I've been amazed at how patient they are. These are often not positive traits, by the way. Example: kids who sit through a college class they hate and refuse to do the work even minimally to pass at the standard 60% score. They will attend other subject classes and sleep or play with phones while the math, geography, social studies, etc. teacher drones on, and then cram like hell the night before the test. But they endure (gaman suru) like crazy. You have to mix good teaching with charisma, charm, fun, and relevant activities to keep them the least bit interested.

johnnyG wrote:
True, and if he fails at that, he runs the risk of losing his job. I've been on the discussion forums for 15 years or more and have heard this a lot. Students are learners to you and paid customers to your boss. Never forget that!

johnnyG also wrote:
Learn! Ask your wife in many long sessions to relate her experiences. Ask others. Read about it.
EDUCATION
FSI | SPICE - Daily Life in Japanese High Schools
1985 http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED265741.pdf
1996 Kitao-Why Do We Teach English? (ITESLJ)
Globalization is a Challenge for Japan
http://www.charlie-browne.com/wp-content/downloadable-files/English Educational Policy.pdf

vids

see more by Jhonny Gb
comparison to Australia HS


GREAT POST Glenski!!! Thanks.
There are several things here, so let me ramble a little...

First, if Joe is working for someone else, if he has been hired by someone to teach at their "school", or whatever they might call it, they will very probably be handing him a book, an agenda, and at the very least, a few goals. So dwelling on books/materials (and what Joe intends to teach--levels, specific groups, etc.) is, on the one hand, kind of a non-issue. If Joe is working for someone, he will likely be told what to teach (in one way or another), and may even be held accountable if he has covered that material too quickly or too slowly, or how well.

Those constraints, or "suggestions", might be topical, grammatical, or something else (e.g., make sure they know this vocabulary, this grammar point, and so on).

Blah, blah, blah...

OTOH, he might get, or be given, an individual or a group, and just be told: make them happy, entertain them, keep them coming back and in your class (and paying tuition). (This could be for someone else or for classes he is doing on his own.)

In which case he might be choosing materials/books, and, while wanting to actually cover some material and make some "progress", it might be more important (financially speaking), to in some way hang onto or cultivate 'students who want to study with you.' In which case, choice of textbook (or method, or whatever) will be less important than retaining paying customers.

*

Hmm, I think I'm going places with that that I don't want to go...

*

(As a newbie) I think the hardest thing for Joe to do would be to offer that he could tutor high school students for their uni exams. At least a this point, Joe doesn't know jack about the high school curriculum, or the uni tests that high school students are trying to pass.

Still, some of those students, and the juku who are selling them courses, may be looking for a way to relieve the tedium of exam prep. So they may be interested in some enjoyable courses on the side.

*

Finally, I would only recall that at the beginning of this thread, there was some talk that Joe should stay within an hour of a bigger city, so that he could work at and commute to an established eikaiwa (rather than establishing his own). How about keeping that on the table? If that were to unfold, a lot of the later suggestions here would not be necessary, even my offer of some books.

John thanks for your sage words. You're right, I perhaps shouldn't get too bogged down in the textbook issue just yet! However, I will have a look in the uni library here and flick through some, as currently I have absolutely no idea what they look like.
 
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