Wanting to teach English in Japan for a year, but have two questions.
1) Can I get in with a bog standard cheap TEFL? Or do I need a CELTA specifically? I'm not too keen on the idea on dropping nearly two grand on something I only really want to do for one year.
2) Do I have to do the JET program or can I get in 'normally'? I don't mind being part of a program, but I really don't want to be put in the middle of nowhere. Tokyo is idea, but even Osaka or just some other generally big city would be massively preferred. I'm not autistic and I have good social skills, but I still want to be in a place where there are plenty of other people.
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>Teach English in Japan
Unironically kys
Thanks for the helpful comment
you need a university Bachelor's degree
that crap you listed isnt enough to get you a sponsored Educator's visa there
if you're not American you might be able to get away with a Working Holiday visa and maybe getting into a crappy eikaiwa like Peppy Kid's Club or something but that's it.
japan's past its prime anyway, it's gone to shit ever since 2015
captcha: D0NTT
Got a university degree, forgot to mention (BA Marketing) Thanks for the advice. May be a pass for me then, I hate the idea of being the middle of fricking nowhere and don't want to work at an Eikaiwa either. Oh well, Thailand it is, I guess. At least the middle of nowhere would be more fun there.
Speaking from experience, those "middle of nowhere" placements are usually much easier to adjust to than being in even a medium-sized city. You almost always get a car whereas in a lot of cities you'll be required to use public transportation (literally required, they'll state in your contract that you are not allowed to own a vehicle, and sometimes despite living in a city you'll have to go teach at places that are like 45 minutes to an hour away by bus). Typically you'll get placed in nice, fairly new apartments rather than teacher housing, and at work your supervisors and coworkers will be MUCH more chill since they're not nearly as overworked as city teachers.
Yeah the social aspect is difficult to deal with, but believe me when I say socializing with Japanese people, even in the biggest cities, is nothing like you're probably imagining it to be. Nobody cares if you're foreign, blonde, 6'3", funny, whatever, unless you're only interested in making friends with 35+ year old gaijin hunter single moms.
Honestly the biggest reason I’d want to be a bigger city is to be with said expats since I feel my chances of making any japanese friends is pretty much nil. That’s the biggest reason I don’t want to be out in the boonies, everything else is something I can deal with/adapt, especially if it’s just one year.
>35+ year old gaijin hunter single moms
>got a Bachelor's
then welcome aboard, you'll get waved into a job here but 90% of the time you'll be slapped into some shitty junior high school somewhere on a repeating 1-year contract and paid breadcrumbs to repeat words on flashcards to angsty teenagers.
and with the way school placement works in japan you'll most likely be put 1 hour away from a city. people who live here many years fight for top tier positions near/in big cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto etc so you'd more than likely end up in ass-frick nowhere Tohoku, somewhere along the Nihonkai or down in Kyuushuu.
comfy beautiful rural places but good chance you'll be the only foreigner in the area (both good and bad) and the only person under age 60.
quality of life is good though, rent'll be cheap and transportation is good, you can get anything delivered same-day from Amazon/Rakuten these days. a luxury i wish i had when i was there.
just the pay is piss though, you'd be looking at $2200/month if you're lucky with 2 or 3 months a year only making half of that (cuz of school holidays).
japan's a nice place to live and work but it becomes a trap where you wake up one day 30 years old in a career that's going nowhere. you either get out while you still can or get marriage-locked into staying as a fricking flashcard reader for 30 years
>small town Japan
>marriage-locked
>2200$
>repeat flashcards to teens
Not OP, but yes, please.
Kyushu has some nice places though, I was in Kagoshima this week and it was a nice change of pace from Tokyo and Osaka. Saw tons of young people there too.
>or get marriage-locked into staying as a fricking flashcard reader for 30 years
as a 30 year old stuck in a career that's not going anywhere but still has the balls to be stressful/demanding as hell and single with no prospects and also surrounded by absolute fricking buttholes, sign me up.
>1) Can I get in with a bog standard cheap TEFL? Or do I need a CELTA specifically? I'm not too keen on the idea on dropping nearly two grand on something I only really want to do for one year.
You don't need TEFL or CELTA, but you do need a minimum 4-year university degree. I applied with a Master's in an unrelated field and was accepted (though I did have prior teaching experience). That said, the application process is a fair bit more competitive than you'd expect, so any kind of additional certifications you have on top of your degree that could distinguish you from the rest of the applicant pool will only help your case.
>2) Do I have to do the JET program or can I get in 'normally'
I've personally never heard of anybody just getting hired on as a regular English teacher without going through one of the programs (JET, AEON, etc) first. It's possible to get directly hired AFTER you finish one of these programs, but just a guy coming in from the outside, never having taught English before, and looking for a job? I'm having a hard time even imagining how that would work.
>I really don't want to be put in the middle of nowhere. Tokyo is idea, but even Osaka or just some other generally big city would be massively preferred
Kek, you and everyone else, buddy. There are a million foreign native English speakers in Tokyo and Osaka that they can tap to do this job. I suppose there's no shortage of shady eikaiwas and fly-by-night dispatch agencies in those cities that will happily take you on, pay you next to nothing, and hold your visa status over your head any time you complain about your 18 hour work schedule, but people that get involved with those kinds of businesses usually don't last.
If you want to get hired in a big city, its actually easier to get placed there if you spend a couple months in the city cold applying to Eikaiwa and doing the interviews on site while letting them know you will need sponsorship before you can start working. Its how I got placed in Tokyo.
JET can end up putting you anywhere, usually in some inaka.
can you do it part time? i have a remote job, i'd be working on US time at night so i can teach during the day. i really just want to milk it for the visa.
Nobody will sponsor your visa for part time work. I'm pretty sure its a requirement for visa renewal that you have a full time job.
Many companies/schools have a clause stipulating that you can't have a side job. I even know of people who were fired because they streamed with monetized channels. Basically, if not putting the money on your taxes doesn't get you fricked by the IRS then it should be ok.
You should do it OP! I promise you’ll be glad you did, that you’ll want to stay, and that it is a very fulfilling job which is 100% worth your time. You won’t be stationed in the boonies or sticks, and instead you’ll get to live it up in a cool major city like Tokyo! Locals and other expats will have the utmost respect for you taking on such an important job, and the JET program will take good care of you. You’ll definitely have enough pay to go have fun on all the time you have off! Also all your students are going to be hot, legal age girls which will crush hard on you. No one will treat you like a second class citizen, and your experience will be so great you will likely want to stay and teach for the rest of your life instead of coming home after a month
OP is a gay as always. Go consult Reddit since you seem hellbent in following through with an awful idea. Everyone here will tell you not to do it (good advice) but your pathetic weeb ass clearly isn’t stopping to rethink it
You should probably have asked this in the TEFL thread to reduce the random noise this question will attract. The replies saying you don't need certs and just a university degree are true. A cert will help your application stand out, but an online TEFL is enough, although a CELTA would of course look good too. First thing is to apply for the big companies like AEON, ECC, Shane, etc. They do interviewing and recruiting in Western countries and almost all of their positions are in major cities. There are enough applicants who beg to go to inaka schools that you don't need to worry about being placed there if that's not your top choice. You can also apply for JET and you might win that lottery and get an offer, but your chances are inaka postings are very high.
Alternatively, do what another anon suggested and go to Japan and apply for independent eikaiwas and let them know you're there if they're hiring. If they interview you and like you, they can sponsor your visa. Under current visa rules, you'll need to return to your home country to convert to a work visa, but maybe they'll bring back the loophole allowing you to do it in South Korea.
Job start dates are usually around October and March. Big chains interview and hire people 4-8 months ahead of those dates.
There are other ways to get in, such as ALT (similar to JET work) through dispatch companies, but I'd only recommend that if you have a long-term goal of staying here because the first year is dogshit work until you get hired by a school board and life suddenly becomes easy.
The bare minimum number of hours in 30/week to get a work visa. Most companies will want more (37+). Smaller eikaiwas might do the minimum 30 and have you work 6 hours straight without a break 5 days a week. If your side work is only a few hours a day, you should be able to make it work. You wouldn't be the only one doing it.
Thanks for the advice
Stay mad
JET only has a 35% acceptance rate and it gets more competitive with every year.
Since this is the TEFL thread now, I guess - how's everyone's experience with a Master's? Does it make it easier to get a job? I have an option to do English MA this year (teaching, not literature-focused focused, because ESL), and I've been wondering whether to go for it or get a CELT instead.
Do the masters. It won't make much difference for your first job but it will help you later on, in this field or another.
Will do, thanks
Just go for the MA. You will thank yourself so many times in the future for having done the MA right away.
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