Teaching english in Japan. Good idea?

Hey all,
im 18 years old and will be going to University in September and I really want to teach english in Japan. Im already fluent in 2 langauges and am trying to learn some Basic Japanese language and Will be going to Japan in summer 2010.

Do you think ill be welcomed there as an English teacher and if so where would be a nice place to go.

(p.s Id like to teach in a high school/college)

I see that you are from UK; if you want to come to Japan for less than one year or so, then you might consider Working Holiday Visa (up to either six months or one year), which allows you to travel around in Japan while having a way to earn some money along the way, so that you can experience traveling/living in Japan and getting a feel for teaching.

If you are thinking of pursuing a career in teaching English in Japan for longer than that, though, you'll need to complete your university study and obtain a bachelor's degree. That is an Immigration requirement for full working visa for Japan.

If you are thinking of high schools, you might look into JET program. If for college, you will probably be required to have completed higher level of studies and possibly better come equipped with some years of teaching experience already...

Please search for similar threads on this forum for more information :)

You'll never become a real teacher in Japan at the high school level. Those jobs are for Japanese citizens. Foreigners work at HS as an assistant language teacher, which is usually a low-paying job with no upward mobility. So if you're planning on making a career out of that then I would say it's a bad idea. However, if your goal is to just find the easiest way to move to Japan, then teaching English is the way to go.

You might want to look into international schools instead of public schools if you want to become a teacher.

I am a Japanese woman teaching at a college in the US. I would love to live in Japan and am considering about moving back there (Osaka). One problem is the prospect for job for my fiance. He is a high school teacher (social science). Since he is in the National Guard, he won't be able to leave the country until late 2011. He will be 42 by then. Although he does have experience in teaching and is a certified high school teacher, he does not have experience in teaching English. Is this a crazy idea?

hanshintigers,

If/when you get married, he will be eligible for a Spouse visa for Japan, with no restriction on the types of work he is allowed to do. (There is no fiance visa for Japan, though.)

If you do not get married, that means he would have to find an employer who is willing to sponsor him for his work-permitting visa (which requires a bachelor's degree - probably he has this -, or at least several years of relevant work experience - which he lacks if he wants to teach English), so that would add to the challenge.

With Spouse visa, and if he is (I assume) a native speaker of the English language, and he presents himself well, he has some chance. But with the current economy, English conversation schools/companies may be holding back with completely new hires to some extent, and prefer to hire without having to sponsor for a visa. The exact situation he would never know until you and he get here.

If he is a certified high school teacher with experience, he should be looking into international school jobs, not eikaiwa or ALT work. At international schools the pay and benefits are much better, and he would actually get to use his skills. Eikaiwa and ALT are entry level jobs where the skills of someone with an actual teaching qualification are completely wasted.

Another market new comers to Japan do not know about (most people think in the ALT, or Eikawa, or private lessons) but another market to look into is corporate english teaching. In corporate english teaching you are pretty much freelance, you get assigned (usually at night 6pm-8pm) to teach business english at Japanese companies to company employees. The schedules are never the same, but the pay is decent, but your schedule is never fixed and you do a lot of travel.
However this market is a little different from Eikawa (conversational schools or ALT work), it is similar to ALT in that you work for a company and that company assigns you to teach at other companies. I know many many teachers in their mid 30's through mid 40's in this field. Many of them have been in Japan for years and are done with Eikawa and ALT bs. Many of them do have experience, but occasionally you do find a few newcomers like myself when I started doing this a few years ago.

Now again I stress, corporate english teaching has no fixed schedule, usually in the evening, it is good extra income as a night job if your daytime job is eikawa or ALT work.

I forgot to mention, I guess the main reason I never see "newbies" in the corporate english teaching world is because corporate teaching companies are part-time work (like i mentioned usually evenings for about 2 hours) and they do not sponsor work visas. Luckily your husband when he marries you will have a spouse visa. The vast majority of people I have met working (as mentioned above) in corporate english teaching were permanent residents married to Japanese, so there were no visa issues.