I worked for Interac for a year, and while they provided an apartment and rental car (which I paid for), the job was nothing like I expected. I enjoyed teaching the students and helping them with English, but the role itself was incredibly unrewarding. Most of the time, my JTEs handled all the teaching, and I was left standing for 50 minutes, saying just a few lines of English. Since I literally had nothing to do for most of the day, I’d try to use my time productively by studying Japanese at my desk. Unfortunately, the staff at my school didn’t appreciate that, which I guess makes sense because I was technically on the clock, but they emailed interac saying I was studying Japanese and I was told not to study anymore. Which was frustrating since there was literally nothing else for me to do.
I didn’t have any lessons to prepare, and I’m honestly glad I wasn’t asked to, considering how low the pay was. The constant check-ups and observations were another headache. They expected me to be over-the-top enthusiastic about essentially standing around and repeating a few lines. When they came for observations, they told me I needed to act more excited, even though the job was mind-numbingly mundane after doing the same thing every day.
There were also a few positives to the job:
I had tons of free time since there wasn’t much to do, and I was literally getting paid to stand around most days. It was pretty easy money, and I didn’t have to prepare any lessons, which made it low stress in that sense.
However , interac also held pointless meetings where we discussed nothing of value, and the corporate culture was unbearable. The management was completely out of touch with the reality of the job, and they judged my performance based on a single class they observed, which felt unfair. While I don't wanna sound too negative I did enjoy teaching the students and connecting with them, the job itself and Interac’s approach made it a pretty disappointing experience overall.
TL;DR: If you're thinking about coming to Japan to teach English, don’t bother. The textbooks are terrible, the job is mostly standing around doing nothing, and it’s a waste of time. You're not actually a teacher you're a speach parrot. If you're thinking about teaching for Interac , you're better off finding a different company.
by Legal_Platypus9189