I'm an experienced Australian teacher with a couple of decades of experience, including IB as I'm Head of TOK. My youngest will finish school soon and I'm keen to teach overseas for a period and plan to apply to JET. I speak conversational Japanese, having spent a year there on exchange.
Can I get a sense of how employable I might be in Japan, especially given I am older (early 50s) if I was unsuccessful getting into JET? I can obviously teach English as an additional language, but could only teach other IB subjects in English. I'm otherwise financially secure, so would only be looking to cover my living expenses. Not fussed about location at all.
Feel free to be frank and honest. Thanks.
by Sarasvarti
8 comments
Why wouldn’t you just try to be an international school teacher in Japan? There are tons of IB schools here. I’m an IB teacher now, and there are schools always looking.
On JET you would be an assistant language teacher for English as a second language, and your IB experience would have zero value.
You could apply to international schools and teach your subject. The language of instruction at international schools is English.
International schools want experienced IB teachers, you’d have a much better experience applying directly through them instead of JET.
You’ll be taking a huge pay cut no matter what you’re doing now.
I recommend you to keep your job in Australia and come here for an extended trip. Traveling is much better than working in japan.
Do not become an ALT (including JET) if you want to actually teach. While there are opportunities to occasionally teach as an ALT, a quick scroll through this sub will give you countless examples of exasperated ALTs who have no recourse because their supervising teachers want them to do ridiculous things (like serve as a human tape recorder, or make slides based on wildly incorrect AI garbage, or stand around doing nothing all day).
If you just want to live overseas while making next to no money and have your brain completely turned off, being an ALT may be okay for a bit. If you want to actually teach overseas, either apply to international schools as an actual teacher (not assistant) or choose a different country.
You are way overqualified to be a JET. As others have said, there are lots of IB schools here.
Do not for the JET options.
You can apply for international schools via [schrole.com](http://schrole.com) even from Australia.
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