Good Morning,
I was curious of my options in the future in Japan. I have a bachelor’s in tesol, a masters in secondary education ela with certification and will have masters in educational leadership mid next year. I am continuously networking but I want someone to give me a no bs answer. I have researched and seen private school teacher, international school teacher, university teacher and direct hire ALT. I want to stay long term but do not mind going to another country ala China if necessary to gain experience. Any other advice would help me out. Also the pros and cons of each school type.
3 comments
1: If you want to have a career in education in Japan, learn to read, write, and speak Japanese. You’ll may be using English for your teaching, but you’ll be in a Japanese-language environment administratively, so that most of the forms you’ll have to fill out, reports you’ll need to write, and meetings you’ll have to attend will be in Japanese.
2: If you want to work in an primary or secondary international school, get a few years of teaching experience in your home country first.
3: If you want to be adjunct faculty at a university or a non-tenured contract/visiting instructor at university, you’ll need at least 3 publications. The more publications you have, the better. Many of the higher ranked universities also have requirements of having taught for some time in Japan, though, in my experience, that requirement is flexible.
4: If you want to be a(n) (effectively) tenured university teacher, get a doctorate, and aim toward research (not pedagogic) publications.
5: If you want to work full time at any public school, you’ll need to get a teaching license, which is usually only possible with an undergraduate degree at a Japanese university, although some places will help you to get a temporary license, the length of which varies depending on the prefecture.
Finally, if you want to make a normal living for many years so that you can have a home and raise a family, you’ll need to become full-time somewhere or, with your fingers crossed during the years of work and scads of start-up money it’ll take, start your own school.
N1 Japanese
Publish papers
probably get a PhD
Do not work in an eikaiwa or as an ALT
This is my experience mixed with close friends experiences:
As said elsewhere avoid the direct hire ALT route for anything other than getting an initial visa. They are good at getting you in the country and set up. It isn’t too hard to pivot out of that at the end of the contract. Your job options open up if you already have a working visa. Also, once you have the visa it isn’t too hard to extend it in my experience, even if you’ve switched jobs.
The University route (this is second hand from friends doing it) has its ups and downs. The down as far as I know is that a lot of the contracts are 3-5 years non-renewable. The benefits and pay are good compared to ALT work, and I know several people who work at university and make a very decent living doing so. Downside is uprooting a lot when the contract ends and they need to find a new uni.
I don’t know about tenure at University so I won’t speculate.
Finally, private school. The advantage is with private schools is they are much more flexible and in control of their policies. I was able to get version of tenure (no yearly contracts, just teach here as long as you want), almost complete control over my curriculum, and was treated just like any member of staff – not some temporary traveling curio. They helped me get a temporary license so I could have gone for the full one.
Now my school is pretty great about these things – I don’t know how other private schools stack up. And there are downsides – lots of additional duties and meetings and trips and late nights. But it’s the closest I’ve ever felt in Japan to having a work environment where I was on equal footing.
Those are just my experiences.