Great, You Graduated. Now What? Teaching in Japan Might be an Option for You

For recent grads, there are 3 roads into teaching in Japan but “eikaiwa” is the most heavily traveled road.

Teaching in Japan  “Eikaiwa” The Most Traveled Road
“Eikaiwa” refers to the teaching of English conversation and it’s billion dollar industry in Japan. These consist of your large chain schools like ECC, Berlitz, Geos & Aeon. They employ thousands of English teachers all over Japan and can be found in all but the tiniest cities. There are literally thousands of “eikaiwa” schools dotting the country side.All of these schools are attempting to carry out the daunting task of teaching English to the Japanese.

What You Need to Teach
In order to get a job teaching English in Japan, you will need to be a college graduate from any field – (sorry but 2 year degrees won’t cut it.) You pretty much also need to speak English at native level fluency. Some do succeed in finding work in Japan, even though English isn’t their first language but the overwhelming majority of postions that get filled are filled by native level fluent teachers.

Most English teachers make roughly 250,000 yen per month before taxes.  A typical work week will be 5 days long. Don’t expect western stuff like weekends off. The “eikawa” business whirs like a motor on weekends and someone has to teach the students right? This means that most teachers work at least one Saturday or Sunday with another weekday off.Most school’s vacation packages are remarkably similar. 2 weeks of paid vacation and a handful of national holidays off is the norm. Of course there will be a bit of difference between how many national holidays any given school observes, but expect 8 to 10 per year. It’s worth noting that ECC has the best vacation package of the monster chain schools and  arguably the  fewest complaints. Here is a handy chart to help you compare salaries and working conditions for huge chain schools like Geos, ECC, Berlitz and Aeon.

You should expect roughly a 40 hour work week. Although each school is a little bit different, nontheless, expect 20 to 25 actual teaching hours and a few administrative or office hours.  Most schools also will provide you with health insurance or subsidize it. Typical office hours are filled by grading student work, taking class notes, preparing future lessons or just chatting with students. And (depending on the school) some teachers are expected to hand out school advertisments. Make no mistake at the end of a typical day, you’ll know you worked. All in all when all the hours get counted, your typical teacher works about 40 hours per week.

Huge chain schools, mentioned in the previous paragraph, all have fixed curriculums. This means you’ll be using their in house texts, tapes and other support materials for teaching. Those with little teaching experience often like these teaching conditios becasue it reduces stress and makes the headache of lesson planning go away.) Those who need to express their creativity in the lesson will probably find it stifling.

Students  assigned to a typical teacher schedule will probably be of all ages. Literally from a mere 5 years of age all the way up to 75. Some schools deal specifically with children  like Amity and Peppy Kids Club. Other large chain schools like Gaba cater to only adults or adult private English lessons.  Because of the competitiveness of this industry, most schools cater to all ages. Student wise, you can expect a healthy dose of children and young professionals like office ladies and salary men as they’re called to make up the bulk of who you teach.

Most of your large chain schools will provide you with some type of accommodations. This is a huge help because it’s tought to find accommodaions without the help of a Japanese national. And it’s definitely not cheap. Although the type provided will vary expect things to be on the small side. Furnishings are usually sparse and typically will be collections of things from departing teachers.

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