Living In Japan

[elrodeo666]

You mentioned monkeys, I thought of Sapporo

The only monkeys I know of in Sapporo, let alone Hokkaido, are the mugs teaching english !!

Too cold for the real monkeys, they're all in Honshu !!

[waxracing]

I have thought about working in Japan myself. Im a qualified high school teacher with native english

But the pay is crap and decided its not worth the hassle

[rblover]

I would love to go to Japan

[rblover]

I wold also love to check out the Nissan/Nismo museum

[samuri]

How do I get to live in the great Nihon!?

I am asian.

I speak fairly alright English.

I know close to no Japanese, what kind of training do I have to go through to be an English teacher there? I'm a chemical engineer by training though. Diploma holder, and pursuing my degree at RMIT now.

No training needed for english schools but how clear is your english?

Universities are now commonly requiring a masters degree in anything but favouring English.

You could get a cultural visa and study kendo or judo.

Your biggest problem will be getting a place to live. without a guarantor you will have jack shit of getting a place. sharing is possible but dont count on it

[samuri]

Seriously..

If you can throw peanuts at monkeys you can teach english, its not rocket science, you just speak english, anyone telling you different is full of crap.

The Uni degree is just for a visa, something the Jap government came up with years ago to try get quality control of teachers.

Most long term teachers are here are alcoholics due the complete boredom of the job.

Perks are the possible candy on the side. Downers.. the pay is crap.

Lock yourself in a class room for 40 minutes with people who cant understand what your talking about in English for 10 lessons a day 6 days a week and see how long you last with happy approval of the company owner.

You dont need a degree you only need to show Immigation you have enough income to support yourself.Your comment is quuite out of date.

Having said that at least 95% of western forgeiners have a degree and virtually all permanent western foregin residents will have a degree and at least on job at a university ,high school or vocational school. .

All the posts about how difficulit it is to get a job and the discrimiation are pretty much right.

All long term teachers are alcholics

I wouldnt say you are teaching english, its more like having a structured chat with a 4 to 8 year old year old, in many cases, with the aim of trying to get several linked sentances together.......not rocket science but there are planty of bad teachers out there and the market is very tight.

Edited August 7, 2010 by samuri

[Amayama]

Seriously..

If you can throw peanuts at monkeys you can teach english, its not rocket science, you just speak english, anyone telling you different is full of crap.

Well there are quite a few serious Eikaiwas and language schools out there that require a lot more from their teachers.

In my time in Japan (8+ years) I've worked at at least 3 or 4 schools where adult students demanded so much from their teachers it was almost a full time job supplying the other part time (less experienced) teachers with suitable materials and training. These are students who aren't content to open up any old textbook and start listening and repeating. They're also ones that don't bat an eyelid paying 20,000 yen entry fee and the same amount each month for intensive private classes.

It's not all "hey I'm a clown" type entertainment posing as education.

[xALmoN]

No training needed for english schools but how clear is your english?

Universities are now commonly requiring a masters degree in anything but favouring English.

You could get a cultural visa and study kendo or judo.

Your biggest problem will be getting a place to live. without a guarantor you will have jack shit of getting a place. sharing is possible but dont count on it

you'll understand me when i speak, not an aussie accent but i get by.

can foreigners buy apartments?

[samuri]

you'll understand me when i speak, not an aussie accent but i get by.

can foreigners buy apartments?

Let me start by saying Japan is a a great place for an interesting challenging and rewarding holiday. The people in the streets are magnificent.

Amayama a few posts up is no doubt correct in his experience but its not the norm from my 13 years. I have taught judges lawyers pilots and so called very advanced students at Universities and there demands are little more than lower high school. Perhaps Tokyo is very different to western Japan cities. I met a student from, Waseda and his memorization skills were phenomenal

In my estimation ,it sounds like you will miss out as there would be little if any advantage to hire you when a native English speaker could do better.Getting by isn't much if you want to be a teacher. The Asian face is not the novelty , it is the western foreigner.

If you were blond and female then you just went to the next level.

I know many foreigners who have bought apartments and houses but its bad investment, you wont know or understand the Body corp and you will easily be ripped off.These people are permanent residents with Japanese wives and families to assist them Where ever you buy you will never get the equivalent of a 2 bedroom apartment that you think of here. Don't get me wrong there are nice apartments with astronomical prices for what you get, but the design and room sizes are quite different, with poor workmanship. Buildings are designed for The short term not long term .

If you don't live in Japan then don't even dream of buying a place, Getting a loan without the Japanese connection wont happen and no Australian Bank will give you a loan. Now for the negative things ......................

Edited August 14, 2010 by samuri

[Amayama]

Amayama a few posts up is no doubt correct in his experience but its not the norm from my 13 years.

I wasn't implying it was the norm at all. Just that there are schools out there that have students who require you to be a serious lecturer rather than a clown reciting fixed lesson plans. I didn't mention their levels as it wasn't much different from what was mentioned earlier (early high school) but it's the "type" of student attracted to the schools I worked in. If you look at the quote I replied to in my comment I was pertaining to that only, not the "overall experience of teaching English in Japan" which I agree with, you will be required more often than not, to be a monkey trying to entertain people... but that's not the whole picture, which was my point.

[elrodeo666]

I wasn't implying it was the norm at all. Just that there are schools out there that have students who require you to be a serious lecturer rather than a clown reciting fixed lesson plans. I didn't mention their levels as it wasn't much different from what was mentioned earlier (early high school) but it's the "type" of student attracted to the schools I worked in. If you look at the quote I replied to in my comment I was pertaining to that only, not the "overall experience of teaching English in Japan" which I agree with, you will be required more often than not, to be a monkey trying to entertain people... but that's not the whole picture, which was my point.

Well the majority of teaching in Japan is be a monkey trying to entertain people, the minority is the serious teaching.

Most people go there for an experience an not a serious career and thus end up being the mug in the clown suit.

Theres countless threads on the Japan foreigner sites debating the whole english teacher status..Yeah theres a few good jobs and perks but again its a minority and with more and more financial streaming of companies and staff ,in japan these jobs are getting less and less.

As for real estate its easy as to buy property in Japan and with another year of record low prices adding to the past 15-16 years its cheap as chips.

If your after some serious investment, well you will be hard pressed but it is doable.

for all the ones struggling with their investments theres a whole bunch of people who have cleaned up.

Theres various ways of putting up some incredibly cheap apartments and houses, ...e.g deceased estate auctions and bank foreclosure auctions and if with the Japanese economy going further and further down the toilet theres going to be more and more of these properties on the market and plenty of opportunities to snap up some good investment opportunities if your smart and do your research.

The one main thing is your not going to get any financial help from any Japanese institutions or from Oz so your going to have to use your own coin.

The CBA were giving loans on properties in Niseko to Australians looking for investment in that area but thats on the back burner until the market place settles down again after the economic crisis.

[*LOACH*]

I havent got nearly as much experience teaching English in Japan as many others on these forums but I definately agree with Amayama. You can probably get away with being a clown most of the time but if you work in Eikaiwa the chances are you going to have at least one adult (I have about half a dozen at the moment in this category) student who has been studying English for many years and probably knows an awful lot more than most native speakers about the rules of grammar, implementing those rules and incorporating them into everyday speech is another matter. But when you are asked whether a specific idiom should be treated as a causative verb or about word order in relative clauses using because or therefore and the student expects an answer straight away you begin to appreciate just how much effort and years of experience it takes to become a truly good English teacher.

Having said that there are plently of opportunites to play dodgeball with 9 year olds and being happy that they can string any sort of sentence together.