A high risk business

in which employees have few rights and nearly no guarantees. The eikaiwa chains are bad, but frankly the corporate-focused companies aren't a heck of a lot better. It all depends on the integrity, trustworthiness, and the loyalty of management. That can all go out the window when the economy and profits head south. Non-Japanese, in particular those who do not understand the few rights that employees have, are especially vulnerable. We have seen that even public/private schools and universities are little better. In my opinion and experience, there are less that half a dozen English language "teaching"/ "corporate training" related companies in the Tokyo area that are trustworthy at all. The rest are half-crooked or filled with the most incompetent management that one can imagine. I cannot think of a single eikaiwa chain that anyone with a choice should consider employment with. Not one, including the big B---unless they have recently changed.

Foreign and Japanese employees hired by Nova Corp.'s successor complained of unreasonable dismissals and pay cuts Saturday as they marked the half-year anniversary of the giant language school's collapse. Japan Times.

The lesson? DO NOT come to Japan to "teach" English as a foreign language unless you consider it a one year out-of-college lark. If you do, and want to remain in Japan, look for a decent job---preferably out of the field entirely or at least with one of the half-dozen or fewer decent companies and generally they require some sort of professional qualifications/experience. That is unless you are satisfied with lifelong under-achievement, glass ceilings, and career suicide.

Eikaiwa pay is great huh?

Read all the books written by snake oil salesmen on how to make a million yen? Well, the basic salary has been dropping for years. Working hours are also going up. The number of people who have read such idiotic books have been coming to Japan until the number of eikaiwa teachers has increased by fourfold from 1997-2002. And the pay:

According to a labour union spokesperson familiar with the eikaiwa business, teachers in the 1970's received monthly salaries of 300,000 yen for 20 hours of work, which they often supplemented with outside teaching jobs, giving them a total income of as much as 600,000 yen per month, double that of the average salaryman. (See the Sunday 19 June 2005 article on that page).

(I am a bit skeptical of that 600,000 yen per month. It may be true, but I know basic eikaiwa salary in the mid 80s was the still standard 250,000 per month. At that time it was the legal minimum someone on the humanities visa had to earn. Even during the bubble years when I "taught" part-time at a YMCA while working full time at a non-teaching job in a Japanese company, the standard salary for part-time was 3,000 per hour. That has dropped. There were always rumors of some guy making 500,000 per month doing next to nothing, but I only heard about these mysterious folks. Never met one, and neither did anyone else whom I believed. Perhaps there were a few...)

Some of the folks who come here are not such sharp cookies and are willing work for lower and lower pay---at least at first until they see what is happening. Others have no choice as they have bills and a family and cannot easily or quickly leave eikaiwa school chains. Still others are just your backpacking flower-child type who is above the desire for, or need of money. (Mommy and daddy will pay if need be. They always have). A few are just nincompoops.

Berlitz went through this increased working hours/salary cut just before I left (the best thing I have ever done.) I guess they have finally started paying for the full cost of teacher's transportation costs like they were supposed to in the contract. Berlitz never understood that a contract worked both ways---they just figured the teacher had to abide by it and Berlitz might if it did not inconvenience them.

When I look at salaries in the newspaper, many are now at around the 220,000 yen mark for full time per month. Why would anyone work for that?

Generally, an experienced teacher with qualifications---a CELTA is usually more than enough and anything more is unnecessary---who preferably has business experience (you mainly need to understand what a business is and how to conduct yourself in such an environment. You rarely need to teach specific business skills) can get a job as a "corporate trainer" for much better pay. You still won't get rich and you have to work and especially travel a lot. Possibly spend a lot of time between classes at coffee shops too, if you are a contract teachers. But at least they pay you for full transportation! And your per hour salary should be a quite a bit higher. You will have to do more work and prepare for classes, correct homework, and occasionally create materials, etc. In other words, you will have to teach, or come as close to it as you can in this environment. (HINT: beware of working for less than 4,000 per hour unless you have a special reason. You ought to ask why the pay is only 3,500 yen. It is below market average. If you have little experience and no certifications perhaps it could be acceptable.))

You still have to be careful. I took a few classes on the side recently for a company which supposedly focuses on corporate clients. I found out that they are a bunch of first-class incompetents though. The pay was low---3,500 per hour, but it was a morning class close to me so I decided to take it. I was told there would be 3 "main" students and other folks would drop in out of the blue occasionally for a class. This should have been a warning...well, it was. Then I was told, "Oh we don't have a book or anything yet." BIG WARNING number 2. "Oh, we neglected to mention that there is a bus ride on top of the train ride to get there." I should have walked out the door then, but I had already agreed to take it, and I had taken one from them before that turned out OK after a similar rocky start.

This one hasn't. I walked in the class the first day and had NINE students, not three. Their level varied from very nearly a true beginner to pre-intermediate. Luckily, I have plenty of things planned for a first class so I managed to stumble through it. I e-mailed and suggested the books I would need. OK, no problem. They also divided the class into two groups. I still don't know who will show up, or who the 3 "main" students are.

After 2 weeks no books, but the manager, a British guy--told me he was leaving (WARNING).
He then e-mailed me and told me to plan classes using my "store" of materials. WTF?!! At 3,500 yen I am supposed to create or supply materials?

Christmas break came and a new manager started after the New Year. He had no idea of what happened so I had to request books again. Twice. Finally, after calling him and giving him hell over it, the books were sent. (It was not his fault, he was new and it slipped his mind. The rest of the staff appears to be clueless, so I am sure they are no help.)

Anyway, the class got off to a poor start and has never recovered. 4-6 weeks went by before we had any consistent material other than the stuff I made, or occasionally copied (paid for by me.)

Last weekend, I got a letter from them informing me and all the other suckers working for them that they were going to stop paying transportation costs over 800 yen round trip. Oh, I pay them to work for them? Wow. Am I back at Berlitz? No, it ain't that bad, or I would give 2 weeks notice and good-bye. But I have turned down several other offers from them, and will do no more work for them after the class ends in March. The students don't deserve to be screwed more than they have. However, if my main company offered me a morning lesson at the time period, I'd probably take it now and give my 2 weeks notice.

The company's name? I can't really say. They never cheated nor intentionally deceived and lied to me like Berlitz did as far as I know, so I will just say again that there are only maybe 4 companies/schools that I would consider working for in Tokyo in the private sector. None are in eikaiwa, all are in corporate training. Shall I list them? OK. Pheonix Associates, JAL Academy, perhaps Forum (second-hand info) and Simul Academy. There may be others, but I would be very careful of any company which has 9 letters in its namebegins with I and ends with g.

I have seen and heard enough of many others and interviewed at some. I guess I should write up what one should watch for during interviews to learn if you are dealing with up-and-up people, or a bunch of idiots, crooks, or liars. Obviously, I am still learning though.

Why English teaching is considered a dead-end job in Japan

From a job site:

Language instructors generally need no skills other than being a native speaker of the language with a 4-year college degree. Working Holiday or Spouse visa eligibility can be substituted for the 4-year degree.

This is an unfortunate fact of life here. It isn't necessarily a loser's job, although many Japanese and foreigners consider it to be so, it is simply the best paying job open to the majority of native English speaking residents in Japan. Of course you could be a waiter or a bartender at less pay. Perhaps you can start your own non-teaching business. Forget the salaryman fantasy even if, like Tom Cruise, you become more-Japanese-than-the-Japanese. Best case---you get on with a foreign company as a local hire. Not easy and requires a lot of networking and a lot of luck.

The biggest waste of time and money in my life was the year that I returned to college to get a TESOL certification (one which could be used for teaching in the U.S.) before returning to Japan to what I knew was a ad career destroying move. I hardly use anything I learned, and if I actually tried, I would piss off many "students." A good CELTA certificate is more than one needs here. In fact, because it focuses on practical aspects more than SLA theory, it is probably more useful than what I got. As I have mentioned, even the simple rudimentary Berlitz basic instructor training is MORE than sufficient for the vast majority of jobs.

The skills you really need are:

• customer service (ass-kissing or groveling in some cases),
• entertaining skills (make it "fun"),
• the ability to tolerate people who make foolish/racist/sexist statements without getting losing your cool or openly challenging them. If someone looks you straight in the eye and says, "Japan is the ONLY country in the world with 4 distinct seasons," you MAY NOT laugh and call them a "retard."
  
• the ability to make people feel relaxed, to be nonthreatening,
• patience
• not take offense at subtle or not-so-subtle insults
• enjoy debating trivia (the British say "in main street" but Americans say "on main street." Which is correct, "that" or "which." You cannot openly say "I don't really give a flying f**k." You are teaching "communicative" English. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA)
• The ability to endure a dead-end job with no future and no real opportunities to advance or make more money. A job in which the standard salary has not increased since at least the 1980s.
  
• endure being seen as a baka gaijin , who although entertaining, can't really be taken seriously.
  
• teach attractive women without assuming that they want you to date them or have sex with them. They don't want that anymore than an American, British, Canadian woman would. You will have to check with a female instructor for any advice specific to teaching mostly Japanese men as a female.
• Ideally, you should be able not to take a student's physical appearance into account when teaching them, however I knew many who did at Berlitz and still seemed to be successful. Let's pretend it is valuable skill here.
  
• able to pretend that a lazy, time-wasting student who would fail or be thrown out of a class in your country is a good student. (Most places will not let you evaluate a student as less than average which is usually called "good" here.)
  
• Understanding that just because someone is polite to you and laughs at your stupid jokes, or even says that they enjoyed your class, does not necessarily mean that they did enjoy it or like you.
• As a few Berlitz Instructional Supervisors told me: " Just make sure they have fun and "think" they have learned something." This is the bottom line, although it is not what would be considered teaching in the West. (If you are doing a company course---especially for foreign companies, their HR may hold you to much higher standards than Berlitz et al. Still, good luck on getting people to seriously study. Some will. Most won't.)
  
• Finally, for you own sanity and self-respect, the ability to find something outside of the job to provide meaning, challenge, and direction to your life. Find something to keep mentally and intellectually challenging. Stay physically active and fit. Otherwise you will become a fat idiot, although this will not in any way disqualify you from most teaching jobs. The idiot part may even help. So far, I have not become fat.
  

Nihonjinron--the Myth of Japanese Uniqueness

Here is a link to an interesting article on this nonsense. http://www.debito.org/PALE/ (See Nihonjinron: Identity, Misconception and Controversy
by Brent Poole.)

Especially interesting is what happened to the author to stimulate his interest in the subject which he discusses at the end of the article. Good for him that he did not prostitute himself to play henna gaijin (weirdo outsider) on TV for a few bucks like many do here. (I have to admit guilt, because to some extent, that is what an English teacher does in Japan. Most especially the eikaiwa entertainers.)

Granted, most foreigners are aware of this myth. Unfortunately, many believe them to be true. Look at the success of the absurdly nonsensical Last Samurai movie. Whenever a Japanese (or baka gaijin) starts a sentence with, "Japan is the only country..." or "The Japanese are the only people who...," you can usually consider what follows to be pure horse manure.

For a good example of nihonronjin and its absurdity (with rebuttal) look at : On Language and Japanese Rational Thought Processes Guest Forum: Where there's no 'will' there's no way By Shin-ichi Terashima, University of the Ryukyus at :
http://www.debito.org/PALE/PALEautumn99.html#tomei

New School at Miyazakidai Station

Just saw a new school has opened at the station. There already is a NOVA scam eikaiwa school there, but with luck this school will be successful. There are many small, privately run language schools in Japan, many of which are owned and staffed by professionally trained teachers--real teachers who could teach in places other than Japan. The cirriculum, the teaching, the service as far as individual attention to students goes is usually much, much, better than the NOVA, Berlitz, GABA eikaiwa chain schools are willing to provide.

There has been an increase over the last several months in people looking to study English. So I suspect that the Japanese economy is really beginning to strengthen, at least until the Japanese government kills it by raising interest rates and taxes. I have had to stop accepting new students, and will be able to become mainly self-employed except for occasionally courses for JAL Academy and a few other very select companies. I hope to keep the part-time fake teaching job at Berlitz until the end of the year to get my vacation and holiday pay. However, I am so eager to start, and eager to drop that "job" that I don't know if I can hold out.

There is a market for people who will really work to learn a language--as is necessary--in Japan and who are not simply looking for a chance to observe and be entertained by a baka gaijin clown. At least I have been finding some. Granted, it is a small group. I will see how long it lasts.

Results of 4 Berlitz classes on a private student.

I have been teaching a intermediate-level student for the past 10 months. When we first started, she lacked confidence and had the common problem of focusing on perfect grammatical accuracy first, rather than communicating an idea. This resulted in her over-correcting constantly and causing problems in comprehension for listeners because she was so hard to follow. She slowly improved over that period as I worked to get her focus off of form and on fluency.

Well, one month ago she started a Berlitz eikaiwa class at her company. Her fluency and speed have deteriorated to the point to which they are worse than when we first started working together. She cannot get half a sentence out without correcting things which are not even wrong to begin with. She is constantly stopping and searching for the "right" words. Frankly, most native-speakers would not be able to talk with her for long if she spoke like that.

It is obvious why this happened. She told me that her "teacher" is a 10 year Berlitz vet who is very strict on grammatical errors, correcting them all immediately, critical or not. Berlitz itself claims to have gone to a communicative approach in which this type of error correction is not done because the vast majority of modern research indicates that it is counter-productive. But in fact, most Japanese students have been incorrectly conditioned to believe that grammar is the most important part of acquiring a foreign language and that 100% correction is the best way to achieve accurate grammar. Sort of like this is still 1940, which conveniently matches the era that Berlitz operates in. And, of course Berlitz doesn't care as long as "the students enjoy the class and think they learn something." And come back and waste another $3000 for 50 40 minute "classes."

I would never go to Berlitz for language lessons. Mere exposure to the language and use of it generally will provide some benefits for most. The question is, is it the most efficient, effective use of one's time and money. Personally, I want someone who can effectively teach instead of being forced to follow a one-size-fits all model.


Unfortunately, I cannot do much for her if she continues to go to this class with such incompetent teaching, and then come to mine to practice what amounts to stuttering instead of speaking. I may have to stop teaching her as long as she is with Berlitz. It will be a waste of her money and my time to try to again get her off the conscious focus on form. It is a shame as she was making progress.

Update: 2 March 2006. She finished the Berlitz classes in December and has just gotten back to the point where she is able to speak much more quickly and fluently. She began to realize what she was doing, so she has made an effort to get off the excessive worrying about grammar and form. Her knowledge of grammar was already well above average, but she occasionally makes the normal grammatical errors when speaking, most of which are insignificant.