Comments on: The disadvantages of teaching in Japan

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:05:07 +0000

I just have to jump in here. I have taught ESL on three different continents since retiring as a certified music teacher, and certified pilot/flight instructor. I have enjoyed 90% of my students, but I have seen the absolute worst management possible (women). The anti-American sentiment from other teachers is another factor that currently keeps me out of the ESL game. I would love to get a CELTA, but the experience from my TEFL made me loose interest in teaching for a while. I had never seen such terrible teacher trainers in my life, and I have had lots of instructors. So, good luck to you who continue to wade through the muck of ESL teaching. It is a nasty business, full of incompetents. I love teaching and have outstanding references from my schools, but I always feel like I am surrounded by idiots. What will you be doing in five years? My advice: Get out while you are young enough to do something else.

By: Jim

Jim — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:12:30 +0000

Total loser job

By: Another John

Another John — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 08:01:50 +0000

Jon said above “talking to students with the foulest and most unbearable dragon breath in the world”. Yes, it happened from time to time. It matters because we teach oral education and maximize student talking time. Listerine, Clorets and similar companies are just starting to tap into this huge potential market for oral hygiene.

Can anyone offer a comparison with other places in the world they worked? China seemed to have comparative levels of dragon breath (no pun intended). One Chinese student said to me in 2007 “Here in China no one cares about that” to which I most certainly agreed.

By: Susan

Susan — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 23:25:58 +0000

All, I’ll say is that while this is true in many instances, I’d still take Japan over Korea as a place to teach. The nightmare that place is! So many charlatans!

By: Sheldon

Sheldon — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:12:56 +0000

I traveled to Japan 4 years ago and I think it’s a nice place. This time, I got a contract offered to me to teach in Japan. I signed it and I sent it there. I am expecting to hear from them to keep me updated.

I am being hired by a staffing company in Japan, but the school where they will send me to work will be a public school in Sano City, Togichi Prefecture, Japan. (2 hours train ride north of Tokyo).

The bad things I am reading about teaching English in Japan only relates to teaching in the ESL companies, not public schools. I don’t know what it will be like to teach in a Japanese public school like Korea and Taiwan where I worked. All I know is that most students in Japan are at low level English so the language learning must be broken down for them to grasp the language as easy as possible.

By: E

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:56:11 +0000

LOL!!! You make me laugh kiddo. These are not disadvantages. It’s what one would expect going to a foreign country and into teaching.

Do you have any actual disadvantages?

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:51:19 +0000

From my experience some disadvantages include:

* talking to students with the foulest and most unbearable dragon breath in the world
* getting frequent colds and flus from the students
* being micromananged by unprofessional and uncaring managers
* being in an industry that has no real career or long term future
* being treated like a number
* feeling like a complete loser everytime you turn up to teacher meetings and wishing you could be doing something else as a career
* working in an industry that has no real care and passion for people’s education, only worried about profits and sales numbers
*

By: Shane

Shane — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:09:26 +0000

Alex, great for you. Yes I agree with you have to do something, anything in your own time to energize your brain and stop yourself from losing brain cells. Even if it’s a simple thing like studying Japanese or writing materials…. instead of wasting your money and life away on J-girls, izakayas, drinking and whining/boasting to everyone about working at Brad’s Poopy Kids Pit Club…. I’ve seen this too often as well as the superstar foreigner (complete ugly losers back home) who treats their time in Japan as one big vacation and get eventually get trapped in it.

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:31:57 +0000

“Brad’s Poopy KIds Pit club”.

Laughed out loud at that.

Could be worse. Wages in Thailand are if anything lower than when I was there in 96, and they haven’t had deflation to blame it on.

If you haven’t done anything to professionally develop yourself, you only have yourself to blame. I worked as a teacher for an apparently notorious Eikaiwa for 5 years and it certainly didn’t stop me from writing and publishing materialsl, using and reviewing new materials etc.

By: Shane

Shane — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:51:54 +0000

Other disadvantages include: teaching kids who crap their pants in your lessons and spills it over the carpet, then you gotta clean it up.
- teaching kids who vomit from crying so much.
- getting no regulare employee fringe benefits like annual pay raises.
- Always listening to co-workers complain about how crappy, stingy and cheap their eikaiwa company is.
- Being laughed at when you say you work for a company like “Brad’s Poopy KIds Pit club”.
- Being laughed at when you say you are an English Teacher when in fact everyone knows you are actually a gaijin clown in disguise providing fun entertainment for gullible paying customers.
- Embarrassed that all your co-teachers have the worst English spelling and grammar and you can’t believe that customers are paying for this low quality teacher.
- You spend/waste 5-10 years of your life in a job with the same annual salary and with no transferable skills. You wake up one day and ask “what the hell have I done in the last 5 years to professionally develop myself?” – Nothing.
- Being poor
– Getting no respect in Japan.

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:45:09 +0000

Do you have anything positive, amusing and/ or interesting to say?

By: john holmes

john holmes — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:53:38 +0000

i mean anyone still in Japan-reality check time. How’s Korea? I heard they are ultra nationalists and sometimes even physically assault teachers/foreigners. There are a lot of blacklisted Hagwon on the net. Doing a random web search yields things like “Dont teach in Korea” “Korea is number one” (their answer to everything? Sounds like Kim Jong Il would approve…)

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:52:48 +0000

Ahem, check the tagline in the top right corner of the page…

By: john holmes

john holmes — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:15:11 +0000

I identify 100% with what he says and can add more.

Definitely time to move on…or do you actually like living in a shoebox and paying 30 % in tax and insurance?

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:02:43 +0000

Huh?

For someone who has apparently moved onto better things, you do seem awfully bitter

By: Shane

Shane — Sun, 24 May 2009 12:11:09 +0000

No there’s no pleasant forums here because unfortunately there’s nothing pleasant and positive to say about the sad, declining and humiliating eikaiwa (monkey entertaining) industry in Japan.

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:53:50 +0000

Are there any pleasant Dave’s ESL cafe forums?