What can we all learn from Nova?
Although Nova (not long ago the dominant presence in conversation schools in Japan) might still manage to save itself, I can imagine there are many teachers who are now wishing they were no longer working or had never worked for Nova- those who haven’t been paid since September, those who have received eviction notices at the accomodation that Nova had already taken the rent out of their wages for (and some, not knowing the illegality of those notices, moved out and made themselves homeless), those who proudly told their families they were off to Japan to see the world and pay off their debts and then had to ask Ma and Pa to wire money so they could fly home with less money than when they started, etc. etc. Nobody’s going to be making the mistake of coming out to Nova again for a long time, but Nova is not the first language school in Japan nor the first language school market leader in the world to go down the drain, and it won’t be the last. Here’s how not to fall down the next hidden rabbit hole:
- Look at the whole company, not just how it treats teachers. If a company rips off its students, it will sooner or later rip off its teachers too. If there are any signs of dodgy dealing or financial problems, they will hit you sooner or later one way or the other.
- When you fly out to a foreign country, have a plan B. If you are not happy or things don’t work out with the economy, your feelings about teaching, not making friends etc, is your provisional back-up plan to apply for another job (researched before you went out there), go to another country (ditto), do something else back home (ditto), or go traveling.
- Make sure you have the financial resources, qualifications and paperwork to do your plan B. Although you might not need qualifications for the job you have applied for, if you are likely to need one for what you want to do when you get home or other jobs you might want to apply for in the country you are going to, it is best to get them sooner rather than later. Ditto for money you might not think you need for deposits for accommodation, medical care, flying home etc. because the company sorts it out for you- if you leave the company or the company abandons you you’ll have to get the cash from somewhere.
- Make yourself as independant as possible as soon as possible. Make friends outside your company, learn the language, move out of company accommodation, save as much money as you can, and go to job interviews or send CVs well in advance of when you want to change job so that you are aware of all the options.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:11 pm
The problem is that there appear to be SO many language schools that seem to follow a business model that screams “Turn everything into an income stream - even the teachers!” Look at Wall Street and several other of the less savoury EFL outfits - or should that be E$L nowadays? As you say, Alex, any outfit that attempts to fleece its students will soon be doing the same to its teachers. But if you find a school that actually cares to try and keep its students, and provide them with the services they have paid for, then it’s worth hanging about , I reckon.
And I certainly agree that you need a Plan B, but that is only really possible if you are a well-experienced and seasoned traveller or EFL teacher. Arriving in a foreign country where you know next to nothing about the language and/or the culture, perhaps even the job, means that most people put an enormous amount of trust in the only ‘certainty’ they have - their school. So having a plan B seems disloyal, perhaps irrelevant, especially if you’ve been brought up in a very different social and economic environment.
When you’ve been around the block a few times, you can see the need for a Plan B, of course - but that’s what they call wisdom, I suppose!
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:15 am
Absolutely, in fact many of these ideas only occured to me when I started to write that article, and that’s 12 years and 6 countries later…
November 4th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
GABA is next in line to go.