The benefits of teaching in Japan

Number one: cosplay

Only joking- I mean of course that the status of English teachers is not so obviously low that when I met the love of my life and asked her to marry me she actually agreed!

You won’t hear a lot about it on the TEFL forums, but there are actually a lot of other advantages to choosing Japan to teach in:

- Fixed monthly wages

- Mainly very nice students

- Some very attractive students (not how I met my wife!)

- Some very motivated students

- Cute kids

- The ultimate training scheme in getting the quietest students to talk

- Hundreds of interesting books about Japan to read, including about the Japanese education system

- An interesting and challenging language to learn

- An acceptance of games, experimentation and fun in the classroom

- Few discipline problems

- The chance to teach in big Japanese companies that look good on your CV

- ETJ (English teachers in Japan)

- Accommodation often arranged for you

- Loads of national holidays

- An interest by the students in your country and other places you know about

- Japanzine

- A completely uncynical group of teachers who’ve worked in Japan when you get back home (unlike those who have worked in Spain, for example)

- Far less cynical expats in the bars than in some other countries

- Learning things about the country you are living in from your students etc that are of international interest (unlike Spain, for example…)

- 5% income tax

- A living wage (as long as you don’t have kids)

- The ease of getting promoted in the big chains (as long as you don’t mind the job)

- 99% of the friends who visit will love it, but it’s far enough away to stop the number of friends visiting becoming overwhelming

- Cheap and easy to eat out

- No need to drive

- Uniqlo

- 100 yen shops

- The chance to teach students who don’t know the roman script

- Taking a huge knowledge of cool Japanese pop culture back home with you

- Great cheap souvenirs for the whole family

- Lots of demand for cross-cultural training lessons and materials

- The chance to become a fake priest or TV extra on your days off

- The chance to become a TOEIC expert

- The generally low level of teaching your students will have had before, making them forever grateful for your lessons

- An emphasis on wanting to improve speaking skills

- A fair amount of IELTS teaching, but not too much

- A good selection of EFL materials in the big bookshops and at the ELT Bookfairs

- A reasonable selection of workshops and conferences to go to

- No hang ups by the students on what kind of methodology you should use

- Enough English in the Japanese language that you can explain most things without using Japanese as long as you know what English words are used in Japanese

- A chance to train yourself up for the rapidly growing over-60s language learner market

- Genkienglish.com

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 1:29 pmand is filed under Becoming a Director of Studies, Cross cultural training in EFL, Cultural differences/ cultural training, Discipline in the classroom, EFL management, ETJ- English Teachers in Japan, Eikaiwa, Gaijin/ gaikokujin (foreigners in Japan), Japanese English/ Waseieigo/ Engrish, Japanese education, Japanese language, Japanese/ foreigner relationships, Job security, TEFL, TEFL working conditions, TESOL, Teaching, Teaching English Abroad, Teaching English in Asia, Teaching English in Japan, Teaching English in Spain, Teaching IELTS, Teaching Japanese primary school children, Teaching TOEIC, Teaching older students, Teaching shy students, festivals and celebrations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.