teaching english in japan

[ncrx]

one other thing, have a back up plan, for when you come back. set your goals, be ready with a time line of what u want to do. i planned to only stay 2yrs, travel as much as i could, see as much as i could, party like an ass, and save 0 $ kuz i wanted the time of my life. i stuck to it.. rigidly.

i guarantee, you will not want to come back. and if and when you do, you will struggle upon returning.
1. you will hate the lack of customer service you receive here.
2 you will hate how everyone is rude, dickhead, thinks they're gangster.
3. you will hate 711 here.
4. you will hate how the night life absolutely sucks cock in comparison
5. you will hate not being a superstar haha
6. you will hate how you can't train every where
7. you will hate not being able to get a can of beer from the vending machine downstairs
8. you will hate not getting completely tanked in a park under the sakura trees
9.... the list goes on

know what u want in your career and keep in touch with contacts, keep your skillsets sharp, heck even explore doing your real career's work there if you can.

i planned on going for 2yrs, and left. my previous company wanted me back and i knew this so i left. it was extremely painful to leave, the attraction of life in japan still haunts me today.. but for me my life and family and career r here. it is easy to fall in love there with the people, the lifestyle, the country, and the women of course.

i was there between 2004-2006, i have been back to visit about 9 times for periods of 1-4 weeks at a time. i even brought back my own little piece of japan with a fiance.

when you go, its so much more than teaching english, nobody will truly understand. you will come back different. i would suggest you invite your friends to come visit and stay with you after you've established yourself. i guarantee they will have the time of their lives and will tell u to stay so they can come again and party with u.

[Jer3]

some good advice here. thanks! luckily for me, i have a good knowledge of japan and a genuine interest for it and everything involving it (refer to my sig ). i'm going to try my hardest to get into JET since its been something i've been considering ever since starting my undergrad. i'm curious as to where your placement city/town was? i've got a few friends scattered around ranging from some in osaka, nagoya, tokyo and fukuoka. unfortunately dont know anybody in hokkaido strangely enough.

Originally Posted by ncrx

one other thing, have a back up plan, for when you come back. set your goals, be ready with a time line of what u want to do. i planned to only stay 2yrs, travel as much as i could, see as much as i could, party like an ass, and save 0 $ kuz i wanted the time of my life. i stuck to it.. rigidly.

i guarantee, you will not want to come back. and if and when you do, you will struggle upon returning.
1. you will hate the lack of customer service you receive here.
2 you will hate how everyone is rude, dickhead, thinks they're gangster.
3. you will hate 711 here.
4. you will hate how the night life absolutely sucks cock in comparison
5. you will hate not being a superstar haha
6. you will hate how you can't train every where
7. you will hate not being able to get a can of beer from the vending machine downstairs
8. you will hate not getting completely tanked in a park under the sakura trees
9.... the list goes on

funny you mention all this since its so true when i came back after a month stay in japan. that country truly changes your perspective on everything. i dreaded the last night i had in japan (which ended up interestingly enough at a kyabakura until morning followed by an earthquake).

[ncrx]

by the way, if u can go on jet, go now. they're thinking of scrapping the program to save costs.

[chun]

Didn't see this until now so here's my two cents.

I'm at the end of my one year contract here with Berlitz. There are a few routes you can take if you want to do this. Firstly, you can get into an eikaiwa like Berlitz, AEON, ECC, Gaba, etc. From my personal experience, including interviewing with the other groups, I chose Berlitz because it was the most stable and most professional of the groups. Management is terrible if you'd like to move up but it isn't hard to if you really want to. That all doesn't matter anyways if you are looking for a one-year stint. The company is reliable and has a lot of support for you regarding living here (work visa, guarantor for an apartment, etc).

Like the other people recommended, the JET program is good as well, but I have no experience with it so I can't chime in on it.

In terms of getting a job, the basic requirements are that you have a Bachelor's degree and that English is your native language. Other than that, if you are personable and not a complete dickhead, you can get the job. Currently, it's a very good time to come into it since many foreigners have gone home due to the disaster situation. They are hiring. Not to mention that a lot of the big companies in Japan have decided to turn to expanding internationally, so there have been a lot of big contracts between eikaiwas and Japanese companies.

It's absolutely fantastic and if you don't have anything better to do back home, and if you're young, I completely recommend it. Don't worry about the discrimination blah blah blah. That's only what people that have never been to Japan think. I am also Chinese-Canadian and there haven't been any issues whatsoever (nothing even remotely close). The people are amazing here and you will only benefit from gaining a more internationally-minded view.

Good luck with your decision.

(btw, first step is the working-holiday visa from the gov't... requires $2,500, passport in good standing, a return airline ticket and about a week or two processing time, very easy to get)

[neggo]

I don't mean to revive an old thread but as a recent University graduate I'm very interested in going to Japan to teach.

Other than JET, what other agencies are good to go through? From what I understand, JET takes in hopefuls yearly with the process almost taking a whole year before you get sent to Japan and that's only if you're chosen. What are some reputable agencies that take people in all year round?

[instantneedles]

Neggo, if you don't mind me asking, what major/concentration did you graduate with?

Also, If you graduated from UBC, your best bet would probably be to stick with JET, because UBC has alot of ties/connections with the JET programme.. I know they show up at UBC yearly to recruit new ALTs and such...

[neggo]

Part of my degree is a minor in English and I also have a bit of background in Japanese as I've taken 5 or 6 years in formal classes. I try to keep it sharp by doing language exchanges from time to time as well. I am, however, a SFU graduate and not UBC :P

JET's application opening doesn't start until October/November D:

Guess I can wait! But I think going ASAP at the tender age of 23 would be best for me. Gaining this type of experience at this time of my life, I think, is very important. Don't want to be in a full time career later on in my life and suddenly decide to leave everything and go.

[instantneedles]

Originally Posted by neggo

Part of my degree is a minor in English and I also have a bit of background in Japanese as I've taken 5 or 6 years in formal classes. I try to keep it sharp by doing language exchanges from time to time as well. I am, however, a SFU graduate and not UBC :P

JET's application opening doesn't start until October/November D:

Guess I can wait! But I think going ASAP at the tender age of 23 would be best for me. Gaining this type of experience at this time of my life, I think, is very important. Don't want to be in a full time career later on in my life and suddenly decide to leave everything and go.

Yeah man, I definetly agree with you on this.... Alot of people are telling me that I have plenty of opportunity later on in my life to go to Japan but imo, once you get settled down with a career and everything, itd be hard to take time off for this..