Teaching in Japan for Mid-Career Folks

I got a question from a reader wondering how one could go about moving to Japan to teach English when already beyond the age limits for JET. Here’s my attempt at an answer.

I have never officially done the English teaching gig, so I don’t have a lot of first hand information, all of the information below is based on conversations with friends more knowledgeable than I.

If anyone reading this has more suggestions, please contribute and add them in the comments!

Private Language School Companies

The usual route is to get a job with a private English teaching company.

This would require you to do the traditional job hunt routine, sending resumes, and taking interviews. Only if you’re not in Japan, in most cases you’ll have to do all of this via email and the phone. To make things even more difficult, the hiring company also must be willing and able to sponsor your visa to Japan.

This all sounds difficult when compared to finding a job in your own town for example, and it is, but it’s not impossible and people are successful all the time.

The easiest way to get an English job with a company Japan while still in your home country is to apply to one of the big English schools, such as Nova, ECC or AEON. However these days you must be careful, because the big schools are filled with horror stories of poor teacher treatment.

Recently Nova wasn’t able to pay their employees on time!

These companies will hire about anyone with a university (college) degree. Using a big English company as a way to get a working visa, and then leaving to work for a more legit school is something many, many foreigners have done. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend this myself, as it’s a bit shady, but it is one way to get things done and basically legal.

Private Eikaiwa:
Nova
ECC
Aeon
Geos
Amity

Contact Companies

You can also get a job with contact companies that will send you to other schools to teach. A big one that was recommended by a friend is Interac. Translators will be familiar with Interac because they take on freelance translators as well.

Contract Companies:
Interac
Four Seasons - regional
Altia Central

Resources

Dave’s ESLCafe - Loads of teaching English as a foreign language resources, and a great community of people teaching English around the world. Check out their International Job board, they frequently have Japan positions posted.

OhayoSensei - Newsletter of English teaching jobs in Japan.

Jobs in Japan - Job search site.

GaijinPot.com Jobs - GaijinPot.com has a great job listing and active community as well.

Lastly, don’t forget there are more places to teach than Japan! If Asia is your thing, and you’re looking to work somewhere with a fairly strong currency so you can save some money, don’t overlook South Korea and Taiwan! I have a friend in Seoul right now teaching and he loves it.

I’m sure I am missing a lot of information here, but this should get you started.

If anyone else has other information, please post in the comments and I’ll see about getting it integrated with the original post to make it more useful for others trying to get to Japan!

- Harvey