Teaching English in Japan..

If you Google these keywords "teaching English in Japan" you will likely come up with a lot of information, including a lot of advertisements from language schools in America promising you job positions in Japan. I don't know much about the big language schools like Aeon or Nova. I heard both good and bad comments from teachers that worked there. But I do know that you don't need them to find English teaching jobs in Japan, because they are abundant. Finding English teaching jobs (I will refer to this as "ESL" from this point - English as a Second Language) isn't the problem. The problem is finding a school to sponsor your working visa, which you must have to legally work in Japan. You can find schools that will hire you for contract work without a visa, but be cautious. This is illegal.

Most of the information I will give you will pertain to when I was living in Yokohama in 2005 & 2006. It's possible that legalities and/or the economic conditions have changed since then. So do your homework and find out all you can about working in Japan before you make the leap. It was a good experience for me overall, but it wasn't something I wanted to do for many years.

Also, keep in mind that I am American, and unlike America, Japanese labor laws are dependent upon your nationality. So Chinese, Americans and British for example all fall under different Japanese labor laws in terms of working visas. I remember there were a couple of Australians that I met that were on "holiday visa" for 6 months. This allowed them to stay in Japan and legally work without obtaining visa sponsorship from an employer. However, this option is not available to Americans. No, I don't know why. I've only heard rumors about why this is the case.

I never went with one of the big language schools because I went on vacation to Japan before deciding to move there and teach ESL. I had considered teaching in China or Taiwan, but after my initial vacation to Japan in July 2004, I had decided that I wanted to go to Japan. If you can afford to take a vacation prior to moving there, it is a great opportunity to go on a few job interviews. Technically, I heard this is illegal - looking for jobs while on a tourist visa. But I also heard that many foreigners do it, and unless someone turns you in to the authorities, it's not likely anything would happen to you. A lot of the smaller language schools like to meet you this way in person, so unless you want to teach for one of those giants like Aeon or Nova, this is another way to go. The giant schools you can interview with in America - usually in major cities like Los Angeles or New York City. If you want a job with a smaller, cozier school you will need to be in Japan for the interview.

Basically, the working visa is good for one year. At the end of that year, you can reapply for a one year extension. You will need an employer to sponsor your initial working visa and each subsequent renewal. I had some coworkers that upon their 3rd extension request, meaning they had been working in Japan for 3 years, they were granted a 3-year working visa, meaning they did not have to worry about renewing it for each subsequent year. This can be really nice if you want to just do contract work and teach private lessons without worrying about teaching for a language school to maintain your visa sponsorship. Contract work pays higher, but you don't earn any vacation days. Private lessons are of course students that you teach in your home or at a cafe. At the time I was there, contract lessons usually paid about $30-$40 an hour, though I knew some people that claimed they were being paid more. Teaching at a language school you generally are paid a salary - something in the 250,000 Yen a month range would be average - that's roughly about $2,500 a month depending upon the current exchange rate. But usually the schools will get their money out of you by "forcing" you to work longer hours or weekends - remember it is a salary, not an hourly wage at the language schools. However, my experience wasn't too bad, though I always worked Saturdays, which was a little annoying.

Private lessons depends upon how good you are really. I charged about $25 and hour. There were a few students I picked up for less than that when I was running lean, but I never charged below $15 an hour, and I had a few students I charged $30 an hour when business was booming - summertime! I placed ads in local papers and put up fliers on community bulletin board to find students. When I was checking ads in papers, I saw some foreigners charging as little as $10 per hour for lessons. However, generally speaking many Japanese people do not mind paying more money for what they consider to be a better product. If you charge $10 an hour, the perception likely will be that you aren't any good. And you likely will only attract those students that are difficult or unmotivated in some way.

Many Japanese people like to take private English lessons. It's sort of a boasting point to their social circle. So keep this in mind that some of them may really want to learn English, but for others they just want to keep up appearances. This is a good thing to keep in mind as well when you are teaching at a company - the company forces the workers to study English. Some of them like studying English and realize it can advance their career, others despise being forced to learn English and may even tell you so, and some fall somewhere in the middle. Also, for your private students, it is polite to offer something to drink for each student if you are hosting the lesson in your house. I always kept tea and coke on hand. If you meet in a cafe, usually you pay for your drink and the student pays for their drink.

2004 - 2006: Adventures in Yokohama

Brief background:

I made my first trip to Japan in July 2004 and followed it up with a subsequent trip in August, which was less of a vacation and more to make plans to move to Yokohama in fall 2004. I lived in Yokohama from September 2004 until late in December 2006.



My time spent living and working in Japan was a mixed bag. There were both up and down times, things I enjoyed and things I disliked. My original "plan" as it were was to remain in Japan only 6 months to 1 year. In June 2004, the University research study that I had been working on as a study coordinator ended and although I had a few job offers, nothing quite matched the prestige, office location or salary that I had for the past few years working on that study. And after having an alluring vacation to Japan in July 2004, I began to think more seriously about something I had considered over the past few years - living and teaching English in Asia. I don't really recall whether I chose Japan or it chose me as a matter of circumstances. None the less, there I was in August 2004 making a return vacation to Japan for the purpose of finding work, a visa sponsor and living arrangements. Fortunately, my research job as well as a small internet business I had started over the past couple of years had provided me with ample savings to both take a couple of vacations to Japan and to move there in September 2004. I rented a nice 2-bedroom, 2-story house in Yokohama - a long commute from the ESL school I had found employment at in Tokyo.

But as these things often go, 6 months or 1 year became more than 2 years before I moved back to Phoenix. Though to be fair, by summer of 2006 I knew I was ready to return to Phoenix and it was then simply a matter of saving money and making the arrangements to return, which I did in December 2006.

The Positives:

People often ask me if I enjoyed living in Japan. It sounds like an easy question to answer, "yes" or "no", right? But it really isn't quite that simple. There were both things that I enjoyed and disliked. I did have some interesting experiences while living there - things that would likely never have happened to me living in America. Number one, I was able to do a little acting - a small part in a Japanese feature film. It was basically an extra role with a couple of lines. But it was so fun to do, and this is something that I had always fantasized about, acting in a movie - seeing myself on a movie screen and having a DVD to keep and remember the experience. Okay, I never thought that it would be a Japanese movie (!) and honestly although I thought about it from time to time in America, I never wanted to be one of those desperate wannabe actors, so I never tried out or went to any film auditions in America.


In October & November of 2005, I went on vacation to the beautiful island of Guam. An island I'm quite certain that I would have never visited had I not been living in Japan, given it's much closer proximity to Japan (only about 3 hours by plane) than to America. While on my vacation in Guam, I had the opportunity to visit the Plaza de Espana. This was the historical headquarters of the "Governor" of the island when under Spanish rule, which the island was for more than 300 years!

I had other interesting adventures in 2005 as well - I visited Tokyo Disney Sea and Tokyo Disneyland and I visited Tai Pei, Taiwan on a vacation in January 2005. It seemed that 2005 was full of adventures and new experiences, and after the initial adjustment of living and working in a foreign country, the positives started to outweigh the negatives in 2005.



The Negatives:


But by 2006, the adventures began to wear off. Return trips to Tokyo Disney Sea and Tokyo Disneyland did little to keep my interest in remaining in Japan. I had grown tired of the bad weather, the cloudy/rainy days, the long cold winters, and I had grown tired of teaching ESL. Those were the biggest factors for me to begin thinking about a return to Phoenix in 2006. I missed the warm sunny days of Phoenix, I didn't want to suffer through another 6 month long winter in Japan, and I wanted another career position in research, I had found out that teaching ESL was not nearly as fun as I had envisioned. I think the only high point in 2006 was going to watch the movie I had a small acting part in at the theater, though I was disappointed that there weren't many people in the theater. I was hoping to get noticed! LOL...


The first year, everyday was a new adventure:


One of the reasons that I overstayed my initial plan of 6 months to a year, was that everyday really was a new adventure. Not only the vacations to Taiwan and Guam and the day trips to Disney Sea and Disneyland, but each day there was something new to see and do and learn. Simple things like trips to grocery stores, eating out, walking to the train station, bicycling, visiting local places in Yokohama. All of these held adventures. I remember when I first moved there in 2004, I used to go to this little New Orleans style Benet shop in Honmoku-cho. Unfortunately, it closed in January 2005, so that was short lived. But there were other small things to enjoy as well. I remember how fun it was to experience Christmas in Japan in 2004.

2010 update: Visit my website for more travel adventures & photos. Since returning to Phoenix from living in Yokohama I've travelled to Thailand several times. You can visit my website & my new blog at www.danielalandogarcia.com
or simply click the photo icon of me on this blog - then follow the link to my website.