Job Discussion Forums

[HLJHLJ]

nightsintodreams: it's a huge leap to start with your experience in a public school and end with a massive generalization about the differences between public and international schools.

For example, I have a friend in Japan who started with Interac, she left for a direct hire job in a public school. Then she found she was expected to only speak English while she was at work, but the other staff either couldn't or wouldn't speak English. So she either spoke to the kids or sat in silence; she ended up going back to Interac.

On the surface she was in the same position as you, as the only English speaker in the school. In practice, it was the educational culture of that specific school that made it a nightmare. Your situation is at one end of the spectrum, hers was at the other. You can't make a sensible generalization from either because most teachers are more likely to end up somewhere in the middle.

Equally, English speaking staff were a minority in the Japanese university I worked at, but we had no interaction with the Japanese staff. We were kept physically separate, with offices in different buildings, teaching rooms on different floors, separate staff rooms and separate admin staff. Although many of the foreign staff had Japanese wives, I never met any of them. The almost-obligatory staff parties were strictly work only.

At the international school I work at now the teaching staff are all foreign. However, like in most schools, they are outnumbered by non-teaching staff who are almost all nationals. The school makes no distinction between them so staff common areas are used by everyone, teachers, support staff, cleaners, etc. most of which don't speak English. Around half of the foreign staff are married to nationals. Work events are geared to families rather than just the traditional Japanese approach of just getting drunk together after work, so I'm friends with the non-foreign families of many of my colleagues. I certainly have far more opportunities for cultural integration and language development here than my friend had on her direct hire job, but it's still down to me to make the effort to do so, and not everyone does.

There are more national kids than foreign, and many of the parents speak little or no English, though some kids have one parent that speaks English (who may or may not actually be around). So although all educational material is obviously in English, newsletters, school events, etc are usually bilingual to cater for the parents. When needed, the school provides translators at parent/teacher evenings.

I know it's not like this in every international school, that there are people having thoroughly miserable experiences in international schools all over the world. But it's the attitude of the management that determines the school culture, and for me that's what matters most. The differences between public/private/international schools are a trivial detail in comparison.

[nightsintodreams]

[HLJHLJ]

[nightsintodreams]

Tbh it doesn't surprise me too much, what with all the English only rules implemented within this industry. I still meet the odd Japanese person who really struggles to have a conversation with me in Japanese and people who drop in odd English words sporadically throughout a conversation are more common than not.