|
Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
marley'sghost
Joined: 04 Oct 2010
Posts: 255
|
 Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 12:01 am Post subject: |
 |
|
The bunny won't die.
Never worked for them. Have a buddy who did right when it went belly up. Best thing that ever happened to him. The people in his Nova classes still wanted lessons, so he just rented his own office space and started his own school. A lot of hard work, and a bit touch and go at first, he admitted, but he's doing great now. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Rooster.
Joined: 13 Mar 2012
Posts: 247
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 1:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| RM1983 wrote: |
| To be fair I never heard of NOVA as being THAT bad to work for, it was more that they were run by morons who managed to run it totally into the ground and take down 3/4 of the industry with it |
I've heard of it being the second worst eikaiwa to work for in Japan right after GABA.
| rxk22 wrote: |
| Rooster. wrote: |
| After Nova went bankrupt in 2007 in has been under the name G. Communications, Jibun Mirai, and again Nova maybe one or two others. If I remember correctly it is owned by two different companies now that continue to both use the same name. They also bought out Geos. |
I looked it up a few years ago ooc, and yeah it is a pretty complicated situation. Looks like it has been bought and sold, as well as some areas having had the rights purchased. |
Yeah, I know that my comment was an over-simplification of it. I've tried looking up what exactly has happened but finding information, at least in English, is very difficult.
| steki47 wrote: |
| Shimokitazawa wrote: |
No, you are not being 'fair.' Nova was indeed 'that bad' to work for.
It was and is a terrible company. |
I was at the old Nova for four years and had both great and horrible experience there. In terms of teaching, working at smaller eikaiwas made me miss the professionalism and consistency of Nova. Seriously, the other places were ridiculously disorganized with zero infrastructure and usually with some tyrannical middle aged woman barking orders at everyone. Such is the industry.
I made pretty good money at the old Nova. Starting pay was better than elsewhere and after four contracts and two promotions, I was raking in more than I ever have since.
The personnel at the old Nova ranged from awesome to horrible. I am still friends with some of the teachers and staff from my old area. On the other hand, I remember quite a few socially deficient teachers. One female teacher physically assaulted a friend (beat him over the head with a skateboard) and a drunk Geordie threatened to "kick my f"$%& ass" over the phone. A few of the foreigner managers were quite hostile and quick with personal insults.
I still think their training program was top notch compared to anything elese I have seen in eikaiwa. |
How much were you making? I have heard that even though there was so much wrong with the old Nova that at least they could get paid a lot.
Their website says 253,000 yen a month but it's nearly impossible to get that working their starting hours now which is somewhere around 37. Most people will take home 200,000 starting out now.
What was their training program like? I wasn't exactly wowed by this version of Nova's training. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
steki47
Joined: 20 Apr 2008
Posts: 1029
Location: BFE Inaka
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 12:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Rooster. wrote: |
How much were you making? I have heard that even though there was so much wrong with the old Nova that at least they could get paid a lot.
Their website says 253,000 yen a month but it's nearly impossible to get that working their starting hours now which is somewhere around 37. Most people will take home 200,000 starting out now.
What was their training program like? I wasn't exactly wowed by this version of Nova's training. |
I was grossing Y380,000/month at the end.
The initial training was rather decent in my opinion. It presented a task-based lesson and explained the lesson stages as leading up to the more student-centered role play at the end. Nice work with immediate and delayed feedback as well.
Everyone talked trash about Nova for so many reasons. Myself included. On the other hand, when I was doing a MS in ESL Edu I saw a lot of the Nova method being supported by contemporary language teaching theory.
Doesn't change the fact that it was run by a corrupt nutjob and often staffed by idiots and psychopaths. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Inflames
Joined: 02 Apr 2006
Posts: 486
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 7:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
Apparently pay for new instructors is around 1,000 yen per lesson, plus allowances.
The company has also apparently been introducing other contract types (independent contractor) and requiring new instructors to take them.
The one thing I always wonder is why someone would stay there when they could get a job somewhere else and make a substantial bit more. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 8:07 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Inflames wrote: |
Apparently pay for new instructors is around 1,000 yen per lesson, plus allowances.
The company has also apparently been introducing other contract types (independent contractor) and requiring new instructors to take them.
The one thing I always wonder is why someone would stay there when they could get a job somewhere else and make a substantial bit more. |
Bleh on independent contractor contracts. That is just a way to exploit workers. Like Yoshinoya did with their people. Nova def is a place that at most, is a foot in the door in Japan. I'd walk out the second I had a chance. No reason to be loyal to a crappy company. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rooster.
Joined: 13 Mar 2012
Posts: 247
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 2:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| steki47 wrote: |
I was grossing Y380,000/month at the end.
The initial training was rather decent in my opinion. It presented a task-based lesson and explained the lesson stages as leading up to the more student-centered role play at the end. Nice work with immediate and delayed feedback as well.
Everyone talked trash about Nova for so many reasons. Myself included. On the other hand, when I was doing a MS in ESL Edu I saw a lot of the Nova method being supported by contemporary language teaching theory.
Doesn't change the fact that it was run by a corrupt nutjob and often staffed by idiots and psychopaths. |
If I could have made that I would have stayed. There is absolutely no way I would be making that much even under ideal circumstances.
Part of our training was done over Nova's own Skype-like machines (they apparently made them right before Skype and were planning on going global with them but lost out) with a person either in Tokyo or Nagoya. It made no sense why because it's not like there weren't qualified people all around us and there still was another trainer in the room. We just talked about the order of how to do everything. This was for about two or three days before we went to another location to actually apply what we had learn and then learn about teaching kids. They didn't teach you how to properly space everything out so you didn't run over or come up short.
| Inflames wrote: |
Apparently pay for new instructors is around 1,000 yen per lesson, plus allowances.
The company has also apparently been introducing other contract types (independent contractor) and requiring new instructors to take them.
The one thing I always wonder is why someone would stay there when they could get a job somewhere else and make a substantial bit more. |
Actually it's technically 800 yen an hour, but the extra 200 is nearly automatic. I don't remember what the 200 yen was for. You can also get another 200 yen, not as easily, for doing something else I don't remember, maybe it was for being on time. You also get a bonus for averaging more students and one on one lessons and for getting a certain ranking out of five.
The student one wouldn't work for everyone. When I started working one of my locations had just opened up and I was the only teacher and the most students I had at once was three I believe.
| rxk22 wrote: |
| Bleh on independent contractor contracts. That is just a way to exploit workers. Like Yoshinoya did with their people. Nova def is a place that at most, is a foot in the door in Japan. I'd walk out the second I had a chance. No reason to be loyal to a crappy company. |
Nova is good for getting you into the country to a specific place you want. Since they have so many locations and such a high turnover rate they can usually place you near where you want to be. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 11:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Wow, so the 1000 yen an hour, is real? That is pretty awful.
That is the way to do it. Come here with Nova, choose your location, and bail once you line something up.
With those wages, and contractor status, their turnover rate must be nearly 100% per year. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rooster.
Joined: 13 Mar 2012
Posts: 247
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 4:00 am Post subject: |
|
|
| rxk22 wrote: |
Wow, so the 1000 yen an hour, is real? That is pretty awful.
That is the way to do it. Come here with Nova, choose your location, and bail once you line something up.
With those wages, and contractor status, their turnover rate must be nearly 100% per year. |
Nova also has a bad housing policy. It's not as bad as Aeon/Amity's because you don't need to use their housing, but if you sign a contract with them and leave before six months you have to pay 10,000 yen for every month left either up to the six months or up to the year.
I worked with some people who had been with Nova for a little while. I guess that staying for over a year is rare, though, because I've heard of one case where someone was offered a higher position essentially because he was decent and had stayed. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 12:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Oh yeah, Aeon is weird. I was married at the time, and had no interest in their 1K. But they'd still charge me anyways even if I didn't want it. Never could understand that.
Gotta love some eikaiwas, attrition is your only obstacle in your climb to middle management! That has to make for some awful conditions. Where their is low morale, and the boss may or may not know anything.
As for training. I think that is great. All the places I worked for, I was never given any real training. Not anything that would help someone who spent 10 mins on the net looking up how to EFL teach in Japan. Def some SMH moments at training. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
