Job Discussion Forums

[King of Babylon]

Hi everyone,

I am considering going to Japan next year to... (you guessed it!) teach English, and, having never been there before, I am curious about something. Do the Japanese have a more restrictive concept of what it means to be from a 'white', or 'western' country that they expect their English teachers to be from?

More specifically, do they have the belief that one would need to be anglo saxon/northern european in appearance and other caucasian varieties not deemed to be understood to be really British, or American, Australian, Canadian, etc... ?

I guess with images they get from the media, their ideas of stereotypes would be somewhat more entrenched, but I could be wrong. If anyone knows enough to at least speculate on the matter, please enlighten me.

[Nismo]

From my experience, Japanese prefer White females when recruiting for English teachers. They prefer American English (as in official California dialect - the accent you would hear spoken on American Sitcoms), although you won't have any trouble as an Australian. One of my good friends from Perth works as a teacher in the heart of Tokyo, and another friend from Brisbane has had the opportunity to teach English as well, although she's just there for schooling.

Cheers.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[PAULH]

[BradS]

I'm from Sydney and 80% of the teachers at my branch are Aussie too. In fact we only have 2 Americans on staff!

There has been numerous incidents where students can't understand the British Accents, but Australians are fine.

Socially, they think America invented the wheel and everything else under the sun. Hell, someone thought Irish music was American! Besides that, there is a tendency for Japanese people to think that all white people are the same and SOUND the same too (except the British ) It can get frustrating, but I always take the opportunity to educate them.

[Nismo]

Japan has this love of everything American. I don't understand why. America is just their favourite of foreign cultures right now. Maybe it's because Americans are such opposites of Japanese: Loud, boastful, opinionated. I'm not trying to justify their preference, but Japanese just do prefer American English.

That being said, most of them can't even tell the difference in dialects. Just to give you an example, a group of Japanese mistook me and my Australian friend for being siblings. That is absurd, being that I have a California accent and she has the accent of whatever you might consider being typical of Brisbane. They couldn't tell our accents apart.

[Joannda]

Yeah, that's exactly right. I went to a high school in Osaka for a year, and there were a few other exchange students, including others from NZ and 2 from canada. None of the Japanese students in our classes could really tell the difference. They seem to have a very stereotypical view of anyone that looks 'western', although I guess the same is true of a lot of 'westerners' opinions about 'asians'. Whether you are from Australia, New Zealand, Canada or America, you're pretty much the same to them!
One of my funniest experiences at my school was when some of my classmates asked if I knew Leonardo DiCaprio... I mean really!! I've only ever been to the states once and I certainly didn't meet any celebrities (not that he was really that famous at the time, or that I would've known him in a crowd when I was little anyway!) I wouldn't worry too much about it! If you look western, that's good enough a lot of the time! Even if you don't (ie. if you are of asian/african/indian decent or whatever) if your english is good/fluent, there really shouldn't be any grounds to discriminate against you!

[worldwidealive]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[fabulous floating flotsam]

Some schools claim to hire British English speakers only like Shane. Some claim to hire only North Americans, like ALS. In reality they have other nationalities working for them. Some Japanese still believe in the superiority of one English over another. A relatively few are convinced that the superior language is Brisish English, but more and more believe American English is the standard. So regardless of where you are from, at some point you will be rejected from a teaching job in Japan because of your nationality. You will not be told that this is the reason, of course.

There is also a lot of personal preference here. Most Japanese prefer a white teacher, and as already mentioned, a female. Black teachers can get hired, but some managers will refuse to work with a black teacher or claim that it will be bad for business. Who gets hired for a specific job will be dependent on the image already held in the mind of the manager or recruiter. If that image is of a young, white, bubbly North American female, then they will choose the closest match from the applicants. How that image is forged in the first place is another topic.

I've noticed that Asian looking teachers can have a rough time here. An English school in Japan is a mini travel agency and the teacher is one of the tourist attractions. If you don't look and act differently from the locals, they won't feel they've been abroad at all.

[Eleckid]

FFF, you're absolutely correct with the asians having a hard time here. That's why I don't get to teach adult classes or any kids class with moms (ex. babies & moms). Not even our black head teacher gets adult classes. Only the white-blond teachers get them cuz I think most staff at small eikaiwa think that their adult students like to be taught by a white teacher, & the school likes to show off how many white teachers they have. My boss even told me that 1 asian teacher (me) & 1 black teacher is enough. She wants white blond teachers for the rest. FFF is dead on again for the schools being a travel agency, sometimes to me like a zoo or museum where you get to see "real" foreigners..blah..