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universities vs. high schools
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Mosley



Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Posts: 158

PostPosted: Fri May 23, 2003 12:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

After reading your post, "Smooth Operator", I can only say that your command of spelling, grammar and syntax entitles you to the ESL "heaven" that you are so evidently entitled to. Are you a "university" teacher?!!!
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Smooth Operator



Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Posts: 140
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Fri May 23, 2003 2:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not a suprise to receive a sneering reply from you. You've posted here a few times without offering anything positive or factual. Do you have any first hand knowledge to offer????
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Reesy



Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Posts: 31
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2003 2:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
While I was an eikaiwa teacher, I designed and implemented an advance essay writing course, I did student evaluations and counselings, taught classes, did prospective student interviews, and a host a business campaign leadership responsibilities. As for your inference that quality wouldn't make an eikaiwa a lot of money, I tried to teach quality lessons, and I made my eikaiwa a whole lot of money. That job is very different than the job that you have now, and it is very different than the job I have now, but I'm very proud of what I was able to accomplish in that construct.


I applaud you Mark for your hard work in this job and I hope that more of the major eikaiwas in this country would adopt a business plan that takes into account that by hiring hard working teachers that are committed to what they do, you can make a lot of money by virtue of the fact that you are providing quality service.

I will also say that my original posts about eikaiwa was too general. As we all know there are thousands of eikaiwa operating in this country and many of them provide excellent English instruction, and genuinely care about their staff and students. The majority of this type, however, are independently run.

The "Big 4" on the other hand, aim to make money by volume, cutting costs and operating as cheaply as possible IMO. Financially, this makes sense, but educationally.....? The majority of my criticism is aimed at these outfits and not eikaiwa in general. I am sorry if I offended anyone.

Quote:
Textbook writing? Ah-HA! So, it's *your* fault, is it?! Wink


Seriously, what texts - Monbusho or general? I'd seriously like to have a talk with one of the trained monkeys that contributes to a Monbusho text.

In three years working at a high school I have found four texts (out of over 100 I've looked at!) that didn't make me want to scream or cry. Mostly, I fail to understand how so many companies can put out so many books that are just so consistently banal.


Oh yes, the textbook situation in Japan. Appalling and another of my favourite targets. I completely concur with you G Cthulhu and my failure to find an appropriate text for a first year communication class led me to look into writing my own. I got together a proposal and fortunately, one of the major ELT textbook publishers liked what they saw. It is scheduled to be on the shelves this autumn. So no, I am not writing for Monbusho and I would say that there is not a snowball's chance of my textbook getting approved by them.

To give you a brief overview (because you asked Very Happy ) , the book is intended for learners who have acquired sufficient vocabulary and grammatical competency in theme/task based English courses to engage in controlled conversation, but lack the ability to carry this knowledge to less structured, freer speech situations. The syllabus is communicative and hinged around 10 learning/conversation strategies. The learning strategies help students to become familiar with the pragmatics of English conversation and teach stuff like follow-up questions and the use of rejoinders. The conversation strategies help students to overcome linguistic gaps as they occur in conversation. After teaching each strategy, the book includes activities which allow students to engage in free fluency practice so that they learn to apply what they have learned more spontaneously and subconsciously.

So, G Cthulhu, I hope that if you ever see my book, it will not make you cry. Even if it only makes you sniffle a bit, I'll consider it a small victory.Wink

Quote:
To Reesy (I think?), going to all those meetings and doing those sales pitchs to high schools, are you tenured? They've got you doing a lot of extra work there?


No, Smooth Operator, I am not tenured, but at the end of this contract year, if my employer is happy with my performance, I will get offered. To be honest, I don't think I have that much "extra" work. I look at all of my duties as part of my job. Also, considering I only have to be on campus 4 days a week and am given 4 months of paid holidays I would be a rather deluded, ungrateful, arsehole if I ever thought for one second that I was being overworked or unfairly burdened.

And please don't misunderstand, I am not doing endless "sales pitches" at high schools. I did 4 demonstration lessons all of last year and am scheduled to do one this year. It was just one example of some of the non-classroom duties that I have.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Reesy
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JGreen



Joined: 26 May 2003
Posts: 4
Location: New York City

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2003 4:06 pm    Post subject: What's Required for University Positions Reply with quote

Reesy, you have certaily sold University teaching over high-school to me.

I was just in China and there I know it's just about as easy to land a University position as a high-school one. But is an MA required? It need not be a prestigious school, but hopefully not a house of deadbeats either.

I have a BA, TEFL cert and 6 months exp. I've not yet been to Japan. I want to be in a rural setting teaching students with a moderately high maturity level. Any suggestions on how to begin researching these types of schools? I felt that most of the job postings were for kindergarten.

Thanks a bunch.

James
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Lucy Snow



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 218
Location: US

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2003 5:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The minimum qualification for getting a university job in Japan is an MA. From many of the ads I've seen lately, a lot of places are even asking for a Phd and some Japanese ability. I'm sorry, but the qualifications you listed in your posting are just not enough to land a university job in Japan. The competition is very fierce, and you'd be up against people with a lot more education and experience than you have.
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PAULH



Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2003 9:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just in case you are interested: here is the JALT jobs pages which lists university jobs. Most require an MA or a PhD

http://www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/jobs/

You need a minimum of a Masters for part time work and previous college experience. Some schools also ask for refereed publications. Full time work requires a Masters or a PhD, at least 3 publications, at least 2 letters of reference, and Japanese ability is often required.
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Reesy



Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Posts: 31
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2003 12:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi James,

I think Lucy and Paul pretty well summed up the situation in Japan. It is highly competitve and the minimal requirements are becoming more stringent every year.

A person named Dan started a similar thread a couple of weeks back asking about what is required to teach university in Japan. You should still be able to find it in this forum. There are lots of posts there explaining in much greater detail the ins and outs of working at university in Japan. Unfortunately, Dan didn't like the answers that he got and became rather "obstreperous" (Dan liked using words like that). Nonetheless, the info is there and it is worth reading.

Also, the fact that you don't have the qualifications now, is no reason to not work towards them. If you have the time, money, energy, and inclination, get your MA in Applied Linguistics or a related field and build up some experience and publications. It takes time, effort, and a certain amount of good fortune, but if working at universities in Japan sounds like a good fit for you, please give it a try.

That's how it started for me. After working in Japan for 3 years at the high school level I decided I wanted to work at university after meeting a Japanese English professor who asked me to teach a guest lesson in one of his classes. We became good friends, and I often visited him and his students on campus. It was during this time that I decided that teaching at the university level was something that I wanted to do.

I went back to my home country to get my MA and beefed up my publications. Also, if you are certain you want to work in Japan, I would advise you to focus your research on some aspect of Japanese education/society/history/etc. I focused all of my studies on Japan-related issues and this was definitely of benefit when trying to secure a job.

So, the situation is certainly not hopeless. If you are willing to be patient, focused on the long-term and work hard, you can certainly get a post secondary teaching job in Japan. However, please be aware that it will not be easy.

Hope that this helps,

Reesy
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PAULH



Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan

PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2003 12:29 am    Post subject: Re: What's Required for University Positions Reply with quote

JGreen wrote:

I was just in China and there I know it's just about as easy to land a University position as a high-school one. But is an MA required? It need not be a prestigious school, but hopefully not a house of deadbeats either.



MA is required for part time work Many will not even grant you an interview without an MA, even at a lower ranked school. there are so many MA grads out there looking for work its not funny. the last job I applied for had 100 applicants for 3 positions. I got on shortlist of 10 from those candidates and I have full-time experience.

Because of the competition teachers can often not be choosey about where they work as there are many people applying for the same jobs. But you have to get in somewhere, get some publcations underway, and develop contacts.

I dont want to sound condescending but with no Masters you are not really in a position to make value judgements about your students when you dont have the qualifications yourself or proved yourself academically or professionally (i.e with a Masters and publications) Do the work first, get the qualifications and publications and THEN you can be choosey about where you apply for.





JGreen wrote:
Reesy, you have certaily sold University teaching over high-school to me.

I have a BA, TEFL cert and 6 months exp. I've not yet been to Japan. I want to be in a rural setting teaching students with a moderately high maturity level.


Thanks a bunch.

James


Students in first year of Japanese university generally have the maturity of high school students back in the US as they have a delayed matuartion- alll their energy has gone into passing the entrance exams. So they tend to be a bit childish at times.


You dont say where you want to work but most of the 'name ' universities are in urban city areas and that is where kids want to go to. Though I cant speak for all universities smaller universities in rural areas tend to attract local kids and the entry requirements are generally lower. Nowadays its possible for many 'country' students if they have the money or connections to get in any (private) university that they apply for (within reason- they have to be able to pass the entrance exam first) even if they lack the academic talent. the bar is being set lower as schools try to attract more paying students.
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