Job Discussion Forums

[Zzonkmiles]

NOVA teachers are generally free to choose whichever lesson they want to teach (unless the student has a special memo). However, during the teachers' original training, they are told to teach the lesson that no students in the group have completed yet, or to teach the lesson that has not been taught for the longest period of time.

However, in practice, NOVA teachers tend to develop their own "pet lessons" and simply teach those same lessons to different students day in and day out. There are some teachers who avoid some lessons, while there are other teachers who can't teach some lessons enough. (I, for example, liked teaching lessons about ordering food in a restaurant and stayed FAR AWAY from teaching any lesson on the family.) There are 50 lessons in each level--some teachers have mastered teaching all of them. Others just choose their 4 or 5 "pet lessons" and are content with that. However, be warned--if all of your "pet lessons" are taken (e.g., other teachers taught them recently), then you'll have to teach a new lesson that you might not be comfortable with. And if you teach your pet lesson anyway (even though your student recently completed it), there is a good chance that the student will complain.

And be warned, there are some lessons that are poorly designed and fall flat. Word gets around to the other teachers and they stay away from them. So if you notice that lesson C17, for example, is ALWAYS available, there's probably a good reason for that. On the other hand, if you notice that all of your students commonly have completed lesson E43 multiple times, it's likely a popular lesson or one that is very easy to teach.

Also, NOVA updated its textbooks as of last fall. The new textbook is called "Diplomat." This textbook is much more up to date than the previous one was. The lessons are all based on this textbook. However, experienced instructors sometimes teach alternative lessons in which they completely design their own lesson and its content. Alternative lessons are not recommended for inexperienced instructors, as they might not have enough material to last 40 minutes or the lesson might be too easy or too difficult or too boring or whatever. Alt lessons can be on special topics or grammar points not covered by other standard lessons.

And finally, NOVA teachers teach eight 40-minute lessons with a 10 minute break in between each lesson. You will get a 40 minute break after the 3rd, 4th, or 5th lesson. If you're on a split shift, you will teach two blocks of 4 lessons each. This can be physically demanding, as you have to find files, write notes, and squeeze in your bathroom/smoke break during this time.

[Albright]

No ECCers yet, eh? Okay, I'll step up to the plate.

ECC has two types of adult lessons; Regular Lessons and Free Time Lessons. RLs are weekly at a specified time, whereas FTLs can be scheduled at any time and actually at any school in the nation. Going to Tokyo for a week for work but still want to get in your weekly English lesson? No prob. Quite a neat system, actually.

As the cookie crumbled, I didn't get any RL assignments; just kids lessons and FTLs. So here's how FTLs work;

There's five levels, each split into two sublevels. Level 5 is the lowest, and level 1 is the highest, though levels 2 and 1 use the same texts and lessons so getting to level 1 is just kinda showing off, I guess. Each level has ten textbooks (except for levels 2/1, which have twenty) which are rotated every six weeks or so. Each textbook has twenty or so lessons. This is enough that every once in a while I come across someone who has been stuck in the same level for two years but still hasn't done every lesson in a text.

Lessons are forty minutes long, and will have from one to four students. (The random scheduling practices of FTLs means you won't know which or how many students or which level you'll be teaching until you get to the school for the day.) Students bring with them their textbooks and "Passports," which are little red books in which the lessons that they have completed are marked off. After maybe a bit of warm-up chatter, I ask them each for their Passports and then line them up so I can see which lessons they have completed; if all goes well, there will be a few lessons that all of the students in the class have not completed that we can choose from, though sometimes there isn't and we'll have to do a lesson that one of the students has already done before (which is okay, but I try to keep that in mind and add some twists to make it a bit more tricky for that student so that they don't feel cheated). After we see which lessons are open, I ask the students which one they want to do, then usually end up picking it myself because most of the time when I do this the students will just gesture to each other and say "Douzo." "Douzo." Drives me nuts. Fortunately, in lessons with only one student (common at the smaller schools I teach at), the students are less hesitant about it.

Okay. Anyway. The structures of the lessons vary by level, but they're similar to what others have described about other schools; situation-oriented, with rigid structure practice giving way to looser structure practice and ending up with pretty loose (but themed) discussion until the forty minutes are up. The lessons are cake, actually; rarely stressful (especially when compared to kids classes!), though it can be frustrating when you get a student whose teeth you have to pull to get them to talk. I'm sure other teachers can relate to the "eto... eto... wakaranai" (uh, uh, I donno) types.

As Zzonk mentioned above, some of the lessons are better than others. God, I hated "Me too/me neither." And there's a lesson in this session of textbooks which is basically how to hit on people in bars and clubs, but fortunately I haven't had to do that one yet. But the good thing is if you hate a certain lesson, in six weeks they rotate the textbooks and it's gone for the year.

I too am curious to hear more about James... I'll take a winter full of snow any day over a humid Nagoya summer, so I'm thinking of making a switch next year (especially if it'll mean fewer/no kids classes...)

[tokyorabbit]

I`d like to jump in this thread and ask the ECCers and NOVA teachers a few questions.

1- How much "selling" do you do? Do you sell books, CDs, etc.? Do you interview new students and give them demo lessons?

2- To the ECCers, how much prep time do you do? Do you make materials for class or only use ECC materials? I believe the NOVA poster said there was no prep time before class and all he used was the NOVA book? Do you have to chat with students in between classes?

(I am not asking this to be cold.. I enjoy chatting with students, but sometimes 10 minutes isn`t much if you need to get a drink of water, use the washroom, grab a book, etc.)

3- What are the part time options at NOVA and ECC? How many hours/classes/days per week and how much can you make doing that?

Sorry for all the questions, but I would love the inside info from those who work for the companies.

[casual]

[quote="tokyorabbit"]I`d like to jump in this thread and ask the ECCers and NOVA teachers a few questions.

1- How much "selling" do you do? Do you sell books, CDs, etc.? Do you interview new students and give them demo lessons?

2- To the ECCers, how much prep time do you do? Do you make materials for class or only use ECC materials? I believe the NOVA poster said there was no prep time before class and all he used was the NOVA book? Do you have to chat with students in between classes?

(I am not asking this to be cold.. I enjoy chatting with students, but sometimes 10 minutes isn`t much if you need to get a drink of water, use the washroom, grab a book, etc.)


We arent pressured to do sales but we have to check levels and do the odd demo lesson which takes 15-20 minutes. this is put into your schedule so it counts as one lesson. I quite like demo lessons and level checks cos its quite easy and it only takes 20 mintues so the rest of the lesson is free.

Not 100% sure of part time routines at Nova but i think teachers work from 5-40 - 9 oclock tuesday to friday and 10 - 5 40 on saturday. they have sunday and monday off.

No real lesson preperation time.just check which lessons the students havent done and then quickly scan the lesson so you dont go in cold. Only takes a couple of minutes, and no one finds it a problem. If a student has done the lesson before there are alternative activities for each lesson so it isnt exactly the same as before.

Hope this helps
3- What are the part time options at NOVA and ECC? How many hours/classes/days per week and how much can you make doing that?

Sorry for all the questions, but I would love the inside info from those who work for the companies.[/quote]

[Albright]

I'm happy to report that in ECC you are a teacher and only a teacher; you never have to be a salesman. You will occasionally teach a demo lesson, and you get a bit of a raise at the end of the year if your resign rates are good, but the actual selling is all done by the Japanese staff. (And, to tell the truth, the yearly raise is so small it's rather inconsequential anyway.)

Regarding prep time, the nature of FTLs makes it impossible to really prep for them, so essentially none. Though sometimes after the books are cycled I'll skim through the new books to see what they offer. As for kids lessons, if I haven't taught that week's class before, I'll look over the lesson in the book either the night before or on the train ride to the school, then when I get to the school I'll prep by making sure I have all the flash cards and books and such that I need. I'll write a list of activities on the white board, along with the sentence or phrase structures we're practicing. I like to get to the school at least half an hour before my first kids class starts, though I've been as late as ten minutes early and had things turn out okay if perhaps a bit flustered. Some of my peers whine because this prep time before our first class is technically unpaid, but personally I don't think it's a big deal because we're not being paid by the hour anyway.

I use only ECC materials; we don't have much choice in that matter. Though sometimes if someone has a question that isn't answered in the textbook and I can't answer it for them, I'll look it up online and tell them what I found the next time I see them.

We don't have to chat with students between classes (though, at one of my schools, they requested that I do it with the children as apparently the parents in one of my classes are finding me a bit cold), but it's a small thing to do and it makes both the staff and the students happy, so what the heck. Sometimes it can actually be useful; I have to get a costume for teaching Halloween lessons to kids, so I asked one of my level 2 FTL students today if she knew of a place where I could pick one up, and she gave me some recommendations. So it's not like you still have to teach them during your break or whatever; just jabber. No biggie.

As for ten minutes between classes, in my case at least, whoever drew up the schedules was lenient enough that in most cases I have at least fifteen minutes before kids classes, though the common break before FTLs is indeed ten minutes; but like I said above, there's essentially no prep time for those so it's okay.

As far as I know, ECC's part-timers have shifts of regular lengths (~6 hours a day), but only have them a couple days a week. I've only met one part-timer, and that's the deal she had. There might be other deals available though.

And no need to apologize about the questions. These are good things to know.

[bucko2004]

Nova uses a book called Diplomat which was introduced late last year for low level students, and gradually introduced into all levels. As of last month, now all levels use Diplomat (obviously it's a different Diplomat for each level). Each Diplomat lesson as a specific theme to it - shopping, travel, buying tickets, common sayings etc. The student's text contains the following for almost every lesson:

Page 1
1: a few pictures up the top, to promote discussion.
2: a main language box with common phrases that are used in specific situations
3: a "tune in" box with a specific word or phrases highlighted - the students are to list to this being said by the instructor in a natural accent.

Page 2
1: two activities (match the phrases, guess the word etc)

They way the Nova books differ from other texts is that you really have to go to a class in order to use the book. It's not a "study on your own" because of the small amount of content and lack of explanation. You need an instructor there to be creating activities, clarifying phrases, thinking up examples of when you might use a phrase, and giving other phrases that aren't in the book. The text is basically just a guide, the aim is to have the students freely talking, with only occasional reference to the text.

Also, teachers can teach any lesson whenever they want. There is no "set lesson" for the week. There are 50 lessons for each level, and the instructor simply opens the students files, checks which ones they've done before, and chooses one that they think would be suitable (usually one they haven't done yet).

Hope this has helped.

[tokyorabbit]

Thanks for taking the time for such in-depth replies! I really appreciate it.
Wow, it's interesting to hear teachers at some other schools.

Recently, I have been feeling a lot of burn-out and started to question if I want to keep teaching or just go home and forget it. I tried to pinpoint what I didn't like and came to the conclusion that it's really the inordinate amount of selling that I have to do at my school (selling extra classes, demo lessons that are mostly sales presentations, books, CDs, videos, making posters for things we are selling, leading sales campaigns, folding promotional flyers, etc.) I can conservatively estimate that 50% of my working hours are spent on business activities rather than teaching. On top of all that, I recently was scolded because my students are not buying enough extra books / materials (despite the fact that I have suggested these items to them in a persuasive but respectful and classy way).

The good news is that I discovered that I still do enjoy teaching, just not the "business environment" that I currently find myself in. Honestly, this environment seems to just make students have less respect for the school and me as a teacher because they look at me as a salesman who is always trying to get more of their yen rather than someone they can trust for advice.

I've always thought that all eikawas were the same and that all teachers did "selling". Apparently, that's not the case. Looks like it's definitely time for me to change my working environment.

Thanks again.

[Albright]

Which school would that be, tokyorabbit?

I'm going through some burnout too... got two kids classes that are getting some parental complaints and the trainers are getting more than a little peeved. Most of my other classes are okay though -- I'd say at least half are actually good -- and my adult classes are just fine. But it looks like the rugrat classes may be my undoing in this career choice.

Must be those month six blues/"honeymoon's over" blues all the lifers talk about.

[kowlooner]

Thanks everybody for adding some great info, and especially Albright for telling us how the ECC method works. Very interesting! I do have a short question there though: do the students ever seem bothered by having to change (and presumably buy) textbooks every 6 weeks?

Thanks also to Zonk and Bucko for the extra Nova information. But still a question: don't the students get bothered by doing the lessons in an irregular order? Or is this a case where the students do not have the textbook themselves and thus aren't aware of the order of lessons?

And again a call to teachers at other schools (James, Wall Street, Geos, etc.)! What are your experiences? What is the teaching format and typical day like at your school?

[Zzonkmiles]

[Albright]

[nomadder]

A man to man lesson with an unmarried woman? Surely you mean one to one.

I had those forced lobby convos in my first school even if they weren't even my students. What were they thinking? Most were happier to stare at the wall than be forced into an unstructured convo. Many could bearly talk in a structured class situation let alone...Even my own students often lost their English ability when not in front of a book. This is Japan after all.

[kowlooner]

Thanks Zonk. So do your students have their own textbooks?

Also:

[Zzonkmiles]

Dude, you're thinking about this too hard.

You can get a lot of this information from the schools' websites, first of all.

As for class sizes, I'll tell you that at NOVA, your classes will always range from 1 to 3 students. The students buy the books from the schools directly. You don't have anything to do with selling textbooks, although you may have to teach demo lessons sometimes to get new students to sign up with NOVA.

Look, these students seem to have no qualms with plunking down globs of cash for these lessons (thousands of dollars). Don't worry about how much they pay for the books or their lesson fees, as that side of the eikaiwa equation has NOTHING to do with you. Put it this way--it's EXPENSIVE. And as for books, there's only one book per level. The staff often pressures the students into buying their crappy books and audio CDs, but that's independent of you.

And EVERYTHING is expensive in Japan. I've seen oranges for $2 each and a bottle of contact lens cleaner for $15. Hell, an ironing board cost more than a microwave at Yodobashi Camera ($100!). Simply put, Japan ain't cheap. So 1500 yen per book (it's probably more than that) is nothing.

There are about 550 NOVA branches of various sizes. You can be a mere number at the Multimedia Center (where there are about 300 teachers), or you can be one of a half dozen teachers at an isolated branch in the countryside. It's impossible to answer this question.

If you work at a small branch, your chances of being able to see the same students over and over again increase. If you work at MM, you'll likely forget all of your students' names after the lessons finish and you'll likely never meet the same student twice. You'll rarely run into your students outside of class, and you'll probably not want to hang out with them anyway. Besides, NOVA's contract forbids it.

Check out the stickies, man. Lots of these questions have already been answered--many many times.

Also, I no longer work at NOVA. I teach at a technical college now, so maybe things have changed. But since few other NOVA teachers responded...

[kowlooner]

Thanks Zonk, but I think you may have misunderstood the purpose of my questions. In my original message - the one that started the thread - I noted that I'd combed the Japan forum threads and stickies and found very few descriptions of exactly how English classes are taught at the chain schools (but lot's of posts about pay and vacation practices) and that it would be interesting to know exactly what a teacher would be getting into at these various employers in terms of the actual teaching situation.

And the school websites don't provide the sort of in-depth info we've been getting here. I'm trying to have a thread where the different schools are pretty cleared compared in terms the teaching environment, hopefully with a certain level of detail.

Anyway, thanks for the extra information. So at Nova, with your 1-3 students per class, how many students on average did you teach each day? Thanks also for the small school versus the multimedia center comparison. So a small place has around 6 teachers. How about those at other schools - Aeon, ECC etc? One might assume they'd be about the same in this regard. And again for other teachers, how many students on average do (did) you teach each day?

And does anybody else have questions they'd like to ask about other eikawa?