Job Discussion Forums

[PAULH]

[PAULH]

[skomand]

Well, to be honest, when I first asked the question, I thought you could request a branch to work at. But now I know you can only request a "region." I think that lead to some initial confusion here. I thought they were the same thing, actually.

[PAULH]

[skomand]

So if I were looking to be placed in a Tokyo suburb, with no more than an hour train commute to Tokyo, could you suggest a nice area?

[PAULH]

[ripslyme]

What's the best suburb of Toyko? You might as well ask "What's the best suburb of New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, etc..."

[skomand]

well, i'd just like to hear if someone knows a nice place, and why they think it's nice, that's all. i'm not really looking for an objective "best place"

[PAULH]

[craven]

I did almost 2 years at Aeon before switching to JET. While there are no sales quotas for foreign teachers per se, you WILL have to take part in sales campaigns, and you WILL be pressured to sell things to students. Aeon does this in the form of "counselling" sessions held twice a year between the foreign teacher and the student. They tell the students it's to get feedback on their progress, but you have to recommend whatever book Aeon happens to be selling at the time to "help" them.
You may also be asked to attend parties where students can practice their English, and hand out flyers on the street.
I'd avoid the entire Hokuriku area (west coast...Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui)...

Let's all try and be pleasant to each other folks...the negative tone this board has taken in the past few months has been really off-putting.

[Chris21]

I'd like to second the suggestion to be more positive on this board. Skomand, you seem to be taking a lot of flak for very reasonable questions (at least they seem reasonable to me).

As for Tokyo suburbs, it really depends on what kind of life you want to live. If you don't care about high rent, and don't mind living in a small place, then I think Shibuya is the most exciting place in the city.

If you'd like to live a little quieter, I think Machida is a nice place. It's about equadistant to both the center of Tokyo and Yokohama. You can catch an express train on the Odakyu line that will get you to Shinjuku in 35 minutes, or take JR into Yokohama in about 30 minutes. There's also a Costco in Machida, in case you're interested in buying foreign foods. The one drawback is that there is an air force base, and the loud jets and soldiers on leave may be a bit unpleasant. Although military bases surround Tokyo, so you'll have the same problem pretty much wherever you live in Tokyo (unless you live in the center of the city). Anyway, Machida is my recommendation.

[Apsara]

The wards of Tokyo I think are most pleasant for working and living- Meguro, Setagaya, Suginami. All well connected by lots of train and subway lines and within 10- 20 mins of Shinjuku and Shibuya. Mix of high- and low-rise residential areas with some parks and not too much industry. Fairly densely populated near the stations but not too bad as you get furtherout.

Interesting places for shopping and eating or just hanging out like Shimo-Kitazawa, Jiyugaoka, Daikanyama and Kichijoji are very close.

Aeon and Geos both have loads of schools in these areas and there is a good chance you would be living near your work place.

Even if you were placed elsewhere in Tokyo it would be worthwhile looking in to these areas as somewhere to live.

[movinaround]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

I'd recommend giving JET another shot. Use the year to upgrade your skills (take ESL teacher training, if you haven't, get experience in teaching, get experience in Japanese things). Try to get feedback on where you went wrong in the first place (Statement of purpose, experience, education related to your own country and to Japan). Probably the most common error is to start writing how much you know about Japan and what going to Japan will give you, rather than what they actually need- somebody who can talk about their own culture and what they can give to Japan. Knowledge of Japan is evidence of an interest in it beyond the paycheck. Knowledge of Japanese should be pretty obvious given that most JETs are in rural areas where very few people speak English.

While JET is not limited to teaching English, it is basically the whole job. JETs often teach culture as much as language (which doesn't say we teach a lot of culture, just that we don't teach that much language), but often not explicitly in a 'This class will be about the culture of X country' sort of a way. Nor would the kids be interested in that type of a thing, usually.

Three years is the normal limit. There are now fourth and fifth year positions fro elemenatary ALTs and prefectural advisors. I'll be starting a fourth year as an elementary ALT in a little over a month. Fourth year positions require a new application, this time in Japanese, and an interview, which is also in Japanese.

JET is also useful because being in a regular school is good experience for getting into a private JHS or SHS after (except that the JET start and finish dates are not the same as the time of year that most companies hire- many people who want to do this spend a few months either in their home countries or studying Japanese language or TEFL in Japan while waiting for the hiring season to begin). Or else they simply get a couple of part time jobs that they can leave easily. The most common thing to do seems to be to go to graduate school, though.

[craven]

Yeah, I second giving JET another chance...that being said though, I appreciate it because after 2 years of eikaiwa, I was more than happy to have ample free time to study. People who aren't self-motivated (studying Japanese, online degrees, writing, etc) tend to feel pretty underused in the public schools. Some people can handle the sales atmosphere of the eikaiwa chains, but I found it pretty unpleasant. I'm much happier in the public school system.

You also make a fair bit more money to start...the catches are a)the timing/lengthy interview process and b) chance of being stuck WAAAAYYY out in the outback!