Job Discussion Forums

[Quibby84]

Has anyone ever heard of this school?
(I give up on the search/bring the subject back to the top thing)
I have been trying to find information about this school on the web as well as other Gajinpot and other places like that but havent found much...
so..anyone know anything?

[Patros]

I worked for them for a while... the pay was as advertised (that is to say, fairly low), but they were generally fair and honest. I did find the Japanese staff at the head office told a fair number of little lies, but it was always about stupid things that weren't really important. If you wanted something to get done you pretty much had to go to the foreign office staff, or the owner (Waka).

Your questions are pretty vague, but that was my general impression of the place.

[Quibby84]

Well we are not worried about the money as much as we are the many hours at work, since it is my husband AND I I think that we will have enough money.
How many hours did you work?
Did you make enough to save?
How was the working conditions?
How was the apartment?
WOuld you rather work there or at a conversational school?
Are you close enough to tokyo to be able to "be in the action"?
That is all I can think of now...
oh, what would you rate it from 1 to 10?
Thanks SO much for responding

[Patros]

I assume you'd be working as an ALT for heart, or else much of this isn't really relevant to your situation.

Questions 1 , 2, 3, (possibly 4), 5 and 6 could have easily been answered by asking heart, or searching this forum or the web. I'm not trying to be a tool, but most of the info on hours, money, apartments and possible locations is available from heart, and is more up to date. There're tons of resources about the ALT experience in Japan online.

1) I worked 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, a total of about 200 days a year. Heart had a large variety of contracts while I was there, mine was the most hours per year.

2) I made enough to save, but I am a thrifty dude. I was making 230,000 a month. I'm from Canada and I found it cost about the same to live in either country, as long as you're willing to be a little flexible. There are plenty of financial discussions and tips on the boards.

3) The working conditions were pretty much determined by the BOE, not heart. There were a lot of problems with my BOE, 4 of the original 7 teachers (including myself) didn't finish their contracts. While I was there 2 other teachers were given warnings by the BOE, etc. However, the 4 other ALTs who worked for the BOE about 5km away had no problems at all. Heart was very reasonable in trying to deal with the BOE, but they had put me in a tough spot (the BOE had requested a very experienced ALT for my school, and I had no ALT experience at the time.)

4) The apartment was a leopalace... they're small but clean and cost 60,000 a month including utilities (that was the standard heart deal, although some cities were not leopalace).

5) It's an entirely subjective decision. Search the forums for discussions on eikaiwa vs ALT. I prefered Eikeiwa. I loved working with kids at JHS, but hated all of the BOE drama.

6) That completely depends on where you wind up. It seems like you need to do a little more homework.... Heart sent teachers to Ibaraki, Tochigi and Saitama while I was there. You could be 3 or 4 hours away, or you could be 45 minutes away from Tokyo. You probably won't save much money if you go to Tokyo on a regular basis. There are plenty of cities that may be closer that are a lot of fun. I spent a lot of time in Utsunomiya in Tochigi, and I had a better time there than I did in Tokyo.

I'd rate Heart a 6.5. They don't offer the best pay, but they're pretty upfront about what they do offer. They were quite reasonable in dealing with BOE problems. But they were suffering a growing pains while I was there.

[Quibby84]

Thanks!
I dont know what a BOA is (I am pretty new to this stuff)
The ALT position is what we want, and I have looked at ALT vs Eikawa, and we decided on ALT, it is more of what we want to do. My husband wanted to live in Tokyo, but we may just live in a big city that is by tokyo because that may be cheaper and easier.
I tried to look up a leopalace, it looks like a hotel, is that what it is?
But they looked really nice and clean (which is most important).
From what you say and from the few things that I have heard from other people, Heart seems like a relatively good choice. We will probably do the interview and see what happens from there.
again, thank you so much for you time.

[Perpetual Traveller]

[Quibby84]

Is it like a college dorm room with no kitchen and no private bath or does it have those things?