Job Discussion Forums

[wintersweet]

Do you have any personal impressions or other information about (teaching English at) these schools? (I know none of them are on debito.org's greenlist.)

- Yokohama City University
- Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
- Koryo Women's College

Please PM me if you prefer not to post here. Thanks!

[taikibansei]

My personal experience with these three is limited to having given a presentation at one of them 10 years ago. That said, after just now reading their job ads, I have strong opinions about two of the positions offered.

- Yokohama City University

Pluses: The salary is better than what you'd get on JET. The teaching responsibilities, if satisfactorily fulfilled (i.e., if you can get a letter of rec.), will position you nicely for further employment in Japan.

Minuses: The ad for this position is filled with red flags. First, regardless of your performance, your stay there will be capped at three years--i.e., you will be out on the street in 2010. Furthermore, instructors "will be expected to be on campus during class break periods and may be required to teach extra classes during these periods"--i.e., unlike your Japanese colleagues, you will have no guaranteed vacations (and I'd be very concerned about whether those extra classes would be paid). Moreover, Yokohama City University, like the other Japanese universities that have tried to introduce a TOEFL standard, will find it very challenging to ensure a sufficient number of students each year meet that 500 TOEFL goal; suddenly hiring five "temporary" TOEFL experts demonstrates their belated awareness of this. Given that 20-25 students is actually a very challenging class size for that student population (beginning to intermediate Japanese students studying English in Japan) and program goals (500 TOEFL after just two years), you will be under a lot of stress. Worse, by the time you successfully acclimate to the needs of your students and the demands implicit in those "clear objectives," you'll be kicked out...not a great deal, imo.

- Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

Pluses: As it's a national university corporation, the salary will be very high.

Minuses: This position is capped at five years, meaning even assuming you do well and survive the first contract, you will be kicked out by 2012. Per their ad, your predominate responsibilities will be assisting students (and your colleagues) in writing and presenting their papers. This, on top of the teaching and testing responsibilities, is a huge amount of work. I.e., it is a dead-end position--you will have little to no time to do your own research, the teaching duties you have will not position you for better jobs later, and you will be forced to vacate in (at the latest) five years.

I couldn't find an ad for Koryo Women's College--pm me the information if you want.

Unless you are only thinking short term and for the money, Yokohama would be the best...of two bad choices.

Best,

Taiki

[wintersweet]

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm not planning to relocate to Japan permanently, so I can live with a capped term of employment (even though that kind of policy, the restricted age ranges for some jobs, etc. all seem very counter-productive to me).

Since I (will) have an MA and no teaching experience within Japan, there are only a handful of jobs I can apply to. Plus, I missed a lot of the fall deadlines due to being buried under grad school work. So I'm just watching for anything I'm qualified for.

[Glenski]

[taikibansei]