Job Discussion Forums

jwbhomer · Joined: 14 Dec 2003 Posts: 876 Location: CANADA

These forums are for English teachers. I think there is no excuse for errors in grammar and spelling. If you can't write English with 99% accuracy -- noone's perfect -- you shouldn't be holding yourself out as an English teacher.

Sour Grape · Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 241

I see the first lesson for food has taken place. An hour long lesson based on magazine topics, taught in a park.

I bet that was a cracking lesson. Another kick in the face for those hoping for teaching English in Japan to be taken seriously and not dismissed as unqualified losers simply talking in their native language!

jwbhomer · Joined: 14 Dec 2003 Posts: 876 Location: CANADA

That is soooooo sad. Reminds me a bit of the hero in "Cabaret", trying to keep body and soul togther by giving private English lessons in Weimar Germany.

Zzonkmiles · Joined: 05 Apr 2003 Posts: 309

At what point will these former NOVA teachers realize that living in Japan is serious business and not some dreamworld? Seriously, you are living in a foreign country with NO income and almost NO recourse for getting your money back. And yet, they insist on staying because "they like Japan." This is absolutely ridiculous. If these teachers aren't able to find a new job soon, I think they just need to leave. Japan's not going anywhere. Why not go back home and then try to come back with an actual job? AEON generally only recruits from outside of Japan, so why not try to do so with them? Literally teaching for peanuts is a great way to further bastardize EFL teaching in Japan and it's not going to put money in your pocket.

Working for food is just a waste of everyone's time. Why these teachers don't even have enough money saved for a plane ticket home or a credit card they can use for emergencies is beyond me. It's as if the Japan "mystique" prevents people's common sense from taking root. I mean, this is LIFE we're talking about here--not some sort of "Japanese adventure" with no real consequences! Exclamation

Hoser · Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Posts: 694 Location: Toronto, Canada

wabisabi365 · Joined: 04 Feb 2007 Posts: 111 Location: japan

Vince · Joined: 05 May 2003 Posts: 559 Location: U.S.

Is there a link to this picture? Morbid curiosity beckons.

Never Ceased To Be Amazed · Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 10:53 am Post subject: Hear, hear

Hear, hear to Zzonkmiles! This is one of the first intelligent, informed, and mature comments I've read about during this NOVA debacle since learning of it shortly after the stern slipped beneath the waves. To have to listen to the yapping and the "Look at me! My grammar's more perfect than yours...therefore I'm self-actualizing" is for the birds! Embarassed

Ladies, this is an opinion board on an English teachers website and I don't remember it being exclusively for English teachers.

Getting back to my favorite subject, The Great Implosion of NOVA. Couldn't have happened have happened to a greater bunch of charlatans!
It amazed me to listen to the attitudes of the youngsters that I worked with there. It was all about getting laid or drunk punctuated with plans on going to some scenic part of Japan in order to get laid or drunk. So, the fact that many of them are stuck in Japan without resources or money is no big surprise.

Interestingly enough, many of the folks I worked with were from countries with working holiday visas...and I think that was the attitude most of them took...I'm on holiday with a little bit of working thrown in to feed myself, get laid, and get drunk. Many of the working holiday visa crew hadn't progressed past high school. And, that was their level of maturity.

It was humorous to have to physically have to control my eyeballs from rolling to the back of my head while my 15-year work experience in English language teaching body (which was working on the finishing touches of my M. Ed. in TESOL) was being told how to teach English from a kid from a New Zealand high school who had learned early on that being a toadie of the AAM would win him an AT's job.

From that moment on, I knew that NOVA was a tool and it was going to be the tool that I used to finish my Masters and not spend my hard earned savings on a Japanese economy that will suck your wallet dry.

I really feel sorry for those who really lost out on NOVA's collapse. And, I'm not surprised to learn that many of them are teaching for food in a suddenly saturated market. Possibly, some will be fortunate enough to take this as an object lesson and learn that life's not a fairy tale, but real. Hopefully, some may grow and mature from this experience.

NCTBA

Hoser · Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Posts: 694 Location: Toronto, Canada

keibafan · Joined: 04 Feb 2006 Posts: 2

The only thing as pathetic as a Nova manager or AT is an ex-Nova teacher on a 1-way air ticket who'll degrade themselves for food handouts.