Job Discussion Forums

[shonuff]

Hi all,

Does anyone have ideas as to the number of native speaker English teachers there are in Japan? I know I can start with approximately 6000 JET ALTs, but how many others are out there plying their 'trade'. Does anyone have figures, or a reference for such numbers?

Thanks!

shonuff

[PAULH]

I dont think you will get accurate figures on each nationality as no one has ever stopped to count them, and you have people coming and going all the time.

According to a survey published 6 years ago the population of English native speaker foreigners in japan (including businessmen, on spouse visas and artisans) in 1995 is as follows

http://www.stat.go.jp/data/kokusei/1995/17.htm

Americans 39,000
Canada 5,824
Australia 4,759
New Zealand 1,814
United Kingdom 8,800

I would say a fair number of these are part time or full time working as language teachers here.

[shonuff]

Thanks for that Paul. I also got pointed in a similar direction by another person, and I got some decent figures for 2002 at http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/nenkan/1431-02.htm. I also included Ireland in the sample and came up with just under 95,000. Just how many of them would be teaching English is another matter, but I think one could assume a pretty good percentage of that figure would be involved. BTW, this is for my doctoral studies, hence the need for a good reference point. Thanks once again.[/url]

[viddy]

I presume a significant proportion of the American population are soldiers...?

[PAULH]

Viddy

there are something like 70,000 US military in Okinawa and its my understanding they are not included in the statistics because of the SOFA agreement
.
You might also argue that although they are physically in Japanese territory soldiers are stationed on US military bases which technically are non-Japanese military institutions and a kind of US territory with their own currency and shops, and off limits to ordinary Japanese.

[nihontone]

Guys,

Interesting subject. thanks for the URL info.

CHEERS
NIHONTONE