Job Discussion Forums

desu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 38

Right on, I interviewed in Montreal too - mid march?

Go Mtl crew! haha

COE took me about 2-3 months to arrive. If you have been assigned an arrival date, you should get it about a month beforehand, leaving you plenty of time to process the visa (about a week), etc

ciccone_youth · Joined: 07 Sep 2009 Posts: 59 Location: Tokyo

desu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 38

The visa is free, which is pretty sweet. Donna indeed, I might try and help her to set up a forum for teachers who were hired out of the Toronto office to talk to each other (which is something we could really use! Something to match bigdaikon for PKC teachers).

I do miss Montreal, but it's pretty cool over here too. Tokyo and Montreal both have a great sense of style.

ciccone_youth · Joined: 07 Sep 2009 Posts: 59 Location: Tokyo

desu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 38

Yeah, like I said I got lucky with my location. It's very scenic and not too far from the amenities I need - there are people with better locations of course, but they are the ones that tended to have stayed on more than a year and were transferred there after making a request, I'm quite sure. So, a great place to land for a new recruit!

I think you have every reason to be excited, don't forget that the two weeks of training will be rather intense, but after that, and the initial settling-in phase, you will be quite comfortable with the relatively light schedule and rather all-inclusive curriculum as a foundation to build your lesson plans on.

Just keep in mind that if you want to make the lessons fun and interesting (for both you and the students), you need to be willing to put the extra work in to adapt the base curriculum to truly fun learning activities that will keep them laughing and learning at the same time.

Beyond that I can't recommend much else so far as I am relatively new myself.

ciccone_youth · Joined: 07 Sep 2009 Posts: 59 Location: Tokyo

beach_lover · Joined: 09 Sep 2009 Posts: 11

I'm sure someone will say differently but in my experience it's hard to get a phone these days. Your PS might take you, or else you can sweet talk a Japanese colleague. I went with the local bar owner who speaks excellent English! But too many foreigners have done a runner leaving big bills behind so it's hard to get a contract. Most phone shops will try to make you go on pay as you go or make you buy the phone upfront even if you get a contract.

I got round this by being given someone's old phone and just buying a new sim card on contract. A colleague had to wait til there was a phone sale on and buy the phone outright. Maybe it depends where you go. You also have to wait a couple of weeks after you've got to your area until you have your ARC/gaijin card before getting hooked up. That's why I found those first few weeks so tough!

Internet...they tell you how on training. It's really easy! They tell you the website (which is in English) to apply to.

desu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 38

You will probably be given some amount of help getting a cellphone and internet set-up from your Performance Supervisor or someone else - if worse comes to worst you can always ask one of the Japanese Teachers to help you out.

You still have time to ask for a preferred general location - although they only ask you if you want to request suburban or rural, I think they take general area requests to some degree as well - at least, they seemed to accomodate my request rather nicely.

Since you are getting the (once) standard 250K/mth, it's definitely enough to live on, even to save with and/or pay off student loans (I am trying to do both so we'll see how well that works out, I'm going to try my best to live frugally but after all it can get a little bland if you do it for too long). I feel sorry for those who are accepting 200K jobs with potentially higher overhead costs for sure. Sure JETs get 300K, but they have to deal with living in strictly rural locations for the most part - for me, that's not worth the extra 50K, not by a long shot.

Hope that answers your questions!

ciccone_youth · Joined: 07 Sep 2009 Posts: 59 Location: Tokyo

Thanks so much again!! The phone situation is very similar to the one in Korea, so that shouldn't be a big issue if I can find an old one. And I got your PM- thanks a lot, I'll write you back soon Wink

desu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 38

Oh yeah, and if you are all about ultra-fast internet connections as I am, go with OCN or Asahi, there's a number you can call where you will get English assistance, maybe someone in your area will know about it. You need a credit card for Asahi so I went with OCN, and I am glad I did! It's actually a bit cheaper than ADSL (YahooBB, etc) for some reason, and waay faster!

ciccone_youth · Joined: 07 Sep 2009 Posts: 59 Location: Tokyo

beach_lover · Joined: 09 Sep 2009 Posts: 11

I asked, rather vaguely, to be by the sea and this is exactly what I got, if you don't mind a 5 minute train ride.

ciccone_youth · Joined: 07 Sep 2009 Posts: 59 Location: Tokyo

desu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 38

Yeah, I literally ended up being a 3 minute walk from the ocean, without even requesting it. Then again, a considerable amount of the population lives along the coastline, so I guess it isn't all that unusual!

You'll probably have a better chance of getting a large region request accomodated (Kyushu, Kansai, Kanto, etc) than a specific city or something, so keep that in mind. Just because the chances of a position in a specific city becoming available that month are a little less than 1 in 12.

ciccone_youth · Joined: 07 Sep 2009 Posts: 59 Location: Tokyo

Kyushu or Kansai would be my top picks! I'll mention it to Donna.

Otherwise, I really don't mind anywhere, I like the unexpected! Most places in Japan sound quite beautiful.