Job Discussion Forums

matador · Joined: 07 Mar 2003 Posts: 281

Just wondering...how do you think the English teaching scene in Japan has changed in the last 10 years?

PAULH · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 4672 Location: Western Japan

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

BenJ · Joined: 11 May 2003 Posts: 209 Location: Nagoya

Socrates used to whinge about the declining academic ability of his students too... same old story, different century.

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

My 6 years in Japan have seen pretty much what Paul wrote. I'll just add that you can't expect to get a private lesson that pays 10,000 like it used to. It's down to half or less than half of that. Some students even expect a teacher to take 1500 yen per lesson per student. The really sad thing is that some teachers are desperate enough to accept it.

High school stats where I work confirm lower academic ability.

Also, the turnover rates at some of the Big Four are much earlier. Instead of staying a year or year and a half, some show teachers leaving in less than a year.

There seem to be a lot more PT jobs advertised, too.

It also seems that more eikaiwas want their teachers to already reside in Japan, somehow proving their determination to be here and teach seriously rather than pop in just to support their entertainment habits by showing up in a classroom.

In my freelance proofreading of resumes in the past couple of years, there also seems to be a rising number of people joining the ranks of teachers wannabes from the IT sector.

You can read all about the Ministry's proposals on SELHi's (Super English Language High Schools), and on bringing English into the elementary schools in the past couple of years. Fairly pathetic attempts, or at least poorly organized ones. Add to that the notion that they wanted Japan to be the world's leader in IT in the next 3-4 years.