Job Discussion Forums

[tcatsninfan]

My wife and I have been looking around at different schools with which to apply in order to teach English in Japan.

Just recently I discovered James English School. Their website says that the school was founded in 1976 and all the branches are in northern Japan.

They appear to be an eikaiwa. However, unlike most eikaiwa, their pay is listed as a monthly amount rather than hourly. This is how it is listed both on a job listing and on their website.

I have been hesitant to apply with eikaiwas up until now because of the hourly pay...I've heard many stories of people only being able to work 15-20 hours a week and not being able to save any money.

I think we're going to go ahead and apply at some point in the near future, but I thought I'd ask the forum here: Has anyone heard of James English School or, more importantly, has anyone worked for them or is anyone currently working for them? What are the conditions like, compared to say the JET Program or a big name dispatch company like Interac?

I'm looking for any information whatsoever so that I'll know ahead of time what we're getting into. It doesn't have to be a walk in the park but I have to be sure I'd get enough work hours to survive and such. I know there was another thread about James English School, but that thread hasn't been touched in many years and was focused mainly on interviewing with the company and not general info about it.

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on the situation.

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

What a lovely worded query. I've heard of them, but can't help you. I know someone will soon, tho...

New or first time posters over on the ME boards could learn a lot from your manner of asking for information...

NCTBA

[Mr_Monkey]

Well, you've been misinformed on several counts:

1. In order to sponsor a visa, the sponsoring organisation must stipulate a monthly salary, not a wage.
2. People working 15-20 hours a week and not able to save money are either on a self-sponsored visa and failing, or are otherwise outside of the normal visa regulations most foreign English teachers work under - they may have a working holiday visa, for example.
3. Those working within the guarantee of a salary who cannot save money are probably working for a shady company that pay (much) less than the old standard of �250,000/m. Either that, or they piss it up a wall every weekend.

If a company wants to sponsor a visa, they guarantee a salary.

Unfortunately, I can't advise you on what it's like to work for James English School, but I hope I've set some other (very important) things straight.

[Rakuten]

They are a real school and if you do a simple search on this forum, you will find a lot of information about them- along with a number of positive reviews.

I had a Skype interview with them, if you have any specific questions about an interview with them, feel free to ask. I know another user on here who worked for James and gave me a lot of helpful information about them as well. I'm sure he'll be along with more information if you ask nicely.

[PO1]

Yes ask nicely and I will divulge!

James is a good school. They are only located in the Tohoku area of Japan, so you may be teaching at a smaller school more than likely (most of their schools seem to be in smaller cities, save Sendai).

They pay monthly, usually between 250,000-260,000 a month, depending on experience, etc. You'll teach the regular spectrum of eikaiwa, with some company classes.

You'll do a Skype interview (I did a phone interview only). If you have further questions, feel free to ask here.

[tcatsninfan]

Thank you all for your great and encouraging information! My wife and I really do appreciate it.

My wife and I have been trying to get to Japan for awhile now but have been very cautious. As I said, I've heard many stories of people being told one thing as far as salary goes and then reality being different once they get to Japan. This seems particularly true of the eikaiwa. I didn't know they had to stipulate a monthly salary though. If you look at the job listings on Gaijin Pot, for example, most of the eikaiwa positions list an hourly or daily rate rather than a monthly rate.

Living in a smaller city and working in a smaller school is absolutely no problem. In fact, that's what my wife and I would choose to do even if we had the choice between that and working in a larger city.

@PO1

Well, as I said we haven't applied with them just yet but will be doing that very soon. I did have a couple of questions if you wouldn't mind answering them.

1. On their website, they make it a point to say that they train their teachers fairly well and provide a lot of support for them. Do you believe this to be the case? For example, I know there is a large difference in the amount of support teachers receive from the JET Program as opposed to, say, Interac.

2. Their website says to bring about 100,000 yen with you for setup costs, but a lot of the other companies say to bring 500,000 yen. Is this because James English School provides the key money and various deposits for your apartment, or are they just being much more conservative with the amount of money they recommend you bring?

3. This last question is going to sound kind of odd, but are they straightforward with regards to what kind of people they're looking to hire? My wife and I, we aren't certified teachers but we do have teaching experience, both young children and college age adults. We're very open to new situations, we're outgoing, and even though we don't have a ton of solid teaching experience we do have quite a few years of solid work experience under our belts. We are definitely going to try to adopt Japanese culture as much as possible, too.

Does all this sound like what they're looking for? These are the points we're going to elaborate on if we get chosen for interviews. I only ask this because we've applied at other places previously but haven't had much luck yet.

[PO1]

[tcatsninfan]

@PO1

Yeah, we realized awhile back that chances are only one of us will be employed, at least at first. Our plan right now is to get to Japan with at least one of us being employed, and meanwhile the unemployed one can spend more time learning the language, doing volunteer work, applying for jobs, etc.

I think both of us will be able to find employment once we've been living there for awhile, even if we have to take jobs with different companies. Maybe one of us gets hired by an eikaiwa and the other an ALT dispatch company.

We're trying to keep open minds about the whole thing. The big thing I'm focused on is making sure we're able to save a little bit of money every month...not a whole lot, just enough to show that we're not living paycheck to paycheck.

We really appreciate all of your helpful information. Thank you.

[ernie9]

Does anybody know if the Skype interview with James is video or just audio?

[Rakuten]

[Glenski]

JES has been given some fairly good reviews from people on forums like this.

To compare how they operate vs. Interac or JET is pretty silly. Eikaiwas don't operate like ALT dispatchers or JET.

Eikaiwas have small classes.
Students usually come to your office, and you teach alone.
Homework is not usually the norm.
Students pay for their lessons.
You can be expected to work any of the 7 days per week, since that is when the clients (students) are available. Hours may be noonish to 9pm.

ALT situations have larger classes, 20-40 per class.
You are the assistant teacher (the A in ALT), so you do what the Japanese teacher of English (JTE) says. Experiences vary considerably.
Homework is highly possible.
Students' parents pay for the lessons.
Such courses are pretty much mandatory for the students, so motivation can be quite low, especially in the upper grades.
You work only Monday to Friday, from 9 to 5 roughly.

I don't know why you think most eikaiwas advertise salaries in hourly wages. Perhaps that is how Gaijinpot wants them to do it, but most ads will show a monthly wage.

I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket if I were you. To try applying for jobs in the same company/school is not likely going to get you much. Employers know that couples argue or want to take vacations at the same time, so unless JES is advertising for couples, I'd be wary of both of you getting hired.

Based on what you wrote about your experience teaching, I'd say you probably suit what they and most places are looking for. Just realize that the market here is horribly flooded and therefore highly competitive.

[PO1]

Just throwing this out there, but in 2008 James English School was the first place I applied to in Japan. I was offered an interview with AEON but then I didn't go after I was offered a job by James. I enjoyed my time at James and I would recommend applying there. Just be aware that they only have schools in Tohoku, so your options may be limited as far as location. There are some decent size cities in Tohoku, but it's lots of countryside.

By comparison in 2010 I interviewed for three companies and was hired by the third. Guess I just got lucky?

One job I didn't get because I couldn't speak enough Japanese. The other I didn't get because I indicated I have the tendency to be nervous with new students. Not always good to be completely honest in interviews I suppose? Learning how to interview a lot of times will give you an edge over other people. In the crowded market, learning how to interview and sell yourself is more important than credentials IMO.

I would definitely go back to James if the option arises in the future. I'd have to change my visa status, but people seem to indicate it's not that difficult to do.

[Okonomiyaki]

Hourly versus monthly wages:
Jobs that offer hourly or daily wages are almost certainly PART TIME jobs, and therefore nothing that you, as visa-needing foreigners, could do. A typical visa-sponsoring job will list a combination of hours & duties: 25 "contact" (i.e., classroom) hours, plus another ten or 15 office hours during which you write lesson plans, give free evaluation-lessons to prospective customers, or *shudder* even go out on the sidewalk to hand out flyers like a human spam machine.

Some schools will "up" the number of classroom/contact hours to as much as 35 or 40 classroom lessons per week. Be afraid...be very afraid! Also be aware that many schools don't count commute time while calculating your working hours. So, for example, if you finish a classroom lesson at 3pm and have to leave for a corporate on-site lesson that starts at 4pm, the intervening hour that you spend commuting is NOT counted as work-time, though you will be reimbursed for gas or bus tickets.

For a normal visa-sponsoring full-time eikaiwa job, therefore, write out a little list of the job's expectations and compare it to this list:

25 contact/classroom hours (typical),
10 office hours (typical),
a minimum of gaps between scheduled lessons' TIMES AND PLACES (good luck), and
as much support for lesson-planning as possible. If you're just following pre-established lesson plans, then this really is a time-saver. If you're creating teaching materials and thinking through lesson plans carefully, then include this in your office hours and add as many as 10 extra hours per week to make super lessons.

HOW MUCH MONEY SHOULD I ARRIVE WITH?
100,000 sounds stupidly small, especially for a COUPLE. As other teachers hinted, the main initial cost is in housing, especially the real estate agent's "key money" commission and typically non-refunded cleaning and "tatami" deposits. Those extra fees are the size of one to four months' rent when you move into a typical apartment. Many schools have apartments you can rent without paying those exhorbitant move-in costs. The school will also have to be your "guarantors" on apartment rental, utility, and cellphone contracts-- this may leave you feeling locked-in to one employer, even though technically you have the right and ability to switch employers without losing your work visa.

So: when figuring out how much savings $ you'll need to chew through before you're only using your earned income, the most important factor is HOUSING. If you're poor, look for a school that provides housing and simply deducts rent plus utilities from your monthly paycheck.

It's simply untrue that all schools want solo teachers. I have seen occasional teacher wanted ads at OhayoSensei.com, for example, that specifically request married couples. Although it's unusual for a school to have more than one vacancy at a time, they may prefer a married couple to avoid...errrmmm... hormonally induced teacher-student problems. Which is to say, if you're here with your wife, you're less likely to be using the school to hunt for shagadelic babes.

Also, in general we foreigners in Japan tend to be a young, skittish lot on its first job and first big trip away from home. So not only are we likely to be hormonally irresponsible, but we're also likely to just fly home to the USA unexpectedly if we're homesick or sick of the job. Hence, a married couple may be seen as potentially more stable / less likely to be fly by night.

It's difficult to say whether a school would prefer that a married foreign-foreign couple BOTH work for them, or that only one work for them. On the one hand, if one of the teachers is incredibly untalented or otherwise a problem, then BOTH teachers would have to be fired, lest the social situation become very awkward. On the other hand, if a teacher's spouse is working for another English school, this may cause the teacher to leave this school and go work for the spouse's employee. This is traumatic to small schools because the students are loyal TO THE TEACHER, NOT TO THE SCHOOL... so when a teacher changes schools, the losing school loses students, not just a teacher.

BE PREPARED for some uncomfortable questions about birth control and your plans to have kids. Japanese employers will feel it's well within their rights to question your plans to have kids, especially if the wife is approaching 30-something. This is a cultural thing: in Japan, it's very common for women to quit their office jobs to go make babies and sit in a kitchen, when the woman reaches 30-ish. Therefore an employer has good reason to wonder whether he's hiring someone who may quit a few months from now as their biological clock's "big hand" moves from pointingn at "career" and starts pointing at "stork".

[tcatsninfan]

@Okonomiyaki

Very helpful, specifically some of the things you said about married couples. It makes a lot of sense, I just haven't heard it before.

[tcatsninfan]

OK, so I have an update to the situation with JES and wondered if you guys could give me some advice about it.

At this point I've submitted my information to the company. I contacted the appropriate staff member on October 19, about a month after I submitted my info, to get a status update and see how things were going, at which point she said that there weren't any open positions but that she had my information on file.

I was browsing Gaijinpot today, though, and noticed that on October 21 JES listed 3 different positions in different prefectures, and from the wording it sounds as if there are multiple openings per prefecture.

So my question is, do you think I should contact her again and ask her about the Gaijinpot listings or just leave things be? The staff member was described as a "go-getter" type of person by someone I've talked to, so she might appreciate the fact that I'm checking back in with her and staying active. Plus, I don't want to be seen as the candidate that doesn't have enough initiative/drive.

It's only been a few days since those Gaijinpot listings were created so she may in fact be preparing to contact me in the near future.

I just hope that they're still considering me. I know that it's part of Japanese culture not to specifically state that sometimes, but hopefully when she said she had my info on file she meant that she'd be contacting me in the future.