Job Discussion Forums

[croyfish]

I'm currently living and working outside Japan but am looking to somehow get my foot in the door for university work there. I've got a masters in TEFL and 10 years of high school EFL experience. What would be the best path forward?

Should I focus on first getting real university teaching experience elsewhere? Stay where I am and get studies published in journals? Try to get a language center job in Japan and then apply? Get a short-term placement through Westgate and look to move up after that? Work on becoming fluent in Japanese? A combination of the above?

Basically, my question is what is the most important thing universities who employ foreign English teachers are looking for? Especially people who are just starting out on academic careers. If anyone has any experience, anecdotes, or advice, I'd really appreciate it...

(I've got dependents, by the way, so any plan that involves several years of separation is less than ideal.)

[Inflames]

If you want to live and teach in Japan permanently, the best path forward is to have several publications, plus reasonable Japanese (enough to understand the admin side of the uni).

Your first job may not require both, but first jobs likely are contract positions, and jobs after that will almost certainly require reasonable Japanese ability plus at least one publication.

Kansai Gaidai and Ritsumeikan, both of which have poor reputations for full-time teachers, hire people from abroad (I believe that part of this is that these schools in particular have bad reputations for full-time teachers).

[croyfish]

Cool, that's what I was sort of leaning towards...

Ritsumeikan is the school I just applied to, since I've got a friend who was hired there coming from a similar situation, but I haven't heard anything back from them. That's good to know there's another uni that hires from outside, though.

I have read a lot of complaints about how universities try to turn staff over to avoid having to give them more benefits or job security, but that doesn't bother me a lot in applying. I'm just looking for a way to get university experience on my resume and save a little money for a few years, plus I'll be sending and taking money back to a country that's relatively cheap. I don't intend on living in Japan permanently.

Is it going to be difficult to become communicatively fluent in Japanese without actually living there?

Any other opinions or perspectives from others are welcome as well...

[currentaffairs]

Publications would make you more desirable. Start with any half decent entity like JALT or a TESOL organisation, and then work your way up. Some universities will be less stringent than others on what publications they will accept. Presentations at conferences are also valuable.

If you can get a full-time gig lined up before you enter Japan that would be a big plus. But, I don't know anyone myself who did it that way so be prepared to have to make other plans.

If you go to Japan be prepared to have to work your way up as the competition is quite fierce for the full-time university positions. In Tokyo, part-time work is fairly plentiful, though.

[taikibansei]

[currentaffairs]

I worked for Westgate on their three-month gig and it was a good way into Japan. However, it took time to build myself up and I had a full weekly load of university classes after two years.. In that time, I had to do some evening work at corporations and language schools.

[croyfish]

This is all very good information, and thank you for taking time to reply and offer advice. I wouldn't bring my family immediately if I tried to work my way up through a Westgate placement.

It does sound like, from what I have read and heard, competition is really heating up for these sorts of positions, and I may have missed the boat by a few years, as my friend was hired fresh off his MA just three years ago.

As requirements for better TEFL positions become more strict, it seems like we're all going to have to keep running just to stay in place, let alone move up through the ranks. Having an academic inclination and being motivated and willing to work hard to jump through whatever hoops are required has got to count for something, though.

I've got another friend who is moving to Japan to get married soon and is looking to get into university teaching (though in Spanish) as well who's got an MA and several presentations under his belt. I'll try to keep in contact with him.

Several different places, I've read that contacts and networking can count for a lot more in university placements than even qualifications, although your contact's proximity to the hiring committee would be the important factor. Any thoughts or experience with this?

[kzjohn]

It's pretty late in the evening..., but I don't think Westgate will lead to anything else. IMO you'd be dead-ending yourself there.

Ritsumeikan, Kansai-gaidai, if not perfect, then at least much better for presenting yourself as uni-experienced. Or a collection of part-time uni jobs in kanto.

My school has hired a few people (for fall and next april), starting a new department, but they're all on contract. The three I know of came from another local uni, all have tesol MAs, and to reinforce it--none were any of our present part-timers who might've thought someone would offer them something. Their publication/presentation lists were not even judged--they had decided they wanted tesol chits, people who were young (and would work cheap), and who would accept that along with contract status. I think full time might have been dangled out there, but I'm not sure. Schools can easily get people without needing to offer that, and mine has, I think, realised that.

>> Please pay attain to what taikibansei says--tho not completely correct in this recent case at my school, it very much is the way things have worked here.

[taikibansei]

[taikibansei]

[currentaffairs]

Obviously, if the OP can get a full-time university job while applying from abroad then that is the best way. However, Japanese universities are not known to recruit from overseas all that much and it is still quite rare to get a job that way. The majority of full-time jobs will be advertised through JREC for applicants already in Japan, recruited in-house, given to part-timers, or the positions will be filled through recommendations.

The Westgate gig is essentially a gateway into Japan. It isn't a particularly good job but it gives you a one-year visa and you can get your feet on the ladder. If the OP can't get a full-time job it might be an option because as you say, time is ticking. I doubt he will get a full-time job starting in October never mind any other job. Most of the recruitment has already finished.

[croyfish]

Still more good information and advice. I'm not in a such a rush to get something locked down. I've just reached the top of the ladder in my current TEFL situation and have come to the realization that I can't stay here for three more decades and call it a career.

I'm ready to try something new that at least offers career progression, but if it doesn't pan out, it doesn't pan out. The current plan is to finish my contract this year, publish one research study (70% finished already), do a 3-month Westgate placement while continuing to apply for uni gigs and at least be able to appear for interviews with a visa in hand, and return to teach at the university I finished my masters at if no one bites.

The uni here basically said I would be hired if I applied, but the starting salary is actually less than I make now as a high-school TEFLer. Anyway, better to be on the lower rung of a higher ladder when thinking long-term. The main reason I'm looking at Japan for some opportunities in the future is that it's a country my family and I feel good about, having traveled there before and knowing some people who work in the country already, plus the favorable exchange rate with where I live.

However, it does look like the future prospects are not so clear, as mentioned here already. That is, unless the country undergoes a new wave of internationalism or students begin to prefer foreign English instructors for whatever reason and are able to pressure schools and the government to make funds available to hire more of them.

[mitsui]

My plan is the opposite. I will go back to the US to teach at the high school level.
As you get older you should think of your retirement and retirement pay.


If your spouse is Japanese then I can understand why you would live here.
Otherwise, it just seems like a diversion.

[croyfish]

She isn't, and she'd also prefer to stay closer to her family for the time being, which means Asia, at least. It may be a diversion, but it can't be a bad thing for the future to have university teaching experience--especially from a "developed" country, on the resume, particularly if I do have to eventually go back to the US and do ESL, get a pension, etc...

As for retirement, we'll be able to pay off the mortgage on our (inexpensive) house here in relatively short order if I can make a bit more money than I'm making now, and filial piety is still the order of the day in the culture, although I'm not sure how that may change in the future.

I'm mostly looking for the opportunity to make headway into an additional Asian country to have two job markets to choose between, especially since the tide seems to be turning pretty heavily against TEFL in general where I am. Some of you who've been around the neighborhood can probably guess where that is by now.

[taikibansei]

Croyfish, I almost hesitate to ask, but just to confirm: That MA you have was received from a university based in an English-speaking country, right?