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Interac Lowering Salaries For Returning Teachers

 
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Black_Beer_Man



Joined: 26 Mar 2013
Posts: 453
Location: Yokohama

PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:20 am    Post subject: Interac Lowering Salaries For Returning Teachers Reply with quote

At least this is that case for one teacher that I just talked to. She was an ALT in an elementary school. After teaching a year, she was offered a renewal of her contract with a 30,000 yen a month pay cut 230,000 yen > 200,000 yen.

These 1 year contracts in Japan are nasty. The companies can legally lower your pay.

How disrespectful to lower someone's salary after they presumably did their best work for you for a year.
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yurii



Joined: 12 Jan 2017
Posts: 106

PostPosted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 8:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Did she accept the new contract?
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The Transformer



Joined: 03 Mar 2017
Posts: 69

PostPosted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 9:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This has been going on for years. I worked for Interac over 10 years ago and they did the very same thing.

The city I was working in asked for more ALTs for the following school year. Those ALTs like myself who were already working for Interac in this city were offered new contracts with the same monthly salary (250,000 yen a month), but the new contracts started in April and finished at the end of the following January (a 10-month contract, as opposed to the standard 11-month contract from April to the end of February).

To fill up the extra ALT numbers, they hired at least half-a-dozen English speakers from the Philippines, India, Mongolia, and one teacher from the Czech Republic, some of whom were non-native speakers, but these people were paid 200,000 yen a month with no transportation costs.

Interac lost the contract with this city after that, I guess because they weren't able to provide a full quota of native speakers.
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mitsui



Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 1562
Location: Kawasaki

PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2018 5:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Time to think of an exit plan if that is the best you can get.
People that teach kids can do better, if one can deal with the age group.
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fluffytwo



Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139

PostPosted: Sun Apr 22, 2018 4:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I doubt full quotas of native speakers have that much to do with it (most if not all of the dispatchers I worked for had some non-natives), it's more likely constant undercutting pure and simple. That that will of course lead to a higher likelihood of non-natives (assuming they are always content to work for less than native speakers) seems beyond most BOEs. Not that it really matters exactly who is hired, as what is invariably taught is the textbook, no more and no less. They might as well wheel in cardboard cutouts of Charisma Man for the linguistic difference most AETs could make in class.
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GambateBingBangBOOM



Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 3:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

fluffytwo wrote:
They might as well wheel in cardboard cutouts of Charisma Man for the linguistic difference most AETs could make in class.


Whose fault is that?
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fluffytwo



Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My penultimate sentence above provides the context and implicit answer to your question regarding my final sentence there, GBBB. The AET can be as able, qualified, experienced and even native as you like but will still be woefully underutilized when actual communication is so strictly limited and almost a dirty word (despite the lipservice paid to it in the abstract). Hence the suggestion that a cardboard cutout would do. Yes there may be some totally useless or unprofessional AETs but their "underutilization" isn't the issue.

IME the most I was usually asked by most JTEs was for my opinion on some invented example or two, with that opinion more often than not then pretty much disregarded, especially if it happened to inconveniently conflict with what the JTE (but never the book, which was sacrosanct) had plumped for to lead in or supplement with. Native speakers are thus not even held to really be linguistic informants, which is a bit of a strange state of affairs eh LOL. YMMV.
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The Transformer



Joined: 03 Mar 2017
Posts: 69

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

At the end of the day, ALT work through shyster outfits like Interac is a waste of time. It's a job for working holiday/backpacker types. Who cares if the salaries are being cut? Japanese teachers start off in the range of 180-200k a month. ALT work isn't even worth that. Cutting the salaries will encourage people to get out of these stupid jobs instead of drifting along going nowhere.
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fluffytwo



Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139

PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2018 5:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Logically the government would wind this sort of "non-job" down in an orderly fashion and fund fewer but more linguistically-able "proper" teachers accordingly (whether better JTEs and/or bilingual foreigners with some sort of QTS), but there seems little logicality in Japanese FL education generally, hence the mixed signals the "hapless" foreigner receives (they'll finally get the message though once the positions have become completely untenable). Not sure that anyone deserves less than 180K though, especially if (when) they lack much if any compensating local support network.
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GambateBingBangBOOM



Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2018 1:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Transformer wrote:
At the end of the day, ALT work through shyster outfits like Interac is a waste of time. It's a job for working holiday/backpacker types. Who cares if the salaries are being cut? Japanese teachers start off in the range of 180-200k a month. ALT work isn't even worth that. Cutting the salaries will encourage people to get out of these stupid jobs instead of drifting along going nowhere.


It's not a great predicament, but it is not uncommon (especially in smaller cities) to find people who are fully qualified teachers (QTS / Provincial or State qualified) or people with graduate degrees in language teaching (or both) who work as ALTs for dispatch companies- because they married someone in the small city who doesn't want to leave their family. The schools claim that they actually have no idea how much the person earns. This is part of why people who have been in Japan more than five or six years get asked if they are married- companies (and this includes high schools that hire directly) are really asking if there is a very low chance of you quitting on them if they treat you horribly. In some places in Japan 100% of all school level jobs (elementary, junior, senior high) are dispatch ALT jobs (and in some places it now extends into the tertiary sector as well).

Some "ALTs" are really no different than any other teacher in their home country. They assist by being teachers. But are paid far, far less because of the category (ALT) that they are put in.

It's easy to get angry, but 40% of the Japanese workforce is people who are "non-regular employees". They're treated in the same manner.
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Black_Beer_Man



Joined: 26 Mar 2013
Posts: 453
Location: Yokohama

PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2018 2:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

yurii wrote:
Did she accept the new contract?


No, she didn't

She also dropped a bombshell on me.

One of her friends went and got an ALT position in an elementary school in Saitama. Direct hire. Her salary is 290,000 yen / month plus transportation.

She said that the Saitama BOE no longer wants to hire foreign ALTs through dispatch companies like Interac and Borderlink.

I don't know her friend's qualifications or work experience, so the salary might even be higher for more experienced teachers.

Wow! 290,000 yen / month. I worked for a year with Interac (think I was getting 240,000 yen / month) some years ago and now I feel like a fool for doing so. 
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The Transformer



Joined: 03 Mar 2017
Posts: 69

PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2018 4:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

GambateBingBangBOOM wrote:
It's not a great predicament, but it is not uncommon (especially in smaller cities) to find people who are fully qualified teachers (QTS / Provincial or State qualified) or people with graduate degrees in language teaching (or both) who work as ALTs for dispatch companies- because they married someone in the small city who doesn't want to leave their family.


Sad. People like that are just wasting themselves in jobs like that. A friend of mine opened his own school with his wife. That's a better way to go as you'll be paid more, and have control over your work. He also has time to do ALT and uni gigs on top.

GambateBingBangBOOM wrote:
It's easy to get angry, but 40% of the Japanese workforce is people who are "non-regular employees". They're treated in the same manner.


That's true. 230-250k a month for an eikaiwa or ALT job is actually very good pay. A friend of mine's wife was working for a "black company" in Tokyo, doing office work. From what I remember of what he told me, it sounded like she had to work overtime literally every night until late, and even do some weekend work. I doubt she was being paid much more than an eikaiwa or ALT instructor, but having to work far more hours for it.
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The Transformer



Joined: 03 Mar 2017
Posts: 69

PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2018 4:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Black_Beer_Man wrote:
One of her friends went and got an ALT position in an elementary school in Saitama. Direct hire. Her salary is 290,000 yen / month plus transportation.


I heard of direct hire jobs with BoEs, back in the good old days before the recession in 2008, being paid 350k a month, and private school hires getting 400k a month. I think you'd be hard pushed to get that kind of wage now though.

That said, a friend got an ALT gig for 300k through another dispatch agency (not an "entry level" agency like Heart or Interac), with a few years experience of eikaiwa and kids teaching under his belt, and working towards an MA in TESOL.

I really do think that the lower these Interac/Heart ALT and Aeon/ECC-style eikaiwa jobs' wages go, the better, as it'll force people to get out of these shyster companies and try and do something better.
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GambateBingBangBOOM



Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2018 5:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Transformer wrote:

I really do think that the lower these Interac/Heart ALT and Aeon/ECC-style eikaiwa jobs' wages go, the better, as it'll force people to get out of these shyster companies and try and do something better.


Or just not come to Japan at all. The minimum wage in some places is around $15 an hour. If you can get a full-time job, that's more than a full-time ALT through some of these companies.
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Black_Beer_Man



Joined: 26 Mar 2013
Posts: 453
Location: Yokohama

PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2018 3:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

GambateBingBangBOOM wrote:
The Transformer wrote:

I really do think that the lower these Interac/Heart ALT and Aeon/ECC-style eikaiwa jobs' wages go, the better, as it'll force people to get out of these shyster companies and try and do something better.


Or just not come to Japan at all. The minimum wage in some places is around $15 an hour. If you can get a full-time job, that's more than a full-time ALT through some of these companies.


That's right.
Forget about making any substantial money teaching English in Japan (unless you want to work your rear end off to get a university position (which I've heard has a term limit).

The salaries are so low in Japan that teaching here is only good as a "working holiday" - you see Japan for 1 -2 years and leave.

This situation creates a problem. Japan will never be able to keep high-quality foreign teachers. Kinda self-defeating to their goal of improving their English language skills. Anyway...
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