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lisa-dianeandalan
Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 1
Location: Alberta, Canada
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 Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:19 am Post subject: Fifth Wings?!?! / Married couples getting jobs |
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I am wondering if anyone can tell us about the company "Fifth Wings". They are interviewing us over the phone this week for teaching positions and we have been able to discover little about them on the web. Their main branch is located in Ashikaga City in Tochigi Prefecture. Anyone have any ideas?
Oh and any advice for a married couple trying to get work over in Japan. We are both teachers with two degrees, teaching experience and all that jazz yet it seems our being a couple (who has no intention of working at the same school) is a problem. Can anyone enlighten us about this one?
Thanks in advance! |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:40 am Post subject: Re: Fifth Wings?!?! / Married couples getting jobs |
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| lisa-dianeandalan wrote: |
Oh and any advice for a married couple trying to get work over in Japan. We are both teachers with two degrees, teaching experience and all that jazz yet it seems our being a couple (who has no intention of working at the same school) is a problem. Can anyone enlighten us about this one?
Thanks in advance! |
I would check what your arrangements are about accomodation. Do you plan to rent from an employer or find your own accomodation (which means paying key money). Sometimes employers will not rent to couples, even if they are married as they would have a non-employee spouse living in their housing. Many times the employer makes income from renting to employees (each paying separate rent) as well as from your teaching students. A spouse is just dead weight.
Another issue is that if your wife is working as well you will probably want to take the same holidays and time off together and this may be inconvenient for an employer. He has to tell you you cant take time off when your wife has a weeks holiday, not likely with single or unattached employees. |
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JimDunlop2
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Posts: 2286
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:32 am Post subject: married and teaching |
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My wife and I are both Canadian nationals. We've been living in Japan for about a year and a half now (with no plans of returning "home" anytime soon).
We started out working at the same eikaiwa. It was cool working together, but the job was pure sh ! te! We now have different jobs (and even work at different times) but overall I'd say we're both 200% happier.
Sorry I can't get into specifics, but I don't know what they might be. If you like, you can PM me detailed questions but I'm on holiday now so I won't be checking mail frequenty until September.
As far as accomod. goes, I would recommend the following: whoever lands the first job of the two of you, approach your new employer and get theｍ to assist you in getting your own place through a realty firm. Yeah, there's all that stuff about key money, deposit, etc... but in many cases that can be omitted (these days many places sit vacant for a long time and key money is slowly disappearing altogether) and you MAY be able to work a deal with your employer to borrow the money and pay it back over 6 months or whatever... (That's what we did). End result, we have a respectable place to live, instead of a company-sponsored 1K hovel that we would've had to move out of as soon as our contract with the company expired. Just my two bits there.
Finally, revealing that you are married may be a help or a hinderence. Results may vary from situation to situation. Hard to know. Overall though, I'd say, don't hide it, but don't advertise it either. We never had any troubles either way.
Of course, as soon as people find out I'm married, the FIRST question I get asked (whether it be a foreigner or a Japanese local) is: "Oh, is your wife Japanese?" As if it were a pre-requisite or something. Sometimes I feel like saying: "Why no, actually, she's from Uganda, and we got married in Siberia." But anyway.... \end rant....
Good luck!
JD |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:30 am Post subject: |
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| Oh and any advice for a married couple trying to get work over in Japan. We are both teachers with two degrees, teaching experience and all that jazz yet it seems our being a couple (who has no intention of working at the same school) is a problem. |
Being full-fledged teachers already, you might find teaching at conversation schools (eikaiwas) rather a large letdown. Have you considered this? What do you teach back home, by the way? Are you interested in other types of schools?
Being full-fledged teachers already, you might not even get hired by some eikaiwas because they may consider you to be over-qualified. Teaching English in an eikaiwa is definitely not the same as teaching it in your home country to fellow countrymen. Do you know the differences?
Personally, I think it is a good choice to try working at separate schools. You won't want to come home every day after facing each other all day, then talk about the same staff & classes, would you? Besides, some employers would be concerned about a couple bringing their arguments to school, or about trying to take vacation during the same time (leaving them with twice as many empty slots to fill). Many employers simply do not have more than one opening anyway. And, you would also run the risk of not being placed in the same city in the case of large outfits that would be willing to hire you.
Coming as a couple has another problem. Visas. If only one of you gets hired, the other would have to stay on a tourist status (90 day limit) or try to get a dependent visa to stay longer (and with the paperwork he could work but only part-time). During the time he is on a dependent visa, he could look for FT work then change to a work visa. |
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Quibby84
Joined: 10 Aug 2006
Posts: 643
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 8:59 pm Post subject: |
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Hey, I was wondering if the OP was still around, I sent our resumes to this school and they said that they are interested, has anyone heard of them?
There website is not that informative. |
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