Job Discussion Forums

[kennycrft]

Hi guys,

Im thinking of staying in japan for long term (10 years or more) and most likely will be teaching english. I know eikaiwa schools are popular now, but do you think it will still be popular 10 or 20 years from now? Do you think eikaiwa schools will still be popular in Japan? I would like to know from teachers who have been teaching at eikaiwa schools in Japan for a long time.

[Rooster_2006]

Why does it matter? If you're planning on coming over and teaching now, I'm sure you'll still be employed 10 years from now unless you really screw up. Even if the eikawa market shrinks to 1/10th of its current size, if you'd stuck it out for 10 years, you'd be close to the top and could probably still grab one of those jobs. That's my opinion on the issue, anyway.

I mean, first of all, most of the teachers only teach for one year. Therefore, just by sticking it out for two (let alone 10) years, you are already considered to be at a higher rank than most other teachers. Then consider that 10 years is the normal time necessary to get permanent residency -- meaning that in 10 years (or maybe 11 or so) you would no longer need visa sponsorship, which would make you a lot more employable by folks not willing to sponsor visas.

I'm sure eikawa will dwindle with a rising China, but no matter how powerful China becomes, there are still almost 400 million native English speakers in this world, and around 1.8 billion speakers counting L2 speakers -- a number that no one can ignore. There will still be SOME eikawa in Japan.

[Hoser]

what will they call it then? "chukaiwa"?

[seanmcginty]

The Eikaiwa market is definitely going down. Even without NOVA's collapse, it had already contracted by 5% in 2006 and will probably continue to decline in the years to come. There are quite a few reasons for this, not the least of which is the declining size of Japan's population.

Wages have been dropping like a stone for years too and there isn't any reason to expect that to stop anytime soon (especially with recent events). This is exacerbated by the weakening yen, though that situation could improve.

By way of example:

When I started working in Japan in 1999 with GEOS, my starting salary including bonuses when converted into Canadian dollars was over $45,000. Today, a mere 8 years later a person in the exact same job (starting with GEOS) could expect to make something closer to $23,000 Canadian. So the salary there declined by about half over that period, and that is pretty typical. A lot of that is due to the decline of the yen and rise of the Canadian dollar (when converted into US dollars the decline isn't anywhere near as sharp), but even in yen the salary and benefits have been steadily declining.

Basically, Eikaiwa is not a viable long term career option. Its not a bad way of getting into Japan if you want to live there long term, but you should have a plan on how to get out of Eikaiwa and move on to other lines of work (ie maybe doing a Master's and tyring to work at a university or something).

[RingofFire]

[Alberta605]

conversation schools in 10 years? Hopefully all gone. The...'conversators'..'conversationalists'...whatever they like to call themselves (surely not 'teachers'!!?) will not be missed in a country that really needs to weed out this anomalous tumor of poorest quality in a nation otherwise over-loaded with quality concepts and services.

[womblingfree]

[Berzerker]