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How is the EFL situation generally in Japan versus Korea
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Shimokitazawa



Joined: 16 Aug 2009
Posts: 458
Location: Saigon, Vietnam

PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2011 9:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

seklarwia wrote:
Case in point: One good friend is out of a uni job (unfortunately couldn't score a tenure and is now out after years of service). Has uni experience both here and in the UK (was one of my pragmatics and sociolinguistics lecturer in fact).


How many years of service did he have at his university (Are you talking about a Japanese or British university)? Was he teaching on a contract that had a cap on renewals? Essentially, all he ever was then was a "Visiting Instructor". He never had any status in the university. Nothing more than a guest teacher.

seklarwia wrote:
Came here with his long-term gf (my IWLT Japanese teacher). Now she's going to help reduce the current population decline so moving across the country is out of the question.


What does that mean?

seklarwia wrote:
So now he is a qualified and experienced teacher who is in a crappy employment position because he doesn't yet have a spouse visa or PR and had to accept a FT position to get a visa renewal since contracted PT pickings within his SOR were not enough to satisfy immigration.


What is SOR?

So did your pal ever find another university teaching job?
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seklarwia



Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano

PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2011 12:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shimokitazawa wrote:
How many years of service did he have at his university (Are you talking about a Japanese or British university)? Was he teaching on a contract that had a cap on renewals? Essentially, all he ever was then was a "Visiting Instructor". He never had any status in the university. Nothing more than a guest teacher.

Don't know when he started teaching at my uni in the UK. All I know is that he was already there when I became a student in 2003. His gf was my teacher when I started Japanese in my 2nd year. He has been here (in Japan) at least 5 years I assume in the same position, but I've never asked (we may be friends but he is still my senior so it's especially rude to pry - I know what he tells me). I think the reason he was out was actually because somebody was coming back to work rather than not being allowed to renew again... I'm not sure on the details. Eitherway he had known what was coming for sometime and his uni had helped him to find another position which he had accepted but...

Quote:
seklarwia wrote:
Came here with his long-term gf (my IWLT Japanese teacher). Now she's going to help reduce the current population decline so moving across the country is out of the question.


What does that mean?


...she got pregnant and wants to stay put to be near her friends and family. So he had to turn down the position last minute which was just before his renewal leaving him up the creak without a paddle on the job and thus the visa front.

Quote:
What is SOR?


Status of residency. He did get offered a couple of PT positions but they had clashing hours so he couldn't accept both. Ideally, he would have accepted one and then got special permission to do some lucrative non-teaching work on the side thrown his way by a close contact... the immigration officer wasn't having it even though one of these PT positions alone would be earning him more than some FT entry level jobs these days. So in order to get the visa he had to accept a FT position that is not something you would be expecting somebody with Dr. attached to their name to be doing - his current employer is milking that one for business.

Quote:
So did your pal ever find another university teaching job?

As I said, not yet. But with a pregnant gf (very soon to be wife - YAY! A perfect excuse to whip out the thigh-highs... and he thought I was more sophisticated these days - which will be great with regards to any future visa issues until he can get PR), there only being one uni in the area and a handful of colleges which were not hiring at the time and him not being able to go elsewhere for the forseeable future, he will just have to wait and see.
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Mr_Monkey



Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 661
Location: Kyuuuuuushuuuuuuu

PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2011 7:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

so 'case in point' is that life happened to this guy rather than his employers being arseholes and screwing him over.

Thank you for clarifying.
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Shimokitazawa



Joined: 16 Aug 2009
Posts: 458
Location: Saigon, Vietnam

PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2011 7:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

seklarwia wrote:
Shimokitazawa wrote:
How many years of service did he have at his university (Are you talking about a Japanese or British university)? Was he teaching on a contract that had a cap on renewals? Essentially, all he ever was then was a "Visiting Instructor". He never had any status in the university. Nothing more than a guest teacher.

Don't know when he started teaching at my uni in the UK. All I know is that he was already there when I became a student in 2003. His gf was my teacher when I started Japanese in my 2nd year. He has been here (in Japan) at least 5 years I assume in the same position, but I've never asked (we may be friends but he is still my senior so it's especially rude to pry - I know what he tells me). I think the reason he was out was actually because somebody was coming back to work rather than not being allowed to renew again... I'm not sure on the details. Eitherway he had known what was coming for sometime and his uni had helped him to find another position which he had accepted but...

Quote:
seklarwia wrote:
Came here with his long-term gf (my IWLT Japanese teacher). Now she's going to help reduce the current population decline so moving across the country is out of the question.


What does that mean?


...she got pregnant and wants to stay put to be near her friends and family. So he had to turn down the position last minute which was just before his renewal leaving him up the creak without a paddle on the job and thus the visa front.

Quote:
What is SOR?


Status of residency. He did get offered a couple of PT positions but they had clashing hours so he couldn't accept both. Ideally, he would have accepted one and then got special permission to do some lucrative non-teaching work on the side thrown his way by a close contact... the immigration officer wasn't having it even though one of these PT positions alone would be earning him more than some FT entry level jobs these days. So in order to get the visa he had to accept a FT position that is not something you would be expecting somebody with Dr. attached to their name to be doing - his current employer is milking that one for business.

Quote:
So did your pal ever find another university teaching job?

As I said, not yet. But with a pregnant gf (very soon to be wife - YAY! A perfect excuse to whip out the thigh-highs... and he thought I was more sophisticated these days - which will be great with regards to any future visa issues until he can get PR), there only being one uni in the area and a handful of colleges which were not hiring at the time and him not being able to go elsewhere for the forseeable future, he will just have to wait and see.


Thanks for clarifying.

If he has a Ph.D in Education, he'll be fine. There are lots of jobs out there, especially if he is willing to teach in Tohoku. Lots of teachers split in the last 2 months.
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seklarwia



Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano

PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2011 9:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mr_Monkey wrote:
so 'case in point' is that life happened to this guy rather than his employers being arseholes and screwing him over.

No his previous employer didn't screw him over. And as to the current one... well the job is what it is; he accepted the position knowing exactly what the terms were because he had to.

This is why I keep pushing the visa issue because it is an important one. Even for qualified and experienced teachers, finding employment over here is not always straight cut. If anything screwed him over, it was his SOR because despite all his bad luck in timing and location, he was still being offered decent employment which he couldn't accept because he had a regular work visa.

Shimokitazawa wrote:

If he has a Ph.D in Education, he'll be fine. There are lots of jobs out there, especially if he is willing to teach in Tohoku. Lots of teachers split in the last 2 months.

No and no.

As I said before location is a huge issue because of the pregnancy. Would you honestly take your pregnant partner away from the support of family and friends up to an area that is still very much a disaster zone?

He has his PHD in sociolinguistics. I became quite taken with the subject thanks to him and through him was able to meet Peter Trudgill who contributed to my dissertation. (I was so happy when Trudgill was able to name my home town based on my lack of regional accent and dialect - I'm a closet geek and language snob!)
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Mr_Monkey



Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 661
Location: Kyuuuuuushuuuuuuu

PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2011 7:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hold on, you mean Trudgill wasn't able to place your hometown, surely?

I suspect he'd have trouble naming mine too.

Yes, the visa is the issue.

Now, socioling... mmmm... but that's for a different thread....
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seklarwia



Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano

PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2011 9:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mr_Monkey wrote:
Hold on, you mean Trudgill wasn't able to place your hometown, surely?

No. I meant that he could after only a couple of sentences. But there was a reason. He used subjects from my city as a control in his study on New Zealand speech development because it was a planned city (as opposed to one that grew from a town/village) that to this day still doesn't even have a century of history. Back in the day, people moving there were mostly young middle class professionals and new families so for a long time there was no ingrained regional accents or dialects and the people coming in were mostly well educated and thus tended to speak more standard English rather than the dialects from their hometowns.

These days, it's full of council estates and... I won't insult the working class by attaching that title to the people there now. And the horrid Essex accent and way of speaking has leaked into one side of the city, with the other side turning into a black ghetto (I avoid that side of town when I visit because not being of the caucasian persuation gets you a lot of grief when you sound like I do) and it has become such an awful place that I tell people I'm from Buckinghamshire instead of naming the city specifically (have you got it yet?)... but I digress, basically Trudgill was suprised that there were people my age who had escaped the language shift that came with the demographic shift which was in full swing in my teens... again there was a reason for that; I had moved to a nice, conservative area of E. Kent full of rich farmers and snobbish estate owners before I could be infected. And whilst there, I attended a good grammar school for "good" girls.
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Mr_Monkey



Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 661
Location: Kyuuuuuushuuuuuuu

PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2011 9:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Milton Keynes, huh.

Interesting history on your accent -I grew up in SE London but default to a Scottish accent (my parents are from Glasgow and I lived in Dumfries until I was 4). Being able to switch to English RP at school and chav as necessary when out in Welling was a useful survival skill, though Very Happy
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seklarwia



Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano

PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2011 10:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mr_Monkey wrote:
Milton Keynes, huh.

Interesting history on your accent -I grew up in SE London but default to a Scottish accent (my parents are from Glasgow and I lived in Dumfries until I was 4). Being able to switch to English RP at school and chav as necessary when out in Welling was a useful survival skill, though Very Happy

Very good. I am indeed from the city of concrete cows. Shh! Don't spread it around.

I envy you. Unfortunately, I do not have such a useful life skill.
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Shimokitazawa



Joined: 16 Aug 2009
Posts: 458
Location: Saigon, Vietnam

PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2011 11:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

seklarwia wrote:
Would you honestly take your pregnant partner away from the support of family and friends up to an area that is still very much a disaster zone?


How badly do they need money? Therein lies the answer to your question. If it comes down to a choice between sleeping in the park and eating out of garbage cans or taking work in a location his wife doesn't want to live, what do you think they would do? I know what I, and a lot of others, would do in that situation.

The wife needs to understand that we can't pick and chose where we want to work. We have to go where the opportunities take us. If the wife isn't flexible enough to understand that, then it's going to hurt them. And with a new baby on the way, I don't see how they can afford to be turning work down like that.
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seklarwia



Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano

PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2011 12:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shimokitazawa wrote:
How badly do they need money? Therein lies the answer to your question. If it comes down to a choice between sleeping in the park and eating out of garbage cans or taking work in a location his wife doesn't want to live, what do you think they would do? I know what I, and a lot of others, would do in that situation.

The wife needs to understand that we can't pick and chose where we want to work. We have to go where the opportunities take us. If the wife isn't flexible enough to understand that, then it's going to hurt them. And with a new baby on the way, I don't see how they can afford to be turning work down like that.

Most parents wouldn't see their kids out on the street and I know her parents could never be that cruel.

So the choice between staying put where they could stay with her parents should the poop hit the fan or going up to a high risk area/disatster zone where she has no support network, would be alone all day and may end up in a town where there may not yet be full medical facilities locally should something go wrong... I know what I would choose and I hope you and others would choose the same.

I'm not sure what you're basing your hypothetical situation on but it certainly wasn't on the details I have given you. In reality, her request isn't unreasonable (remember they had been planning to move for the sake of his job before the pregnancy discovery) and like any caring partner, he wouldn't needless put her through that. And frankly, I wouldn't be friends with him if I thought he would do that merely to satisfy his ego because he believed himself above any specific type of work.

You seem to neglect the point that he has a job. It's not great and it doesn't pay anything near what he was getting before, but now that the visa nightmare has been resolved the job is there and thus a solid source of income whilst he waits for something better to come along... let's not forget that he has other non-teaching job options, it's just that the visa renewal forced him to accept the crappy FT position.

And for your piece of mind, like any responsible adults they have not been squandering their incomes (which in proper uni positions both here and in the UK, you can imagine have been considerably more than the standard for entry-level) on booze and partying and living from pay cheque to cheque like many newly graduated "teachers" do.
Even if he found himself unemployed tomorrow they wouldn't be homeless or in trouble for quite some time and even longer if they moved in with her parents to cut expenses further.
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KarlaMontelibano



Joined: 11 Sep 2013
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 1:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

good thread, I enjoyed reading your comments here, very useful.
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Mr. Kalgukshi
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Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Posts: 6613
Location: Need to know basis only.

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 4:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Board policy including the Announcement below will be enforced:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=83787

Postings on this forum must focus on Japan.

If not, there will be sanctions.
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budgie



Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Posts: 40

PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 2:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/search-results/?q=eikaiwa&submit=Search

A page of articles on the decline of the industry.
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weigookin74



Joined: 30 Mar 2010
Posts: 265

PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How's it in 2018?
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