Job Discussion Forums

adam102 · Joined: 13 Jul 2010 Posts: 5

Can anyone tell me if it is common practice for the major eikaiwa to make personal business cards for their teachers? I just got hired with ECC if anyone might be able to shed some light on this from personal experience. I understand business cards are fairly important in Japan. Does this principle stand just as well for the English teaching industry?

rascalking · Joined: 02 Nov 2009 Posts: 16

flyer · Joined: 16 May 2003 Posts: 539 Location: Sapporo Japan

yeh, usually high turn over so .....

Rakuten · Joined: 14 Jun 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Japan

I don't think ECC gives foreign teachers their own business cards- but I know AEON does.

You can easily get some made for you however. Relatively cheap and they are still common/useful to have on you in Japan.

tokyo10 · Joined: 13 Apr 2010 Posts: 27

yes you can get them usually for a nominal fee of about 500 yen. Ask your manager.

GambateBingBangBOOM · Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 2021 Location: Japan

Just wondering... is there any particular reason why you want business cards from your eikaiwa school?

In terms of promotion (the point of a business card) unless you are management in the organization, then being a conversation teacher for an eikaiwa chain isn't really the kind of thing that you promote. And your eikaiwa isn't going to want you to start getting phone calls at the eikaiwa for other work opportunities (if you put your eikaiwa on the card, you pretty much need to put some sort of work phone number on it, too). You don't normally get business cards for a big box store like Barns and Noble if you're the guy who puts books on the shelves (other than possibly for in-store use). Getting one from your eikaiwa will almost definitely mean that it has ONLY your eikaiwa's phone and contact info, and not yours. That makes it pretty much useless by itself as anything other than a vehicle to promote the eikaiwa (unless you write your own info on it on the other side or something).

If you're thinking of the social sort of thing where you meet someone at a bar or whatever, then you just trade cellphone addresses and/or numbers.

You could always just make up your own. A lot of teachers do that. But they usually don't list where they work, only that they are an English teacher available for private instruction and relevant information (masters degree in TESOL if applicable, number of years they've been teaching etc).

As an example, every single JET I was with had business cards from their town. It was sort of like "wow! we have business cards!" for about a week and then they were shoved in a box somewhere and never looked at again- maybe because they were the kind with only the BoEs contact numbers etc on them, and not our own.

adam102 · Joined: 13 Jul 2010 Posts: 5

Well thats just the thing; I'm trying to determine whether they're necessary or common for eikaiwa teachers. True, I'm not looking to go off and schmooze with salarymen or anything, just had to ask cause I'm always hearing about how it might be important or least couldn't hurt for somebody working in Japan. Thanks for input!