Teaching English in Japan

by Mark Edwards, part 3

Using Nova as an example, on that average day you will teach for eight periods. Most of these periods are filled with your bread and butter (or sashimi and rice) adult lessons. You sit in a cubicle with up to four students and use a text book and a great deal of creativity and imagination. Teachers are expected to come up with their own ideas for lessons - the text book contains some 'target language' and a situation, such as ordering a taxi or reporting lost property, but it's up to you to decide how to apply that language and entertain the students. One of my favorites involved teaching students strong defensive language - 'You can't tell me what to do'; 'It's my life!' - then getting them to imagine that they were having a family argument whereby the parents didn't approve of their teenage daughter's rock star boyfriend. In another lesson, they had to tell me how to make a cup of tea - harder than it sounds. You can use role plays, games, tasks and guided discussions. There are 9 levels of student, from the ones who look petrified when you ask 'How are you?' to those who have a better grasp of English grammar than most of the teachers. I never asked the higher level students to tell me how to make a cup of tea.

The other lessons are used up with something called 'Voice', which is an unstructured, free chat with a group of students in a conversation lounge, sales periods (checking students' levels and doing demo lessons) and teaching kids. This is one of the most rewarding and fun parts of the job. Sometimes you teach kids on their own, sometimes in groups. Singing songs, coloring in, prancing about like a Play School presenter. Great fun. When I left, saying goodbye to the kids nearly reduced me to tears.

Like every other job in the world, some days teaching English to Japanese people is wonderful; other days you want to get on the first flight home. You might get lively, chatty, interested students who make teaching a joy. Or you might get a guy with halitosis who refuses to answer in anything other than monosyllables. It's not unheard of for students to pass out in class because they're drunk or swear at other students. Sometimes students make hilarious errors that will make you smile for days: 'What kind of chocolates do you have?' - 'I have big nuts'; and the all-time classic from a guy struggling to use the word 'with': 'I eat out my wife every night.' Many of the students are lovely people who you will want to keep in touch with for the rest of your life. And you'll also meet lots of cool people from all over the world. I now have friends in Japan, Australia, America and Canada. Handy for holidays.

So what do you need to be an English teacher in Japan? To work full time, you need a degree. (Part-time workers don't necessarily need one.) And English has to be your native language. You don't need a TEFL qualification or any experience of . . . well, anything, really. I would recommend that people think about signing a part-time contract and doing lots of overtime, so you can control how much you work. Different companies have different application processes. The Geos interview lasts three days; the Nova interview takes an hour. And would I recommend it? Yes. It's hard work; it can be a slog, and there are lots of petty rules and crazy things that you will have to get used to (have you ever worked for a company that refused to provide pens for staff who needed pens to perform their duties?) But overall, it's a fantastic experience, it's fun, the pay's good, you'll meet loads of nice people and learn a lot. And yes, Japan was almost exactly as I imagined it. Apart from the Buddhist calm.

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