[Japan Work]: Teaching English past 30 = loser?!
Hello everybody! 
As most of you know I'm an English teacher in Japan.
Most (Western) foreigners who live in Japan are English teachers as this is basically the only job you can get if your Japanese is not perfect - and even WITH perfect Japanese it might be difficult to set foot in any other business.
If you think about it, it's only logical. Why should they pay a foreigner to do something a native Japanese person can do just as well!?! Unless there's a reason they need a foreigner for that position (travel agency, hotel, international company etc.) they won't hire a foreigner!!!
Furthermore Japan is NOT an immigration country. It's very difficult to get a work visa here and it's (almost) impossible to get Japanese citizenship.
I only can compare this to my own country (Germany) which is an immigration country. I'm not sure how difficult it is to get a work visa, but I think it's pretty easy for at least EU members! It's not that difficult to obtain German citizenship either.
Anyways, I don't want to talk about immigration today, so let's go back to the "teaching English" part.
As some of you probably consider to do that as well as a way to set foot into Japan, this might (or might not) be interesting for you.
A lot of people seem to think that being an English teacher in Japan cannot be considered as "real" job! Please note that I DON'T share this opinion!!!
People say that this is only something one does as adventure after uni and eventually should look for something else (read: a real job) ASAP!
There was even a thread about this on Gaijnpot:
"Teaching English past 30 = loser?!"
They were also talking about it in this forum (reply#15 onwards).
And those are not the only threads like that!
To me personally it IS a real job. I mean HOW the hell do you define what a real job is and what not????!!!!
I work 8h every day, I get paid properly. Why is this not a real job? And when I say I WORK, I mean it!!!
I know that it absolutely depends on where you are working. I know some ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) are complaining about being nothing more than a human tape recorder and that they have no responsibility at all, sitting around the whole day with nothing to do!
People working in the big Eikaiwa (English conversation schools) chains complain about being worked to death and having to sell stuff to people above all.
In my case, I work in a very small family run school with only a few employees! I'm not only a teacher but also a manager (not on the paper though)! There are so many things I'm in charge of and I feel like I learned quite a lot in the past few years!
I don't feel that I'm worked too hard, but I have to admit that it gets kind of repetitive after all this time (BUT that can happen in ANY other job as well!) So, now please explain me why this is NOT a real job????!!!!!
The sad thing about it is, though, that if you apply for any other job they most likely won't accept your "English teaching" time as valuable job experience at all! Not here in Japan, not in America and from what I heard so far also NOT in Germany!!
So even if I can argue that it's a real job after all, it doesn't help if my future employers don't agree to it. In their eyes I've probably just been waisting my time! :(
I think another reason why being an "English teacher" is often looked down is that a lot of English teachers come fresh from college, have only a BA degree and their degree usually has NOTHING to do with teaching English at all.
Being an English teacher in Japan is considered as something ANYBODY can do!
Yet you need a university degree as this is a requirement not for the job, but the work visa!!!!!
The majority of English teachers in Japan are very young men who come here to play around and who don't take their job too seriously! Those are also the guys we have to thank that some people in Japan have quite a bad image of foreigners
If (almost) anybody can be an English teacher, it's not considered as a very good job then, but it's still a REAL job, no???!!!
Most people call you a loser when you stay in this kind of field for too long, suggesting that you should get out of it ASAP!
A lot of people only do it as a short adventure anyways.
Well, it was supposed to be a 1-year adventure for me as well at first, but I soon realized how much I actually like my job and also had the feeling that I still could learn a lot and all. So I decided to stay longer and in a few weeks I'm going into my 4th year. I turned 30 last year. Am I a big loser as well?!
What's wrong with staying in a job that you enjoy??!!!
My biggest problem is that I don't have any prospect for back home or even here in Japan.
My qualifications might not be too bad (I have a MA degree and a publication in my hands, but maybe in a field that's too special or not special enough .... educational science...), but the biggest issue has been and still is that I have no freaking idea WHAT I want to do instead!
I know that this will be my last year at least staying at the same school, because I feel it's time for a change. Probably it would also be good to change the field of job completely.
I've been brushing up my Japanese all this time, but it's stil not good enough.
I still need some time to actually find out what I might want to do in the future. And what I CAN do.
It's a fact that it will be difficult to find something else the longer I stay in the "loser job" - even though I myself don't consider it as "loser job".
Still, I'll never get what's so bad about being an English teacher in Japan.
Thanks for reading this little rant.
As most of you know I'm an English teacher in Japan.
Most (Western) foreigners who live in Japan are English teachers as this is basically the only job you can get if your Japanese is not perfect - and even WITH perfect Japanese it might be difficult to set foot in any other business.
If you think about it, it's only logical. Why should they pay a foreigner to do something a native Japanese person can do just as well!?! Unless there's a reason they need a foreigner for that position (travel agency, hotel, international company etc.) they won't hire a foreigner!!!
Furthermore Japan is NOT an immigration country. It's very difficult to get a work visa here and it's (almost) impossible to get Japanese citizenship.
I only can compare this to my own country (Germany) which is an immigration country. I'm not sure how difficult it is to get a work visa, but I think it's pretty easy for at least EU members! It's not that difficult to obtain German citizenship either.
Anyways, I don't want to talk about immigration today, so let's go back to the "teaching English" part.
As some of you probably consider to do that as well as a way to set foot into Japan, this might (or might not) be interesting for you.
A lot of people seem to think that being an English teacher in Japan cannot be considered as "real" job! Please note that I DON'T share this opinion!!!
People say that this is only something one does as adventure after uni and eventually should look for something else (read: a real job) ASAP!
There was even a thread about this on Gaijnpot:
"Teaching English past 30 = loser?!"
They were also talking about it in this forum (reply#15 onwards).
And those are not the only threads like that!
To me personally it IS a real job. I mean HOW the hell do you define what a real job is and what not????!!!!
I work 8h every day, I get paid properly. Why is this not a real job? And when I say I WORK, I mean it!!!
I know that it absolutely depends on where you are working. I know some ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) are complaining about being nothing more than a human tape recorder and that they have no responsibility at all, sitting around the whole day with nothing to do!
People working in the big Eikaiwa (English conversation schools) chains complain about being worked to death and having to sell stuff to people above all.
In my case, I work in a very small family run school with only a few employees! I'm not only a teacher but also a manager (not on the paper though)! There are so many things I'm in charge of and I feel like I learned quite a lot in the past few years!
I don't feel that I'm worked too hard, but I have to admit that it gets kind of repetitive after all this time (BUT that can happen in ANY other job as well!) So, now please explain me why this is NOT a real job????!!!!!
The sad thing about it is, though, that if you apply for any other job they most likely won't accept your "English teaching" time as valuable job experience at all! Not here in Japan, not in America and from what I heard so far also NOT in Germany!!
So even if I can argue that it's a real job after all, it doesn't help if my future employers don't agree to it. In their eyes I've probably just been waisting my time! :(
I think another reason why being an "English teacher" is often looked down is that a lot of English teachers come fresh from college, have only a BA degree and their degree usually has NOTHING to do with teaching English at all.
Being an English teacher in Japan is considered as something ANYBODY can do!
Yet you need a university degree as this is a requirement not for the job, but the work visa!!!!!
The majority of English teachers in Japan are very young men who come here to play around and who don't take their job too seriously! Those are also the guys we have to thank that some people in Japan have quite a bad image of foreigners
If (almost) anybody can be an English teacher, it's not considered as a very good job then, but it's still a REAL job, no???!!!
Most people call you a loser when you stay in this kind of field for too long, suggesting that you should get out of it ASAP!
A lot of people only do it as a short adventure anyways.
Well, it was supposed to be a 1-year adventure for me as well at first, but I soon realized how much I actually like my job and also had the feeling that I still could learn a lot and all. So I decided to stay longer and in a few weeks I'm going into my 4th year. I turned 30 last year. Am I a big loser as well?!
What's wrong with staying in a job that you enjoy??!!!
My biggest problem is that I don't have any prospect for back home or even here in Japan.
My qualifications might not be too bad (I have a MA degree and a publication in my hands, but maybe in a field that's too special or not special enough .... educational science...), but the biggest issue has been and still is that I have no freaking idea WHAT I want to do instead!
I know that this will be my last year at least staying at the same school, because I feel it's time for a change. Probably it would also be good to change the field of job completely.
I've been brushing up my Japanese all this time, but it's stil not good enough.
I still need some time to actually find out what I might want to do in the future. And what I CAN do.
It's a fact that it will be difficult to find something else the longer I stay in the "loser job" - even though I myself don't consider it as "loser job".
Still, I'll never get what's so bad about being an English teacher in Japan.
Thanks for reading this little rant.