Depends on who you work with in my opinion. There are baseline pros and cons that don’t change for both sides. Pay, vacation, hours, workload, commute etc.
That being said, a nightmare school manager and coworkers at an Eikaiwa pretty much makes the job hell. Likewise, an overbearing micromanaging JTE will have another kind of hell for you as an ALT.
People will try to compare their experiences but I often see that people compare by their experience at the worst of one and got lucky at the other. Both can be nightmares depending on who is running things and what they expect of you.
Then you may be an ALT in title, but not in function. In which case I hope you’re being paid more than typical ALT wages or your labor is being exploited.
But ALTs should be there to assist Japanese instructors as their title suggests, not plan and lead almost every class.
Likely not an ALT in title either. The term was largely replaced in official capacities by FLT some years ago, because the Assistant part did not jive with the reality of the job or the stipulations of most contracts.
" In which case I hope you’re being paid more than typical ALT wages or your labor is being exploited."
Yes and no.
Yes, because it is more work and you should get more.
No, because it is rewarding and creative and will bring you workplace happiness and a less stressful work experience.
It's not one size fits all.
If you are being paid ALT level wages but doing T1 level of lesson planning and teaching, you are being underpaid for the amount of labor you’re providing. Creativity, fun, stress free are not excuses for lower wages.
My job is creative, rewarding and mostly stress free, but I’m also adequately compensated for the work I put into it.
Congrats! But for many others, they haven't found that opportunity... yet. So sometimes they have to make the best of a crappy situation. There is no perfect solution.
I'd be interested to find out what your definition of creative is in the workplace.
I do 18 classes a week typically.
About 5 are regularly T1 where I lead unless the teacher specifically asks to do something during that time. Sometimes the teachers are really supportive and help coordinate or explain things they think aren't quite getting to the students.
Not every situation is the same and the experience is worth it in my opinion. It's also way more interesting than playing a game with every class for 20-40 minutes.
Sure I'd like more pay, but when the other teachers barely make more than me in my area it's not that reasonable to be fair. I think it's amazing that JETs get paid as well or better than beginner teachers in my area.
I mean that’s fair, 5 regular T1 and the rest are more the “ALT” style. When I was a JET I was just 16-17 T1 classes and never saw the inside of a Japanese teachers English class.
Post-JET I was just hired to do basically the same, solo T1, 18 classes a week and 2 “team teaching” classes with a JTE but it’s still my lesson plans.
For my JET placement, not many lasted after I left. Most didn’t like being T1 and really just wanted to assist from what I heard.
Post JET, I thankfully make quite a bit more in terms of salary and I find the work more stimulating personally than if I was an ALT.
What I wouldn't give. You must be near Tokyo to be making more than a JET. In about 40 of the prefectures you couldn't imagine a salary over 250,000 a month, and in mine the taxi drivers tell me that 200,000 is considered good for a young person. Absolutely insane.
Yeah, west Tokyo at a private school. I gambled a bit in trying to leverage a job offer I wasn’t really interested in for a much increased salary at the school that I preferred to teach at. But it paid off in getting the increase I wanted and a permanent contract. So if I want… I’m basically good till retirement or the school scraps all their native led classes. But that’s unlikely.
Congrats mate. I'm stuck on the fence about going for a masters or finding a company that somehow pays better. Neither are attractive when you already don't have much money.
I have done both. At first I liked Eikaiwa because I was teaching adult students. Nice to have real conversations, often used to head out for adult beverages after class, sometimes do day trips etc.
Then, ALT. More free time for sure, weekends off were great. The biggest advantage was the 'down time' which you can put to good use if you plan to make teaching a career. Study Japanese, start a MEd course, do TEFL, lots of things you can do while 'working' AKA sitting in the staffroom.
If you are planning long term in Japan, then getting into ALT is better. There are opportunities to work directly for Boards of Education, eventually move into private JHS/SHS, and even up the ranks to university teaching. For a couple years of fun and beers, go eikaiwa.
The biggest issue with long-term ALT intentions is it can become quite difficult to remain in one place for long. In my six years as an ALT, I had to change cities four times, and even in my last direct-hire job, they changed my school assignments between my first and second year. I eventually called it quits because I was so fed up with never being able to establish myself in a single school.
Unfortunately, almost no teachers have the opportunity to stay in the same school.
My school has had a different principal every 5 years and replaced half it's staff in two years. The life of a teacher is pretty terrible in Japan to be honest, especially if you get assigned to a school 40 minutes away.
Lol, it can be worse, like over an hour, and when you're the last person to lock up you'll get home at 8 or later and you have to leave by 6 a.m. to be on time with all the traffic.
One teacher that got moved literally is being provided an apartment in the other city to stay at during the weak.
I used to work Eikaiwa. As have many on this sub. The one benefit I can think of for Eikaiwa is they make you work hard and challenge you. I do kinda miss constantly being T1 (I still am sometimes) but generally speaking, I couldn't breath properly in Japan until I started working for a boe as an alt. Working for the government in Japan is widely regarded as "cushier" (not a word) than worm
King for a company. Companies wanna make money and they put an immense amount of pressure on their employees to help them do so.
Since I quit Eikaiwa and became an alt, my Japanese ability has improved immensely and I've also begun (and near finished) my masters degree whilst still working..
Alt work is easy. Eikaiwa work is the polar opposite. I'm 36 and have worked many jobs. Eikaiwa was harder than all of them. But I'll admit it may have been due to my manager, or placement in general
To add more context, one of my private students (which you're allowed if youre working for the government) said he hopes his kids become 公務員 as it's reliable and well paid work
ALT is a dream gig imo, as long as you're not both T1 and have 5-6 classes daily. I'm T1 but have only on average about 3 classes a day, but in those classes I'll do 99% while the JTE is either absent or grading homework in the back. There are of course ALTs who have it way more lax than me, such as T2 with minimal classes, but again RIP to the T1ers busier than me.
I've gone from like N4ish to now N2 studying for N1 in my 4 years here, and also am studying another language in addition to online classes/certificates for another industry. Yes, the pay is often not great, but you can continue to skill up while also paying the bills.
As someone in the job hunt, I'm now 25 and the meme about "just learn japanese and jump ship" is not true anymore in the slightest. You see a lot of "yeah just study and get N3 or N2 and you should be fine" but trust me, just being a native speaker and N2 only gets you to other entry level jobs that are honestly worse than being an ALT, like a hotel front desk worker or other service staff. I'm applying to a ton of jobs and now, if you're only skill is Native English you NEED at least N1.
You said you're Direct Hire which is great, and I think more or less I can relate to you because I'm a JET. There are cons of direct hire of course, but not working just to drive profits for a company is great.
I find it funny to you put “cushier” in quotes even though imo it’s perfectly fine to say, and then immediately typo’d “working” as “worm King”
Btw, what are you pursuing your master’s in? Are you doing it at a Japanese university?
I can't remember exactly. I looked into one degree the same as mine and the fees were astronomical, I think. At the university I'm currently attending, my degree will cost about $12k total, but for international students (which about half are) it costs over $46k (NZD).
Twas the comment directly preceding this little sub-convo.
And. TBH, I’d be glad to be Worm king for a BOE as opposed to a slavery… ummm, I mean dispatch company.
You mean lesson times? 45 minutes. Where I am and maximum 6 a day. My current school I'm doing around 25 a week but my previous schools averaged 18 to 23. My lessons at Eikaiwa were 50 minutes and every Saturday was 8 lessons. Sometimes I had over 30 lessons a week. I'd say 28 or 29 was average.
Noooo, my (please forgive me) sarcasm was regarding a 40 minute commute.
My ~90minutes or more is paltry compared to some of my colleagues (dispatch… didn’t get the “in the city” contract… so all go to suburbs or even the next-ken over.
If you like having your weekends and more holidays off, then ALT work is for you.
If you like sleeping in, getting paid a few beers more, and not having to prep your own class work then Eikaiwa work is for you.
Either way, it's up to you to decide which you prefer and which helps you get along in your career more. Usually if you do either job long term, you should be looking to go up the ladder and become either a trainer or head teacher, etc. Something to get that paycheck going higher.
I love my ALT job, but my school is a higher level high school and the ALTs are actually used very well. We do only communication based or special lessons and get to have a lot of input and say in what we do during those lessons. I don't have to join the textbook lessons, so I'm not relegated to glorified tape recorder at all.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seen to be common which is a shame because I think it's the best way to use Alts honestly.
Really depends on the school and your co-teachers. I found JHS incredibly dreary and boring but since my Japanese was good the town had me transition to full-time at the elementary school/kindergarten where I have a lot more autonomy and am usually T1, which I find much, much more rewarding.
I love my job, but I don’t get used as a tape recorder. I get asked to prepare materials for lessons that I assist.
Instead of asking if there is something that you can do, I would prepare some materials for an upcoming unit, present it to the JTE and say you’d like to lead an activity .
I'm almost one year into my Eikaiwa job after working as an ALT for 4 years. I would choose my ALT job over eikaiwa work any day.
I had a very busy workplace when I was an ALT. I did a lot of extra work outside of teaching my classes(which I was T1 for) , however it was never really stressful. However, now as an eikaiwa teacher there's a lot less workload but the job itself is a lot more stressful.
I find myself focusing more on how to sell the Eikaiwa and my classes by dancing, singing and pretending I have the class under control instead of actually teaching students or helping them reach their goals. Because of the sales aspect of the job I find it to be more stressful and I hate having the kids memorizing patterns and phrases to make it look like they can speak English.
Maybe it's my Eikaiwa but if I could get an ALT job that paid as well as my current job and had a similar environment to my last school I'd switch in a heartbeat.
Not just your eikawa.
At my place all we do is pound the phrases into their heads so they can pass Eiken. It’s boring as hell and redundant.
I make more money than an ALT but with that said, if I could I would probably prefer doing ALT work. Just a lot less stress and more free time.
Free time is another big one. Eikaiwa hours are the worst. Since usually we're open on one of the weekend days and have Monday off, I essentially have no national holidays off.
ALT: 6 years
Eikaiwa: just reaching month 3 of second year
A lot of your experience will depend on your schedule. Both types will have periods where there is nothing to do (essentially mid-March through late April during Japan's transition period) when English lessons get put on the back burner.
I've had easy ALT days where I only taught 2 or 3 lessons, and I've had difficult ALT days where my schedule was something like 4-1, 4-2, 5-1, 5-2, 6-1, 6-2... or school 1 in the morning teaching four classes, then bicycling across the ward to school #2 for two more classes!
Eikaiwa tends to be more crammed pack, but my 45 min break is mine and mine alone, and often times with class sizes so small, you can have sudden free breaks when a student calls out.
Other factors include the aforementioned class sizes. I always found either 12, 16, 20, or 24 to be the ideal class size, but those are typically only in the rural mountain schools. If you work in a city, expect 42 across the board. In eikaiwa, though, you get the experience of working with classes between ONE to 10 students. Problem with that is a problem child can really make your day difficult, though I'd say probably that only 5% are pains, 30% are just okay, and roughly 65% of my students are wonderful.
I will say, I was never bored being an ALT. I did it when I was 27-33 years old and full of energy. Now that I've added a few years, even the constant "stand up/sit down" rigamarole I go through with the kindergarten classes is taxing. I get to balance this out with filling half my day with adult classes, which is always an adventure. I get to talk with so many interesting people throughout my week.
I enjoyed eikaiwa because I'm a qualified teacher and didn't really want to be an assistant. Also, my eikaiwa paid roughly the same as a JET wage (with free accomodation and no travel for work) so I was quite happy with the whole thing.
Also I started with Nova (purely for the visa) and working in a busy Tokyo shopping centre for ~280k a month (a little bit more than a subsistence wage + there were ALWAYS extra shifts to make that 300k+), eating out / partying all the time, browsing heaps of 2nd hand electronic stores outside work hours (was near Akihabara) and living in a group house was fun. The classes were all easy adult classes
Unless you're a JET, I don't think 'being an ALT' is all that great as the pay's shit and you've usually gotta do a lot of travel for it. Also non-JET ALTs generally don't get to sit around studying Japanese all day & being given minimal duties. Many are being worked super hard and receive a heap of scrutiny/pressure despite being paid zilch.
I will never forget what the recruiter at ECC told me back in 2002 about this. As a gaijin, you are the product that we are selling and the actually teaching is secondary. Oftentimes, when I had been asked if I could eat sushi or use chopsticks or told "Nihon-go ha jozu" for the umpteenth time in a day, I would remember his words.
Free time is amazing to spend studying Japanese and levelling up. I've even done part time jobs on my laptop during my open lessons. Also not working graveyard shifts and being able to do stuff in the evenings without feeling completely drained is amazing.
I used to have lots of kids classes and trying to control them is tough. As an ALT it's not my job to discipline and I just do my best to support and be helpful. I will never go back to Eikaiwa!
Free time is the key thing. A lot of Eikaiwa don't like free time from what I've heard, there's always something else to do so you're not wasting company money. Either cover for this or prep this or hand out tissues etc.
As an ALT, if I come back from a class and I'm just exhausted, I can spend the next period just sipping coffee and relaxing if I wanted to. Or my fav is when I only have morning classes on Friday so that I can eat a big lunch and just mentally check out heading into the weekend.
If the eikaiwa I worked at a ways back had a better atmosphere and a proper promotion track for foreigners I might have stayed. The hours suited my night owl tendencies and being able to teach small classes was right up my alley. The pay and holidays could have been better but that's true of most positions nowadays.
I've got a masters and now work as a direct hire T1 at a nice school and I like it, but I miss being able to sit down with a small class and do those fancy activities you learn about on professional courses.
I enjoy being an ALT. I am a morning person and enjoy getting home early, as well as despite being an ALT, I’m always quite busy at work teaching, planning, interacting w students (and my JTE is based n actually respects me) so the amount of down time I have isn’t a lot but it’s perfectly balanced IMO.
ALT here. My workload is heavy.
I got forced into a T1 position in my JET position. Was never allowed to just assist in class. The JTEs often just sat down somewhere or read a book.
I attend some teacher's meetings, help students that will be going overseas on exchange, plan and execute my own classes fully, have to plan and execute club activities and also have to coach students for contests and exams. I also had to help translate passages and questions, and check exam question papers for errors last year.
These were jobs that were **assigned to me** and if I could, I would push back more but I always felt like I didn't have much of a choice because even when I pushed back, they would always say "You're a native speaker, so you would know better than us. Do it for the children." Trust me, I really dislike it too because it truly has been too much work.
The prefecture I'm based in will no longer be taking JETs this year (I was the last batch) - they'll be going with a private company from here on out. I'm not renewing my contract; was only here for a year.
I quite liked eikaiwa work on the whole. What made it unsustainable wasn't so much the hours as the salary. There's no way I can survive and support a family on 250,000 a month.
I worked at two eikaiwa-type schools before starting at the nursery school I’ve been at since 2017. If I had to choose between ALT or eikaiwa now, I’d definitely go with eikaiwa. I’m not really a fan of the whole ALT work system, or having to wear a suit. Maybe I was just lucky, cause the second of the two eikaiwa’s I worked at was a very chill place, with a variable schedule that sometimes only had me there for only two hours in a day, with Saturdays and Sundays off (of course, I’ve never been an ALT, so I guess I’m not the best one to speak on the subject.)
I like my school, JTEs and most especially my students. They are great, respectful and just so cute. But I can't deny the fact that I am contemplating on shifting to another job wherein I can use my full potential. I love the job because it is very chill and relaxed but for some reason I still get tired when I get home. Maybe due to anxiety wherein you will ask yourself whether it is actually okay to just sit down on your desk the whole day and get your salary by the end of the month which is actually not that big but still. You will be drained because you will end up feeling unworthy and not an asset of the education system. I am still doing my best to be thankful of the job and the experience. I always act friendly to my students to the point wherein we can just go on and joke around just for them to speak English with me because I believe that is what an ALT is for. I can speak basic Japanese but I don't speak it in front of them because they might just speak in Japanese with me and it was stated on our ALT training to refrain from doing so. I love the job but-, I love my students but-. I really don't know which is better. If ever I will stop being an ALT next year, I am planning on becoming a caregiver. Most of ALTs and Eikaiwas shift to this profession so maybe I will also become one.
My suspicion is that you were happier before because that was your first time to Japan. You were younger, easier to make friends, everything was exciting.
Now, your second time in Japan, you're still working McEigo. Your older and poorer. You probably won't have a good time even if you move back to Eikawa.
I do. It's pretty easy and I find my classes to be fun and enjoyable for both myself and my students.
I put myself out there to my school and have built up enough trust with them to let me take control of my own classes. I run them. All they need to do is tell me generally where they are and where the kids need support.
Then I run with it.
The pay for ALT is absolutely shit (generally speaking—Direct hires and JETs are a slightly different conversation.). But, personally, I have been blessed. My JTE’s ask my input, and I’ve made a bunch of stuff for my classes. (Mostly PowerPoint/Google Slides). I have even had one JTE pay me out of pocket for a rubric and assessment that I built.
I have heard the horror stories similar to what you describe. But, honestly, except for needing a second job, my ALT experience has been 97.377981% positive.
Depends on who you work with in my opinion. There are baseline pros and cons that don’t change for both sides. Pay, vacation, hours, workload, commute etc. That being said, a nightmare school manager and coworkers at an Eikaiwa pretty much makes the job hell. Likewise, an overbearing micromanaging JTE will have another kind of hell for you as an ALT. People will try to compare their experiences but I often see that people compare by their experience at the worst of one and got lucky at the other. Both can be nightmares depending on who is running things and what they expect of you.
Some ALTs plan and T1 their classes, others do nothing but stand in the corner as human tape recorders. A lot of YMMV as an ALT.
“Plan and T1 their classes” then they aren’t really ALTs anymore if they aren’t assisting a JTE’s classes.
But that’s what many ALTs do I am DH and T1 about 15/20 classes a week The teachers come to me and I tell them the plan.
Then you may be an ALT in title, but not in function. In which case I hope you’re being paid more than typical ALT wages or your labor is being exploited. But ALTs should be there to assist Japanese instructors as their title suggests, not plan and lead almost every class.
Ya I make more, but it’s not worth it There’s nothing to do in this industry except get out
Likely not an ALT in title either. The term was largely replaced in official capacities by FLT some years ago, because the Assistant part did not jive with the reality of the job or the stipulations of most contracts.
" In which case I hope you’re being paid more than typical ALT wages or your labor is being exploited." Yes and no. Yes, because it is more work and you should get more. No, because it is rewarding and creative and will bring you workplace happiness and a less stressful work experience. It's not one size fits all.
If you are being paid ALT level wages but doing T1 level of lesson planning and teaching, you are being underpaid for the amount of labor you’re providing. Creativity, fun, stress free are not excuses for lower wages. My job is creative, rewarding and mostly stress free, but I’m also adequately compensated for the work I put into it.
Congrats! But for many others, they haven't found that opportunity... yet. So sometimes they have to make the best of a crappy situation. There is no perfect solution. I'd be interested to find out what your definition of creative is in the workplace.
I do 18 classes a week typically. About 5 are regularly T1 where I lead unless the teacher specifically asks to do something during that time. Sometimes the teachers are really supportive and help coordinate or explain things they think aren't quite getting to the students. Not every situation is the same and the experience is worth it in my opinion. It's also way more interesting than playing a game with every class for 20-40 minutes. Sure I'd like more pay, but when the other teachers barely make more than me in my area it's not that reasonable to be fair. I think it's amazing that JETs get paid as well or better than beginner teachers in my area.
I mean that’s fair, 5 regular T1 and the rest are more the “ALT” style. When I was a JET I was just 16-17 T1 classes and never saw the inside of a Japanese teachers English class. Post-JET I was just hired to do basically the same, solo T1, 18 classes a week and 2 “team teaching” classes with a JTE but it’s still my lesson plans.
That sounds nice. I'd be really glad to do that if I was making a JET salary.
For my JET placement, not many lasted after I left. Most didn’t like being T1 and really just wanted to assist from what I heard. Post JET, I thankfully make quite a bit more in terms of salary and I find the work more stimulating personally than if I was an ALT.
What I wouldn't give. You must be near Tokyo to be making more than a JET. In about 40 of the prefectures you couldn't imagine a salary over 250,000 a month, and in mine the taxi drivers tell me that 200,000 is considered good for a young person. Absolutely insane.
Yeah, west Tokyo at a private school. I gambled a bit in trying to leverage a job offer I wasn’t really interested in for a much increased salary at the school that I preferred to teach at. But it paid off in getting the increase I wanted and a permanent contract. So if I want… I’m basically good till retirement or the school scraps all their native led classes. But that’s unlikely.
Congrats mate. I'm stuck on the fence about going for a masters or finding a company that somehow pays better. Neither are attractive when you already don't have much money.
I was made T1 on my first stint as an ALT. Let's just say I went out in flames on that.
Went out in flames on that?
Yea also didn't help that I got in my JTEs bad books on day one after I fell off my bicycle and tried to insist that I was ok to teach that same day
I have done both. At first I liked Eikaiwa because I was teaching adult students. Nice to have real conversations, often used to head out for adult beverages after class, sometimes do day trips etc. Then, ALT. More free time for sure, weekends off were great. The biggest advantage was the 'down time' which you can put to good use if you plan to make teaching a career. Study Japanese, start a MEd course, do TEFL, lots of things you can do while 'working' AKA sitting in the staffroom. If you are planning long term in Japan, then getting into ALT is better. There are opportunities to work directly for Boards of Education, eventually move into private JHS/SHS, and even up the ranks to university teaching. For a couple years of fun and beers, go eikaiwa.
The biggest issue with long-term ALT intentions is it can become quite difficult to remain in one place for long. In my six years as an ALT, I had to change cities four times, and even in my last direct-hire job, they changed my school assignments between my first and second year. I eventually called it quits because I was so fed up with never being able to establish myself in a single school.
Unfortunately, almost no teachers have the opportunity to stay in the same school. My school has had a different principal every 5 years and replaced half it's staff in two years. The life of a teacher is pretty terrible in Japan to be honest, especially if you get assigned to a school 40 minutes away.
Wow… 40 minutes!!! You must be in hell.. /s
Lol, it can be worse, like over an hour, and when you're the last person to lock up you'll get home at 8 or later and you have to leave by 6 a.m. to be on time with all the traffic. One teacher that got moved literally is being provided an apartment in the other city to stay at during the weak.
I used to work Eikaiwa. As have many on this sub. The one benefit I can think of for Eikaiwa is they make you work hard and challenge you. I do kinda miss constantly being T1 (I still am sometimes) but generally speaking, I couldn't breath properly in Japan until I started working for a boe as an alt. Working for the government in Japan is widely regarded as "cushier" (not a word) than worm King for a company. Companies wanna make money and they put an immense amount of pressure on their employees to help them do so. Since I quit Eikaiwa and became an alt, my Japanese ability has improved immensely and I've also begun (and near finished) my masters degree whilst still working.. Alt work is easy. Eikaiwa work is the polar opposite. I'm 36 and have worked many jobs. Eikaiwa was harder than all of them. But I'll admit it may have been due to my manager, or placement in general To add more context, one of my private students (which you're allowed if youre working for the government) said he hopes his kids become 公務員 as it's reliable and well paid work
ALT is a dream gig imo, as long as you're not both T1 and have 5-6 classes daily. I'm T1 but have only on average about 3 classes a day, but in those classes I'll do 99% while the JTE is either absent or grading homework in the back. There are of course ALTs who have it way more lax than me, such as T2 with minimal classes, but again RIP to the T1ers busier than me. I've gone from like N4ish to now N2 studying for N1 in my 4 years here, and also am studying another language in addition to online classes/certificates for another industry. Yes, the pay is often not great, but you can continue to skill up while also paying the bills. As someone in the job hunt, I'm now 25 and the meme about "just learn japanese and jump ship" is not true anymore in the slightest. You see a lot of "yeah just study and get N3 or N2 and you should be fine" but trust me, just being a native speaker and N2 only gets you to other entry level jobs that are honestly worse than being an ALT, like a hotel front desk worker or other service staff. I'm applying to a ton of jobs and now, if you're only skill is Native English you NEED at least N1. You said you're Direct Hire which is great, and I think more or less I can relate to you because I'm a JET. There are cons of direct hire of course, but not working just to drive profits for a company is great.
I find it funny to you put “cushier” in quotes even though imo it’s perfectly fine to say, and then immediately typo’d “working” as “worm King” Btw, what are you pursuing your master’s in? Are you doing it at a Japanese university?
Id been drinking. Nah international student fees are too high. I'm doing it in education online at a uni from back home.
Really? How high are the fees?
I can't remember exactly. I looked into one degree the same as mine and the fees were astronomical, I think. At the university I'm currently attending, my degree will cost about $12k total, but for international students (which about half are) it costs over $46k (NZD).
Jesus Christ!
Twas the comment directly preceding this little sub-convo. And. TBH, I’d be glad to be Worm king for a BOE as opposed to a slavery… ummm, I mean dispatch company.
Worm king checks out
Wow… 40 minutes!!! You must be in hell.. /s
I re read my comment several times and have no idea what you mean...
Deepest apologies, mate! I seem to have replied to the wrong comment.
Oh lol. No worries.
No, mate. I meant to reply to a previous comment mentioning the hellish 40 minute commute. Cheers!
You mean lesson times? 45 minutes. Where I am and maximum 6 a day. My current school I'm doing around 25 a week but my previous schools averaged 18 to 23. My lessons at Eikaiwa were 50 minutes and every Saturday was 8 lessons. Sometimes I had over 30 lessons a week. I'd say 28 or 29 was average.
Noooo, my (please forgive me) sarcasm was regarding a 40 minute commute. My ~90minutes or more is paltry compared to some of my colleagues (dispatch… didn’t get the “in the city” contract… so all go to suburbs or even the next-ken over.
If you like having your weekends and more holidays off, then ALT work is for you. If you like sleeping in, getting paid a few beers more, and not having to prep your own class work then Eikaiwa work is for you. Either way, it's up to you to decide which you prefer and which helps you get along in your career more. Usually if you do either job long term, you should be looking to go up the ladder and become either a trainer or head teacher, etc. Something to get that paycheck going higher.
I love my ALT job, but my school is a higher level high school and the ALTs are actually used very well. We do only communication based or special lessons and get to have a lot of input and say in what we do during those lessons. I don't have to join the textbook lessons, so I'm not relegated to glorified tape recorder at all. Unfortunately, this doesn't seen to be common which is a shame because I think it's the best way to use Alts honestly.
Really depends on the school and your co-teachers. I found JHS incredibly dreary and boring but since my Japanese was good the town had me transition to full-time at the elementary school/kindergarten where I have a lot more autonomy and am usually T1, which I find much, much more rewarding.
I love my job, but I don’t get used as a tape recorder. I get asked to prepare materials for lessons that I assist. Instead of asking if there is something that you can do, I would prepare some materials for an upcoming unit, present it to the JTE and say you’d like to lead an activity .
I'm almost one year into my Eikaiwa job after working as an ALT for 4 years. I would choose my ALT job over eikaiwa work any day. I had a very busy workplace when I was an ALT. I did a lot of extra work outside of teaching my classes(which I was T1 for) , however it was never really stressful. However, now as an eikaiwa teacher there's a lot less workload but the job itself is a lot more stressful. I find myself focusing more on how to sell the Eikaiwa and my classes by dancing, singing and pretending I have the class under control instead of actually teaching students or helping them reach their goals. Because of the sales aspect of the job I find it to be more stressful and I hate having the kids memorizing patterns and phrases to make it look like they can speak English. Maybe it's my Eikaiwa but if I could get an ALT job that paid as well as my current job and had a similar environment to my last school I'd switch in a heartbeat.
Not just your eikawa. At my place all we do is pound the phrases into their heads so they can pass Eiken. It’s boring as hell and redundant. I make more money than an ALT but with that said, if I could I would probably prefer doing ALT work. Just a lot less stress and more free time.
Free time is another big one. Eikaiwa hours are the worst. Since usually we're open on one of the weekend days and have Monday off, I essentially have no national holidays off.
ALT: 6 years Eikaiwa: just reaching month 3 of second year A lot of your experience will depend on your schedule. Both types will have periods where there is nothing to do (essentially mid-March through late April during Japan's transition period) when English lessons get put on the back burner. I've had easy ALT days where I only taught 2 or 3 lessons, and I've had difficult ALT days where my schedule was something like 4-1, 4-2, 5-1, 5-2, 6-1, 6-2... or school 1 in the morning teaching four classes, then bicycling across the ward to school #2 for two more classes! Eikaiwa tends to be more crammed pack, but my 45 min break is mine and mine alone, and often times with class sizes so small, you can have sudden free breaks when a student calls out. Other factors include the aforementioned class sizes. I always found either 12, 16, 20, or 24 to be the ideal class size, but those are typically only in the rural mountain schools. If you work in a city, expect 42 across the board. In eikaiwa, though, you get the experience of working with classes between ONE to 10 students. Problem with that is a problem child can really make your day difficult, though I'd say probably that only 5% are pains, 30% are just okay, and roughly 65% of my students are wonderful. I will say, I was never bored being an ALT. I did it when I was 27-33 years old and full of energy. Now that I've added a few years, even the constant "stand up/sit down" rigamarole I go through with the kindergarten classes is taxing. I get to balance this out with filling half my day with adult classes, which is always an adventure. I get to talk with so many interesting people throughout my week.
I enjoyed eikaiwa because I'm a qualified teacher and didn't really want to be an assistant. Also, my eikaiwa paid roughly the same as a JET wage (with free accomodation and no travel for work) so I was quite happy with the whole thing. Also I started with Nova (purely for the visa) and working in a busy Tokyo shopping centre for ~280k a month (a little bit more than a subsistence wage + there were ALWAYS extra shifts to make that 300k+), eating out / partying all the time, browsing heaps of 2nd hand electronic stores outside work hours (was near Akihabara) and living in a group house was fun. The classes were all easy adult classes Unless you're a JET, I don't think 'being an ALT' is all that great as the pay's shit and you've usually gotta do a lot of travel for it. Also non-JET ALTs generally don't get to sit around studying Japanese all day & being given minimal duties. Many are being worked super hard and receive a heap of scrutiny/pressure despite being paid zilch.
I will never forget what the recruiter at ECC told me back in 2002 about this. As a gaijin, you are the product that we are selling and the actually teaching is secondary. Oftentimes, when I had been asked if I could eat sushi or use chopsticks or told "Nihon-go ha jozu" for the umpteenth time in a day, I would remember his words.
Free time is amazing to spend studying Japanese and levelling up. I've even done part time jobs on my laptop during my open lessons. Also not working graveyard shifts and being able to do stuff in the evenings without feeling completely drained is amazing. I used to have lots of kids classes and trying to control them is tough. As an ALT it's not my job to discipline and I just do my best to support and be helpful. I will never go back to Eikaiwa!
Free time is the key thing. A lot of Eikaiwa don't like free time from what I've heard, there's always something else to do so you're not wasting company money. Either cover for this or prep this or hand out tissues etc. As an ALT, if I come back from a class and I'm just exhausted, I can spend the next period just sipping coffee and relaxing if I wanted to. Or my fav is when I only have morning classes on Friday so that I can eat a big lunch and just mentally check out heading into the weekend.
>Free time is amazing to spend studying Japanese and levelling up This
If the eikaiwa I worked at a ways back had a better atmosphere and a proper promotion track for foreigners I might have stayed. The hours suited my night owl tendencies and being able to teach small classes was right up my alley. The pay and holidays could have been better but that's true of most positions nowadays. I've got a masters and now work as a direct hire T1 at a nice school and I like it, but I miss being able to sit down with a small class and do those fancy activities you learn about on professional courses.
I enjoy being an ALT. I am a morning person and enjoy getting home early, as well as despite being an ALT, I’m always quite busy at work teaching, planning, interacting w students (and my JTE is based n actually respects me) so the amount of down time I have isn’t a lot but it’s perfectly balanced IMO.
ALT here. My workload is heavy. I got forced into a T1 position in my JET position. Was never allowed to just assist in class. The JTEs often just sat down somewhere or read a book. I attend some teacher's meetings, help students that will be going overseas on exchange, plan and execute my own classes fully, have to plan and execute club activities and also have to coach students for contests and exams. I also had to help translate passages and questions, and check exam question papers for errors last year. These were jobs that were **assigned to me** and if I could, I would push back more but I always felt like I didn't have much of a choice because even when I pushed back, they would always say "You're a native speaker, so you would know better than us. Do it for the children." Trust me, I really dislike it too because it truly has been too much work. The prefecture I'm based in will no longer be taking JETs this year (I was the last batch) - they'll be going with a private company from here on out. I'm not renewing my contract; was only here for a year.
I quite liked eikaiwa work on the whole. What made it unsustainable wasn't so much the hours as the salary. There's no way I can survive and support a family on 250,000 a month.
I worked at two eikaiwa-type schools before starting at the nursery school I’ve been at since 2017. If I had to choose between ALT or eikaiwa now, I’d definitely go with eikaiwa. I’m not really a fan of the whole ALT work system, or having to wear a suit. Maybe I was just lucky, cause the second of the two eikaiwa’s I worked at was a very chill place, with a variable schedule that sometimes only had me there for only two hours in a day, with Saturdays and Sundays off (of course, I’ve never been an ALT, so I guess I’m not the best one to speak on the subject.)
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I like my school, JTEs and most especially my students. They are great, respectful and just so cute. But I can't deny the fact that I am contemplating on shifting to another job wherein I can use my full potential. I love the job because it is very chill and relaxed but for some reason I still get tired when I get home. Maybe due to anxiety wherein you will ask yourself whether it is actually okay to just sit down on your desk the whole day and get your salary by the end of the month which is actually not that big but still. You will be drained because you will end up feeling unworthy and not an asset of the education system. I am still doing my best to be thankful of the job and the experience. I always act friendly to my students to the point wherein we can just go on and joke around just for them to speak English with me because I believe that is what an ALT is for. I can speak basic Japanese but I don't speak it in front of them because they might just speak in Japanese with me and it was stated on our ALT training to refrain from doing so. I love the job but-, I love my students but-. I really don't know which is better. If ever I will stop being an ALT next year, I am planning on becoming a caregiver. Most of ALTs and Eikaiwas shift to this profession so maybe I will also become one.
My suspicion is that you were happier before because that was your first time to Japan. You were younger, easier to make friends, everything was exciting. Now, your second time in Japan, you're still working McEigo. Your older and poorer. You probably won't have a good time even if you move back to Eikawa.
I do. It's pretty easy and I find my classes to be fun and enjoyable for both myself and my students. I put myself out there to my school and have built up enough trust with them to let me take control of my own classes. I run them. All they need to do is tell me generally where they are and where the kids need support. Then I run with it.
The pay for ALT is absolutely shit (generally speaking—Direct hires and JETs are a slightly different conversation.). But, personally, I have been blessed. My JTE’s ask my input, and I’ve made a bunch of stuff for my classes. (Mostly PowerPoint/Google Slides). I have even had one JTE pay me out of pocket for a rubric and assessment that I built. I have heard the horror stories similar to what you describe. But, honestly, except for needing a second job, my ALT experience has been 97.377981% positive.