teaching in japan with a spouse

[Jean Rainbow]

:souka: i want to teach in japan because i love it there so much but i'm having trouble finding a program or company that will provide housing for me and a spouse...are married people even allowed to teach in japan?!?! i can't find anything that will let you live with your spouse....

[duff_o_josh]

jets do it all the time, but i heard with nova and other schools you have to live in some shared housing thing. if you get a job without going through some programme you can easily find a place of your own. although finding a job like that mean syou have to come here first...something like 90% of english jobs are filled by foriegners already in japan. i dont remember where i got the stat, i think it was some visa site.

[Revenant]

Is your wife Japanese?

I know Berlitz will help pay the rent of a house for families living here.

[khammo01]

:souka: i want to teach in japan because i love it there so much but i'm having trouble finding a program or company that will provide housing for me and a spouse...are married people even allowed to teach in japan?!?! i can't find anything that will let you live with your spouse....

The programs aren't really organized to cater toward individual needs.

Do you have any other skill besides "speaking English" (which is really a commodity, not a skill)? I would recommend leveraging that in tandem with your English. Except for the English teaching industry, there are no companies just looking for "a guy (or girl) who can speak English" -- they are looking for "an English speaking (or more frequently - a bilingual) candidate who has experience or is schooled in -------------" Companies are looking for solutions to problems. Language is only one of many skills.



Other than teaching positions, there are really very few jobs in Japan for a foreigner unless you leverage your other skills. You can arguably make more money even working in a factory than teaching English.

Now if you're bilingual, the opportunities further increase. Generally, a (fluent) bilingual person can make 30% more income than a non-bilingual for the same occupation. There seem to be the most jobs for non-Japanese in the IT, software development, sales, accounting, auditing and management fields, among others. Granted, most of these require a 4 year university education.


The comment about most positions being filled by people already in Japan is probably true for several reasons:

1. Companies will want to interview the candidate in person. An in-country candidate offers the opportunity to hand inspect the goods and avoid the risk of hiring remotely. (Nova is the exception because they have the overseas resources to screen candidates)
2. Less risk of the deal going bad
3. Usually an in-country candidate has less visa worries
4. In-country candidate usually has a place to live so all you need to do is provide the job instead of a housing benefits package
5. In-country candidate is comfortable with Japan and is productive from day one. Overseas candidate requires both job and environment orientation
6. Even with Internet, there are far more resources for an in-country job candidate, better time-zone conditions, ability to make cheap local calls, quickly accept requests for in-person job interviews, etc.
7. A company usually wishes to quickly fill a position and can't wait for a candidate to go through an international relocation.

and many more reasons.


When I first came to Japan, I came with no visa (90 day temporary stay), did the rounds, found a job, left Japan, got the work visa sponsored by my employer, and came back. (Note- you no longer need to leave the country to get your visa. It can be done domestically).

If I tried to find a position while still overseas, I'd probably be working at Nova right now (Instead I'm working in the IT department of a multinational company with an 8 figure (yen) income).

[Silverpoint]

Shane English Schools take married or unmarried couples and have couples accomodation (as long as you BOTH want to teach for the company). They have about 200+ schools in the Tokyo area. Unfortunately they differentiate themselves by specialising in British English (they're a British company) and I think they only take teachers from the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

[Eve]

Funny, I was driving my mother and my half-brother to the pharmacy today and my mom brought up something to my brother. She said, "since you like Japanese culture so much why don't you graduate from High School (He's only 17) and go to Japan and teach english?" Then, my brother had a lot of questions and stuff. And I said I would help him get some answers and I found this thread here.

Some of the questions are,
1) Is it a requirement for a foreign english teacher to know some or fluent Japanese?
2) He's not a gaijin-gaijin (He's chinese), would that be a problem?
3) What are the education requirements? (I'm guessing university or college)
4) Anything else I missed?

[Silverpoint]

1) No
2) For some schools yes, but reputable ones shouldn't give you any problems
3) He needs an undergraduate degree to get a visa
4) Most schools would probably consider him way too young

[khammo01]

Funny, I was driving my mother and my half-brother to the pharmacy today and my mom brought up something to my brother. She said, "since you like Japanese culture so much why don't you graduate from High School (He's only 17) and go to Japan and teach english?" Then, my brother had a lot of questions and stuff. And I said I would help him get some answers and I found this thread here.

Some of the questions are,
1) Is it a requirement for a foreign english teacher to know some or fluent Japanese?
2) He's not a gaijin-gaijin (He's chinese), would that be a problem?
3) What are the education requirements? (I'm guessing university or college)
4) Anything else I missed?

1) A lot of time it is easier if you DON'T know Japanese because they discourage you from using it.
2) Students might prefer "Gaijin" but if his English is fluent, should not be problem.
3) Undergraduate. Field of major not important
4. Yes, probably too young. Would recommend if interest in Japan, continue highschool/university study to get education in a field, and combine that with interest in Japan/language skills. Only knowing english and coming to Japan solidifies your destiny as an English teacher. There are other things to do which are potentially more profitable.

[Eve]

Thxs for the replies and sorry for replying late. Had been busy with work lately. What kind of jobs are available for foreigners who wanted to live there. Because I also had a friend who went to Japan for a year to work with Sony. He just came back this month.

[khammo01]

Speaking from my own experience there should be a pretty good supply of entry level IT jobs - stuff like being on a tech support team for a large company and handling the problems users face with the technology. Probably 80% of the work would be in Japanese but you'd be valued for being able to provide good support for the expat users. This kind of work is pretty easy to find if you have experience or computer training and good troubleshooting and/or customer service skills.

There should also be jobs in trade, translation proofreader, possibly inhouse translator (but I'd recommend going freelance if you're any good). Other jobs I see foreigners working in are administrative assistant (if your Japanese is really good), retail, restaurant, bar, hostess, headhunting/recruiting, English language child daycare, and of course English teaching (both for grownups and children).
Others that I _suppose_ there must be demand for (but I have no knowledge firsthand might be patent or legal clerk, internal engineer, etc. )

If you want a high level job such as management, consulting,etc., it could be difficult without first having entry experience inside Japan, unless you are brought in as an expatriate by your current company to work in your Japan affiliate, or maybe as a freelance/contractor.

Anyone else feel free to provide any other professions that I might have missed.

[GaijinPunch]

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. I will say though, intermediate Japanese helps at the entry level (for IT anyway). I got my first two jobs b/c I could speak both languages. I fret to think I will one day have to go through that whole "finding a job in Japan" process again. Last time, I had a computer and one suitcase full of clothes. Now I have a wife, a bunch of furniture, and all sorts of other crap. :/

[Ewok85]

How do you think I would go with 7yrs work experience (Computer retail 5ys and helpdesk for 2yrs) as well as solid Japanese skills (1yr of Adv Japan at University, 2nd Lvl JLPT and 1yr attending a Japanese high school).
Looking at some sort of bilingual IT support position, with my Uni IT lecturer and Japanese high school principal as references :D

[Eve]

Cool, thxs for the infos guys