Teaching ESL

[lalalaLeah]

Hi, I am finishing my degree this summer and hoping to hop on over to Japan in September. However, I'm not sure what ESL programs are good. I've applied to NOVA and Interac but continuously read negative comments on both. Any suggestions as to where I should apply?

Thank you,
Leah

[Mike Cash]

My only suggestion would be to not post the exact same message under different subfora.

[senseiman]

I believe NOVA and Interac are part of the same group.

I've never worked for either. A lot of the bad stuff you hear is probably exaggerated. I spent about five years as an English instructor (EFL in Japan, not ESL by the way) and while NOVA is one of the worse chains, its not necessarily a bad way to come to Japan. Basically its a safe way, you aren't going to get ripped off or stranded without work like some of the horror stories I've heard.

You might try AEON, GEOS, ECC and the JET program, which all hire overseas and have marginally better reputations than NOVA.

[lalalaLeah]

Yes, that was a bit stupid of me. I was just trying to find the proper place to post it, and this seemed more appropriate than my previous. :S

[Ewok85]

Interac and Nova are two seperate companies that operate in seperate ways. NOVA has typically specialised in meaningless English Conversations "schools" which consist of little more than a foreigner reading from a text book to a small group of people. AEON, GEOS, ECC, etc have the same style.

Interac is part of a new trend in using foreigners, referred to as a "dispatch" company or hakengaisha in Japanese. Basically contracts are given to the company from the Japanese Board of Education and the company hires, contracts and pays the teachers. Generally the positions are for public High, Junior High, and lately Elementary schools. In the past teachers tended to be hired directly by the BoE or the schools themselves, but this has changed in the last few years.

Theres alot of dirty tricks that have come to light within this area, especially this time of year, as they will advertise for positions that do not exist, simply to have names on the books to be able to compete for contracts (contracts from the BoE are finalised in April, sometimes barely a week before school begins again). Another dirty trick is to advertise high salaries, only to tell applicants that "due to lower than expected contracts from the BoE" they will be paid less, sometimes up to a third below what was advertised. (Note - I have a friend who works for Interac, who did the former [advertised for positions in Saitama, lost the contract, and so all these people who were told they were working in Saitama now were given a weeks notice that they will be in other prefectures] but were true from the start about the salary levels - but until my friend receives his pay I'm withholding my judgement).

Yet even after all that most people come here, do the work, have fun and don't have any issues, but its worth knowing what can go wrong, plan for the worst and not have it happen ;)