Teaching English, 2009 edition

Whoa, hold on. We're talking about teaching English, not other areas. In the link provided in my last post, it does imply that work in IT would require 10 years experience... BUT, we're talking about teaching English. That's three years, not ten.

Which link are you talking about? The link in my last post is to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In other words, it's official; not people talking on an internet forum. Here's a quote:

Posting the information right from the government isn't rising up to the challenge?

When I went to forums about teaching English in Japan, they said 3-years. When I went to the Japanese government site, they said 3-years. At the site you gave, are they talking about people teaching English on a humanities visa, or working in another industry such as IT? How about your colleagues who were divorced? You haven't answered that one yet.

That could definitely be a problem for someone trying to pull that stunt!

 

I'm talking about getting a working visa, period. The 3 years 'in relevant field' are obviously aimed at older people that are likely to not have graduated from university. The OP aside, do you know anyone under 30 (or even 40) that will have 3 years of professional teaching (real teaching) experience w/o a degree? You could arguably bullshit your way past that, but I'll go out on a limb and say that the streets would be rife with people abusing this... instead of the other way around (rife w/ people struggling to get some type of visa).

This is apparently limited to the three fields above as well, which adds another caveat: you're probably going to be stuck in that job until you leave.... or until it's visa renewal time.

One was in an English position that I honestly didn't keep up with. By the time he got the divorce, I'm sure he was way, way past the 10 year mark. The other was in IT... the kicker was he had 1 month to take care of his business once his divorce was finalized.

A Korean lady actually got through the system a few months ago, w/ that sticky shit you put on your fingers, a la 24 and the like.

 

I've got another couple semi-related questions/topics.

1. Does anyone have any experience with the exchange programs? Especially university ones. What sort of classes does a person take? Stuff exactly for their chosen degree or...?

2. By the time I finish my degree, I will have a paralell ~3-4 years experience managing a semi-enterprise network, by myself (got that job without a degree/certification, but two years pseudo-experience and a good hookup). Is it possible that will help out getting in with a different field?

 

1: I did one that was affiliated w/ my school. I get credit for the courses (like 9 hours of Japanese) but in the end I had taken too many core courses away from the University, so not everything counted. Of course, your mileage may vary (in either way). The classes I took were Japanese x2, Japanese history, Japanese culture, and Japanese business. FYI, you'll learn 10x more Japanese at home w/ your host family than you do in school (assuming you take that route).

2: If you're talking about a job, hell yes. Any experience is good... even if you're getting a job in knob polishing, doing something that shows self-motivation and that you can get over a learning curb is never a bad thing.

 

I absolutely do, and way more than just a couple. Some live and work here legally, and some work in other countries. I'm talking about teaching ESL, as that is what's under a humanities visa where 3 years experience is listed as a requirement instead of a degree. Is that not "real" enough for you?

Most companies that hire from overseas require a degree as part of their company requirements. There was a very large company that would hire people with working holiday visas or experience, but they've recently gone belly-up. Perhaps you've heard of them? Plenty of people did abuse the system; getting an "easy" visa, then skipping out for a different job once all the paperwork was done.

Why? Once you have your visa, you can work at any job willing to hire you within that work field as defined by immigration. That's exactly what made it easy for people to do what I described above.

How long was he married, and why hadn't he applied for PR? The general acceptance is 5 years of marriage to a Japanese national or 10 years in the country and proof that you can sustain yourself.

IT is definitely 10 years, as defined by immigration. Again, was he not in a position to apply for PR?

Haha, I read about that a while back. Still, a bit risky... isn't it?


Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that these 3 and 10 year requirements are minimum and it's totally up to whichever immigration officer whether someone is accepted or rejected for any reason. I'm simply citing the sources. I'm sure we could both spend hours going through someone like Debito's site reading all sorts of stories about this if we wanted to (I don't).

 

Sorry, I can't help with this one at all.

In the English teaching fielf, a degree in anything is ok.

In other fields, you would have to show that you can do a better job that a Japanese person with a similar educational background that speaks Japanese and doesn't need a visa. Having work experience already is a start. From there, the easiest way to go about this is to transfer to Japan within a company that you're already working for. Otherwise, you're hitting the streets with your C.V. Most of these companies will not hire from abroad, and many don't provide visa sponsorship. In other words, you're best off already legally living in Japan when looking for work here. If you want to search, "daijob.com" and "ecentral.jp" are popular job searching websites in addition to the ones I mentioned earlier in this thread. Just google search them. These ones will have very few, if any, English teaching jobs. The prior sites specialize in them.

 

I happen to know quite a few ESL teachers. The ones that have taught before getting a degree are generally teacher's aids (AI's or TA's, whatever you want to call). Sure this is "work" but it'd be gray at best for the issue at hand. Again... I'd be interested to hear of someone that actually got through the system on this, and their background. I've known shitloads of "teachers" over the years and the 3 year thing was simply never an option. Many of them got married to get a visa... and a few of them were even gay.

Most companies in the free world do, actually. This is why I'd never bother getting long term employment before finishing school. It just isn't a good idea.

Everyone still does. The people that hire from abroad work you to the bone (35-40 teaching hours a week) so it's natural that people bail.

By "that job" I meant "that field". You can technically work just about anything other than entertainment (and probably medical and rocket science) w/ a Humanitarian visa. But when you're up for renewal they'd likely look at how you got it in the first place.

B/c in at least one case, he had only been in the country for about 2 years and married 4. They only tell you to apply if you've been married for 5+ years, and been in the country for 3 years consecutively. You can get it in under, but the consultants will advise against it. The case of the other guy was that he was in Japan for a while, but a lot of it was in the service. I doubt he qualified. I hear he's still here though, so who knows.

The Japanese government throws around the blacklist stick a lot. And this lady was already blacklisted, so I guess she figured she had nothing to lose. She's likely looking at jail time now. I'd need to look it up. It's pretty cool... but I'd never do it.

To this I would just say you simply don't want to be competing with Japanese-only speaking Japanese. You'll not get paid enough, and you'll go nowhere pretty quickly. Look for jobs geared at foreigners. You don't reap the benefits of society that Japanese do (money from home, freedom to pay for blowjobs, credit, loans, etc.) so why should you have to work and get paid like them?