Whether or not to teach English at a Japanese University

When it comes to Japanese universities, there are plenty of us sharing our “horror stories” about student behavioral issues or unprofessional operating practices.

And these are real things that many teachers, including myself, have experienced. But these situations are not the norm at every university. You stand a good chance of avoiding bad students, clueless administrators, and toxic work environments if you know what to look for.

It’s a good idea to be solution-based in your approach. Read about individual experiences, but don’t’ dwell on them. When considering to work overseas, focus on what you need to know before making a decision. After all, you have to make that decision on the information available at that time.

So for now, we won’t go down the rabbit hole of bad teaching experiences. Maybe another time. Instead we’ll focus on asking the right questions to find out what you need to make the right choice.

Research the institution

Surely, this isn’t the first time someone has talked about researching a workplace, but it bares repeating. Japanese universities can differ on a wide margin both in the culture of the workplace and the standard of education.

Due to the MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) practice of allowing a large degree of institutional self-governance, a lot of private schools march to the beat of their own drum. This means some take their mission more seriously than others.

There are a lot of resources for looking into a particular university. I recommend the site UniversityGuru as a quick reference to get a general idea of the institution in question. This site lists rankings from several organizations in chronological order from the most recent. You won’t get much detail, but you’ll get a general idea of how the school is perceived among the hundreds of other universities in Japan.

From there you might find reviews from former teachers, but among a group of reviewers, there’s always going to be some discontent. It’s better to get a consensus of opinions.

3 basic things to learn about your classes

During an interview, you will most likely have a chance to ask questions to your interviewers. There are a couple of obvious ones to find out more about the English language education at that school. Obvious, but I didn’t ask these questions in my first interview at the first university I worked for in Japan. Knowing what I know now, I would want answers to the following questions before committing to a position:

What department is the position for?

It’s not the end-all + be-all. However, would you rather teach students who expect to use foreign language in their future job, or teach students who are taking language classes just to earn required credit.

If it’s your first time teaching at a Japanese university, the level of student investment in your classes won’t wow you. However, the department you land in can make a significant difference in your students’ curiosity and eagerness to learn.

I’ve taught in a situation where I and a few other teachers in the same position were farmed out to various departments. This is an indication you’re an afterthought in your administration; the foreigner who does the English thing. What’s more, future employers may want to see that you worked for a department on your CV. This nomad-like scenario is probably rare, but given a choice, I’d try to avoid it.

What kind of classes will I teach? 

If they are giving you a lot of courses called Speaking 1, English 1, eikaiwa, or other nondescript titles with no academic relation, expect that the school is teaching English to tick off a box. To me, excessive amounts of classes with these kinds of titles are place fillers in a university. Is it a result of the school’s low standard? Low level of their incoming students? Or most likely a chicken & egg situation working in a downward cycle?

However, you could be given a reasonable portion of courses, like Academic writing, TOEFL, Project English, or other EAP courses. That’s an indication the school and that department take English language education more seriously.

What are the class sizes like?

At Japanese universities classes could average 25 students or double that number. There’s a massive difference between the two as experienced teachers know.

Hopefully for most required classes you’ll have under 30 students per class. Depending on the interviewer, they could be frank or paint you a rosy picture. If you have a chance to meet and ask a teacher in person, try to squeeze in a few questions (including this one), that is assuming you’re doing an in-person interview.

If responses to these 3 questions give you answers like (1) Policy Studies (2) Teaching a heavy amount of TOEFL, TOEIC, EAP or other specific titles (3) Class sizes under 30 per class. Things are looking good.

Other questions

If you, like me, don’t want to have your time chewed up for no reason, get answers to these questions:

What other obligations will I have outside of the classroom? Some schools have lots of mandatory meetings, assemblies, or other fluff. Others have almost none. If you get excessive fluff work, to me it’s an indication that keeping you busy is more important than doing your primary task (teaching) well.

Will I need to work any weekends? The first university I worked at had open campus days or some other “special” days once or twice a month. Most of these had nothing to do with teaching.

Do I need to be on campus when I’m not teaching? Depending on the school, you may be required to be there 9-to-5 every day or conversely only when you have class. Some schools are more flexible than others. Some are the opposite, but I find it much more efficient doing all my prep, admin, etc. at home.

Are there any prep/research days? Some schools arrange schedules to give full-time faculty a “prep” or “research” day. It’s really nice to have.

Hopefully, you won’t get responses to the above like (1) Lot’s (2) Yes – often (3) Yes – from 9am~ (4) No.

You ended up at a bad university after all

Let’s say you took a teaching job that turned out to be less than ideal. Maybe the lack of engagement is demotivating. Maybe the workplace is a source of anxiety. Your classes are a mess, and many or most students in the room don’t pay any attention to your lesson. Some may have serious behavioral issues. This might lead you to question yourself.

Or maybe your working in an unprofessional environment. The office staff or “zemi-sensei” are visiting, pressuring you to pass students who attended exactly zero classes after their week one appearance. You can find many teachers dealing with these and similar scenarios. I know exactly where they’re coming from.

So, what should you do? You can develop a lot of bad habits at a school with no accountability. These habits will serve you poorly in the future. However, you can also be proactive and make the best of the situation. Recently, I heard a very important reminder that applies here: Your attitude is one of the few things in life you can control.

What you can do

When I was at a less than awesome university, I spent the first year confused, unorganized, and disillusioned. Then rallying around a few like-minded foreign instructors, I got busy using the next two years to develop my CV – getting published, presenting at conferences, teaching optional summer classes in specialized subject matter. The summer classes involved chances to do teacher training and focused intensive courses. A step further, some might consider a Ph.D program as a ticket to greener pastures.

I recommend mentally skipping over the “disillusionment phase” and/or being frustrated with your surroundings. Your time is too valuable. Just focus on your own professional development from the beginning. If it’s your first teaching position, use it as a spring board to something better.

You don’t want to waste time if you see teaching English as your long-term career path. Whether your school is on board or not, you’ve got JALT and other teacher-organized groups where you can meet and interact with professionals. Find another teacher, who you can publish with and present with at conferences and propel each other upward.

The Take Away

There is no sure-fire way to know if you’re looking at a quality program or not without actually being a part of it. I have given my take on what are some useful tactics for learning about Japanese universities, but any single teacher’s experience is limited when you consider the immensity of Japanese secondary education.

And there is so much more to learn than just the quality of the position. For instance, do university teaching positions in Japan pay well enough? Or, what is life like in Japan?

You may find that an offered teaching position does not look great on paper. However, if you really want to live in Japan or that specific city, or you’re just that laid back enough that you can handle some toxicity, you might still want to give it a shot.

Don’t go “full-send” on every application or say yes to an offer in your desired location without knowing some basic information about the position. You don’t want to find things out after the fact. Then again, at least you’ll have a conversation starter during lunch with other frustrated teachers.

This post isn’t meant to discourage anyone from applying for Japanese university positions. Instead, I hope it gives you ideas to help you find the good ones. They are out there.