rui | (no subject)

Dear JET'ers, and/or people doing the whole teaching-English-abroad thing:

In your experience, would it be worth it for me to look into getting TEFL/TESOL/whatever certification? The JET website is incredibly unhelpful on this front. (You don't NEED a college background in education, but it's good! You don't NEED to know Japanese, but it's good! You don't NEED a TEFL, but it's good! You don't NEED anything but a bachelor's in something, English fluency, and to not be an utter mouthbreather, but having more? GOOD! urgh)

So, since you've done it or tried to do it or whatever, what's your advice?

I have:
- a BA in Literature
- a transcript saying i've taken the classroom requirements necessary to be certified to teach in PA, but not the Praxis tests or classroom observation/student teaching time
- native fluency in English with experience proofreading, correcting papers, and generally being a lit major.
- no real knowledge of Japanese but plenty of study tools
- some knowledge of modern Japanese culture

Would adding TEFL/TESOL to my resume make me more attractive, or is it a waste of my time? I ask because it would cost $1300 to get the certification from a program that actually seems legit (100 hrs of online learning time plus a week spent in classroom, observing and teaching real ESL students), and i have no desire to drop that kind of cash on something that won't pay off.

Plz help an idiot along, guys :/

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I won't lie to you, it will. JET is shrinking, although it might not be a permanent thing, but there are fewer jobs than there used to be. If you want it, if you REALLY want it, get the TEFL/TESOL, it WILL help. I can give you more detail, if you want. It's certainly possible to get in with what you have, but it's harder now than it's ever been before.

Gimme everything you've got, dude. I've heard i can get jobs from other services (probably, anyway) with what i've got, but man, i'd really, really, really like to go on JET.

I tried to write a response and it just keeps coming out weird. I'm WAY too tired right now to be coherent, but poke me in the morning and I will tell you more.

No worries, i know how that can be. Take your time, you're doing me a huge favor, after all!

/pokepokepoke

Okay: There are a lot of ways to go to Japan. JET just happens to be the best (mostly imho, but everyone I know on JET agrees and I haven't talked frankly to enough of the non-JETs I knew to have a good idea, but it was always a sore subject so take from that what you will).

Working for the government means you have automatic insurance and you pay for your pension, which comes back to you as one great big happy lump sum when you leave. You are expected to be more than just a teacher, but for the most part that's a good thing. And it doesn't come up nearly as much as you might think it does, half the time just showing up to something counts as spreading your culture. There are more opportunities for JETs to do things outside of their basic teaching duties. The pay is good, you're paid as much as an entry level teacher without having to do all the schooling for it. So while some teachers will resent you for it, most of them will just assume it means your worth their while to have in the classroom.

Other programs have different systems for payment and insurance and support (trust me, a solid support program is absolutely key to living in Japan). They aren't bad, in fact many of them are very good from what I know, but they are also not the established and government run systems that JET has. You can go to Japan through other programs and have just as much fun and learn as much as you can through JET, but JET gives you just a little bit better on the extras. Plus, JET is one of the most prestigious programs of its kind in the world, and if you want to apply to teach somewhere else having JET on your resume is the the foreign teaching equivalent of saying you graduated with honors from Harvard.

I know I'm singing it's praises pretty hard, but I don't know how much of the bad I really want to talk about, some of it was undoubtedly due to where I was placed (I lived in a VERY rural place). If you want I'm sure I can dredge up bad stuff and give you just as much of that.

Also, I really hope I don't sound like I'm putting down private programs for teaching in Japan. They're good, and they're growing in both popularity and accessibility, so they're worth checking out. I don't know all that much about them besides what I heard in my prefecture where they're trying to make a change away from JET into just private programs. Does this answer your questions? Or if it raises more, can I answer anything else?