Money or initiative?

Bigger is better? We're not talking about boobs!

Many Japanese people want to speak English, and there are many English language schools. However, I'm afraid that most of those schools are enough good. They rip off teachers and students. If you are English-speaking people, you are likely to teach English, nonetheless. So, what school do you want to work for? A big school that will give you some job security? A small school where you can teach in your own way? The article below gives you some information when you choose a school.

The Japan Times, March 13, 2007:

..."The bigger conversation schools are generally better places to work in terms of job and income security," says Carlet. So, although the wage levels might not differ between small and large schools, your chances of getting paid might.

The competition among smaller schools is even fiercer than between the big four, meaning they are more likely to have financial problems which may ultimately lead to them going out of business.

Carlet also suggests that the large schools are particularly adept at writing contracts which protect themselves. None of the four biggest schools operating in Japan -- Nova, ECC, GEOS and Aeon -- would provide comment for this article.

Despite the titles which some companies adopt -- "language/culture school," "academy," "institute," "college" -- ultimately they are businesses whose main objective is to make a profit.

This is true regardless of the size of the company, the good intentions outlined in its mission statement or the proclamations of educational excellence on its Web site.

As one experienced TEFL professional wearily said, "most places . . . are run by businessmen not language administrators." All the teachers interviewed for this article viewed the big schools in a similar light to other major companies in the service industry.

"Faceless" was probably the most commonly used adjective in their comments, and more than one person spoke of being little more than a cog in a machine. Given that a recent Japanese magazine article referred to Nova as "the McDonald's of English language conversation chains," this attitude is hardly surprising.

On the other hand, smaller schools were generally categorized as having something akin to a family or community atmosphere. One teacher with experience working in both types of school said: "In a small school you play a bigger role . . . You get more say in things like choosing textbooks, deciding what to teach. There are fewer students so you tend to know all of them."

It would seem that small schools are more convivial places in which to work -- you are appreciated, your opinion carries more weight and you have a much larger degree of control over what and how you teach.

But there is a downside. Teachers who worked in small schools often spoke of feeling under more pressure there than in big schools. If a tiny cog in a huge machine breaks down it's unlikely the whole thing will come to a shuddering halt. That's not the case when the teacher is the machine.

Finally, the family/community atmosphere is great as long as it lasts, but of course that isn't guaranteed. Disputes, whether professional or personal, can easily crop up in the language teaching industry and in the experience of the teachers I spoke to, these problems were much easier to deal with in large schools....

Louis Carlet says the best thing for teachers to do is to educate themselves as to the minimum standards a contract ought to offer, the limits on what companies can reasonably expect them to do and the legal recourse they have under Japanese law. This is true regardless of the size of the company.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070313zg.html