Is English Teaching in Japan a ‘McJob’?

Yesterday I wrote about Japan’s Temporary Worker Problem, and today I saw an interesting article by Lisa Gay at Japan Today (originally from Metropolis), which argues the case of teaching in Japan as the ‘McJob of Asia’. The article makes a few good points.

Starting with the overall premise of the story, the Merriam-Webster dictionary of course famously added the term ‘McJob‘ to its pages, which it defined as ‘a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement’. This definition naturally angered McDonalds, but the definition serves its purpose… The article mentioned above considers English teaching to be a McJob, or in other words, a ‘low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement’, and on this definition alone I would have to mostly agree.

In terms of the ‘low-paying’ aspect, it is certainly true that a decade or more of economic troubles have made a dent in the salaries and compensation packages available to your run of the mill JET program participant, and to other English Teachers. I can remember when it was possible to charge 4,000-5,000 yen per hour or more for a private class, but it is becoming more and more difficult to do so. In many cases, I see teachers working for rates around the 2,000-3,000 yen per hour rate, and in honesty, in most of their cases, this is about what the service is probably worth…. It should be noted that this is far more than a McDonalds worker would be earning, and my guess is that most foreign English teachers in Japan are earning somewhere between 2300,000 and 300,000 per month. In a quick Google search, the ’simply hired’ website gives an average income for a college graduate in the US of $46,000, which is much higher than what they would be earning as a teacher in Japan.

The other peril of course, is that pay for English teachers does not increase very much, over their career – unless they become fully qualified in the Japanese system and truly work their way up through the system. I worked for an English school for 5 years, and saw an increase in my annual salary of about 300,000 yen over that period. This was about the limit however, and by the time I was earning more than 3.5 million yen per year, the school was all but eager to see the back of me and replace me with a cheaper ‘newbie’.

The other two elements of the ‘McJob’ definition are ‘requires little skill’ and ‘provides little opportunity for advancement’. While some may quiblle over whether or not teaching English requires little skill, it is certain that there are a number of teachers around that would not be qualified to teach in their home countries, and that have very little, if any, training or actual experience in teaching. Basically, it is possible to ’step off the boat’, so to speak, and walk into an English class as a teacher. I know, because that’s exactly what I did. It took a little while to find my feet, and I had several years experience at that point in Japan and as a teacher through my missionary activities. Still, if I had known then all of what I know now, I’m sure I would have been a much better teacher.

Of course, this raises the ‘elephant in the room’ issue… Are foreign English teachers, especially those associated with the JET program, expected to be skilled? To be good teachers. Or, as Lisa Gay mentions in her article, is it more important that they are ‘genki’ and ‘entertaining’. In my personal experience, the emphasis has always been on the latter. It may not be said, but its what we are all thinking…. Personally, through my days as a full time English teacher, I would often comment that my job was at least 70% entertainer… Maybe I wasn’t doing my job right, but I can’t help but feel that I was doing it the way I was expected to….

One thing that the above article does is focus primarily on the JET program, which is merely one subset of the overall English Teaching market in Japan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs website says that the JET program is a program to invite university graduates to ‘participate in international exchange and foreign language education’. It goes on to tout its efforts in ‘youth and cultural exchange’, and the fact that it requires its applicants to ’show a keen interest in Japan and its culture’. Nowhere in this summary of the program does it mention ‘teaching ability’. Nor does it regale potential applicants with stories about possible career paths and advancement opportunities… In other words, these things just don’t seem to be particularly important or relevant… The aim of the program clearly seems to be ‘cultural exchange’. So in this sense, I think it is accurate to call the JET program a job that ‘requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement’, as per the McJob definition above… The same could be said of many other English teaching jobs throughout Japan.

In the strictest sense, English teaching in Japan may be a McJob, which provides few opportunities in and of itself for major advancement and high salaries. But as with everything in life, you get out what you put in. I came to Japan as a new university graduate and worked as a full time English teacher for about 5 years. But while I was doing that, I was building up my language skills, studying an MBA and an MIS, and learning as much as I could about the business culture in Japan. This was the perfect job to allow me to save enough money to pay for my Masters degrees, and to study while I worked (since I never had to take work home with me, and often had free time during my working day). In that sense, my English teaching experience was a positive one. So much so that I now teach 2-3 classes a week as a ‘hobby’, just to get out of the office… It also allowed me to be prepared to immediately land a high paying job in one of the world’s largest investment banks in the heart of Tokyo.

As McDonalds have argued about their own ‘McJobs’, ‘men and women who own and operate McDonald’s restaurants today got their start by serving customers behind the counter’. In other words, you can get out of it what you want to get out of it. If you are looking for a year or two of cultural exchange, Japan is a very interesting place where you can have a great time. If you are looking to improve your business opportunities, or just your understanding of another country, there are plenty of options for study and to learn about the Japanese language and culture. But if you are looking for a career in teaching English, you should probably be extra discerning about what opportunities you take up in Japan. While some may arguably open future doors for you, many will not…

Tags: English, English Teaching, McJob