Why NOT to Teach English in Japan 

Good luck to both of you guys!

I feel like you smell like beer

Not that you'd need to now, but had you ever thought about teaching in a different country other than Japan? Or if it wasn't Japan, where else would you think about?

Ok👍👍👍

Yep

This. You could always try to find either a more forward thinking place to work, or an international place, though you’d have to keep in contact a lot with Japanese people outside of work to keep learning Japanese as best you can.

@@Kipviss honestly the way to go would be to live in Taiwan, it has a better working culture and is pretty great to live there, and Japan is just like an hour or so flight away..you can go to Tokyo and whatnot on the weekends for really cheap, even cheaper for the long-term if you rent those ¥40,000 a month apartments as kinda like your "vacation home"; I know a guy that does this and the math works out, he was paying like ¥60,000 a month on hotels in Japan going over on weekends, so he's just like "why not rent a place for cheaper that's relatively more comfortable and suits me and I can keep belongings there?". It's a nice setup, the place is right by a train station in the central part of Tokyo, really convenient.

@@chobai9996 renting aint easy tho for foreigners iirc because of the mindset that they can just run off abroad with unpaid rent and taiwan isnt really assuring long term with some assholes up north

He's correct

@@chobai9996 That actually sounds like a really good idea.

It dawned on me afterwards that in reality it's quite a sad story!

Makes sense, good point!

It's "COULDN'T care less" NOT "could care less".

@@system3008 Why bother teaching English in Japan when you can do it in the youtube comments section.

@@system3008 How about "I DONT" care?

My daughter says that. Me: "I need a shower, I stink." Her: "No, you smell like Daddy." Heartwarming, but...oh god, what have I done.

I found it very sad. That means, that kids dad was drunk so often, the scent of alcohol reminded this kid of his father. That's why addictions like alcohol and nicotine often begin in early childhood, because the kids connect these scents to love warmth and comfort.

I'm from Georgia, and I taught English in China for a year. But I made sure to keep "y'all" out of my lesson plans LOL.

Yeah that's is something😅

@@narutohuntmendemon6354 Hi Naruto. Small English tip. When you write "that's", it already has "is" in it, because you put "that" and "is" together to make "that's". So what you wrote was "Yeah, that's is something", which means "Yeah, that is is something". Both "Yeah that's something" or "Yeah that is something" is correct, but not together. Sorry if my explanation is not helpful.

@@circomnia9984 Wow. You should teach English in ....... Japan!

Being from Alabama and having lived im Georgia for 9 years I love this

affability truly an important trait in this modern society we live in

Nobody is closer to represent affable than Chris. Prime example and standard of the world

Affable lol

They wouldn’t have called him VIP de Big if he wasn’t a good teacher

The students wouldn’t be calling him to club after school if he wasn’t one

I think that's how anything in life goes. If it's worth doing, it's going to be difficult

Hahaha that is an accurate description....I taught in Japan for 5 years, and it really was the best and the worst.

Same experience here. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Yeah, but I'm not going to work my ass off to live on rice and eggs for 6 weeks. And steal toilet paper because I can't afford it. Fck that.

Bad experiences make the best stories

True

chris's name is pete now...

a lot of credit is due to Chris's editing too

if you spend a year teaching wiggy waggy you'd become an excellent story teller too.

wow, i didnt realize this until i read this comment, holy smokes!!

You have just discovered a gem among the rubbles.

You’re really going to love this channel. 😊

Yep. Another new sub, here too.

You wanted to hear the petter talk about not petting the students.

I think I have an idea how I found it. I recently used Google Translate to figure out what the possible meanings in a „build your name“-post are. It‘s a post which has each letter of the English alphabet correspond with a Japanese syllable. There certainly were some funny results.

Bro why are you not verified yet

yea! I'd follow him!

Fancy sseeing ya here

Who? The guy that was interviewed was Petter.

He has a youtube channel it's PremierTwo.

Cheers man!

If anyone wants to see more of petter, checkout his twitch channel :)

@@gonna_cry like Chris, PremierTwo is one of the best and only channels I follow on twitch. Great streams every time.

It didn't look like Chris' style of editing tho! Am I wrong? In case, good that he's finally getting some help and possibly not getting burnout any time soon xD

@@AbroadinJapan Very entertaining. In a word affable. Keep it up.

rightly so. Japanese kids are polite and behave because they follow rules. If the first random foreigner come and mess that up, i would be pissed too.

@@CloudStrifeCosplay GARFIELD!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS OR ARE YOU JOKING!?!?

@@CloudStrifeCosplay you forgot the /s at the end of your statement.

@@soujemn5 sorry i'm too stupid to understand your amazing sense of humor i suppose.

@@CloudStrifeCosplay im so confused, I agree with what you said - are they joking or agreeing with you too?

Not even late friend

I’m graduating at 29

Bro I'm starting school and I'm 26 🤣

​​@Exodus Why would you want to go to germany if i may ask? I hear so many people that want to go and work & live in germany as if its the perfect country on the planet but it is far from it.

Meeanwhile me, realistically getting my masters degree in 2030 at age 30:

You have to admire him. He stuck out most of them. A lot of foreigners quit early if the job doesn't feel right for them. There were only 2 jobs I chose that were bad. I stuck them out though. Fortunately for the most part I picked the right jobs for me.

Yeah. So right. If it were me, I would've gone home and curse those circumstances.

Is it is up there with the whole listening to Mozart thing?

As odd as it is, at least they are trying to educate their kids as well as possible. Too many idiots will do a mediocre job raising kids because they don’t care, or are not intelligent enough to be good parents.

why would it be insane or sad?... teaching kids about life etc is wrong? Im more surprised that people treat kids like little retarded humans. They are smarter than you, you just didn't give them the chance to learn.

@@chrisbg99 Yes, esentially. It has literally no effect since obviously fetuses can't hear, or if they can hear, they can't understand spoken language.

@@alexanderrobins7497 but it’s stupid to think a fetus brain is advanced enough to learn a foreign language when they don’t even have learned the ability to speak yet. „Ah yes I’m gonna teach my Unborn child colors in English even tough it can’t even see the colors it’s supposed to learn.“

You're not wrong. Daily battle, hourly battle, battle of minutes....seconds....🤣🤣🤣

Look I have seen so many people try and fail to do order of operations in these stupid memes like ONLY THREE PERCENT CAN GET THE ANSWER!!! and it's literally 2+2x3 and more than half answer 12 and for some reason there's more people answering 15, 10 and 16 than 8, I felt like I had no other choice. I had to go get a degree in math and education and make sure people know fucking PEMDAS.

​@@lucykitsune4619what's PEMDAS? i was taught BIDMAS in the UK (Brackets, Indices, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction)

@@benhancock6253 prolly googled it already but its Parenthesis Exponents Multiplication Division Adding Subtracting basically same exact thing but worded differently because its USA vs UK with words as always lol

​@@lucykitsune4619 PEMDAS isn't even an effective method of teaching the order of operations. case in point: the number of people that have & continue to interpret the acronym as literally being done in the order of the letters.

patterrz, just a shy of petter

... ITS YOU

SUPRISE! I am the funniest YTer evah!!!! Just kidding, it was no surprise. Everybody knew already. HAHAHHAHA!!!! That was an amazing joke (it was real talk though). WAWAWAWAWA!!!! Good afternoon, dear ryan

who are you

@@thepaladin1508 it's just axxl lmao he's been at this for years

haven't heard your name in years

Same. That's about the same time I was teaching in Japan.

How old were you when you started? And did you have a job when you decided to go?

I was 26 and I had a job lined up before I went.. so not super young. The company also owned my accomodation so I paid them rent

I LOVE your spirit and attitude!! You go boy!!! 😁👏👏👏👏 May all of your beautiful masochistic dreams come true!! ✌️😊

That's cool. Do it while you still have the energy for it :D

That’s a problem in its own way. So many English teachers come over just for ✨the experience✨, who then don’t teach the children properly or largely disrespect the culture.

@@Annie640 Are you implying that Henry Vans is that kind of teacher? I do not see anything in his comment that says so.

I hope you catch all pokemon of the Alola Region:D The 3ds game was beautiful Alola :)

LOL whatttt

Ive migrated to like 4-5 different countries and havent had such incidents yet, I guess Ive been lucky. But last week I just leased this fucking expensive flat for one year after searching for weeks for a silent place in a bustling capital city. I found this super quiet spot in front of the most peaceful park and was like huh the little noise there is will come from the inside only haha no traffic and no people outside so no worries. After visiting it like 5 times I was like ok yeah this is amazing. Now that am living inside realize from half the half flat you can hear all the neighbours fuffin conversations non stop and this monstrous child sounds half his day screaming like a badly behaved retard. I just wanted a silent place, but hos shit ao noisy starting at 6am gaah am still frustrated about this bull.

I agree whole-heartedly!! You don't even need a language barrier for that to be the case. My first TEFL job was enough of a circus, all by itself, that people wouldn't need to hear any more. There are FAR too many details to include all of the nonsense, but relaying the start and end should be enough. At 26, I left small-town Canada for London, England, to teach EFL & ESP to high-profile, French business executives. Teaching was one-on-one, 4-day, 14 hour/day contracts (including clients' meals and one West End show). When I got there, the company wasn't quite ready to take its first clients, so, for three months, I did odd, unpaid office tasks, with a home-to-office round-trip taking SIX HOURS of walking (as I couldn't afford public transport). By the end, I had become my boss' personal masseur (I trained as a massage therapist before), and for all of her houseguests. I was also would come over to hers to talk business, but invariably would end up her buddy for smoking ever-escalating classes of illicit drugs. She approached me to help launder drug money for a Jamaican gang. And I lost my job because she - on the back of inheriting a lot of money - had an "I don't need to work for you any more" argument with the company's owners, and bragged that she had hired me, keeping my ponytail (which they forbade) a secret from them. ...And all of that took only ten months. TEFL is not for the faint of heart!

Agreed. But what you got here is an American and British white man. Translation, members of the most privileged group on the planet. To them, these are "horror" stories in terms of what life threw at them. They can't imagine what it's like when you're not a white dude with English as their native language, you don't have a powerful passport and you can't just go around the world and make money off of "teaching" people your mother tongue... In fact this video really made me want to see the proper horror stories that non-white, non-Western immigrants in the US and UK have where they can only dream of getting a job as a teacher.... But yeah these two came to Japan for fun and games, not to actually work....

@@yolokorea7557 The level of salt in this comment is incredible. You even put scarequotes around "teaching". Truly a comment that has it all.

@@yolokorea7557 I LOVE your casual racism.

100% would love to see Pete more on this channel. Pete with his comedic optimism and Chris' comedic pessimism are a well balanced duo

@@johnbocanable American and British personalities meet

You should hop in to their podcast for more pete

You can listen more of mr pete on chris' podcast on spotify! abroad in japan, fantastic banter

@@hourbit7385 they're not taking about British Pete, they mean the Pete from this video. And honestly, British Pete sometimes ruins the Abroad in Japan podcast with his political interjections.

One of my favourite things about him. You can tell he really makes an effort to uplift other people in unpatronising ways.

the davie504 of english teachers

I was just about to say "Thanks for the stories, 'Petter'...." lol. Glad I'm not the only one.

@@DrStoooopid It had to be done lmao 😂

He will never live it down!

Living???

@@EhCloserLook are any of truly living

Honestly, in a society so overwhelmingly restrictive and inherently harmful “is anyone really living” is a serious philosophical question.

Probably the one thing modern culture doesn't really value... respect for time served.

@@mongoose1628 Jesus Christ Susan

I thought I was going crazy at first like “is this a re-upload?” 😂

@@DonkeyMuscles Reupload with visual images. lol Not that I'm complaining. Pete's story needs to be watched and listened by more people.

Does his podcast have more stories? :O

Guess I need to check out the podcast more

@@chris-hayes Tons and tons of them, they release it twice per week

That's super interesting! Which segment of horse racing is self-employed?

@@KukaiTorihe is a self-employed racing horse

Or work for yourself online/in such a way that you can work anywhere.

@Lord Ass this problem is more when you're doing bank stuff and yeah that's when It gets annoying

That’s a pro tip to almost everything.

@Lord Ass He means be an entrepreneur, have an online business or something similar so you won't depend on anyone for your income source

The other option is to have a very valuable skill that foreign companies operating in Japan are in need of.

out of curiousity what company did you go thru? i saw some discourse in the comments on which is the best

@@icarenotreally I didn't come through a company. I came to Japan on a spouse visa. I worked some language schools for a few years, and eventually got a job at a private junior high and high school.

@@kirinrex same as me, taught English at cram schools since 2009 and got recommended for a private high school ALT job in 2019. Still doing it as of now. I teach at 3 schools, 2 cram schools and one private high school here in Saga Perfecture. Been in Japan since april '96

@@carlosa7598 I worked in Fukuoka Nova in 1998-2000 some of the best years of my life! I visited Saga many times too.

@@NurseNelson you can always visit again. Now we are having the Nagasaki Bullet Train line. It will be completed next year in September I believe. Take it easy back there. Stay safe😄🚄

They might have given you that nickname in reference to the manga "Great Teacher Onizuka", where the main character is called Onizuka and he's a high school teacher with blonde hair. it was coincidentally released in the 90s. that's pretty funny if so haha

@@carlosrendon1618 i think he knows it lol. he was in japan teaching getting called Onizuka, there could have been only ONE reason really. XD

@@CloudStrifeCosplay i was just saying since the manga doesnt seem that talked about here in the US but i guess in japan it would be a different story lol

Good for you. I wish you luck in your future.

Aw man that’s awesome! Well done and good luck!

Best of luck Ani !

Best of luck to yoU! I've only made one video in Toyama I think and it involved the local dish Black Ramen. Be sure to try it for yourself! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Velugtjkc74.html

Best of luck to you ani

Im happy u still want to go to japan even ur 2yrs late in ur appointment or somethin haha

@@AbroadinJapan thank you! I’ll definitely have to try some!

Actually, this is not as far fetched as you might think. The bones of moms serve as conduits for sounds. Some moms have their unborns "listen" to Mozart.

the mother: my goals are beyond your understanding

@@davidbaca329 sure, but she could have taken some conversational CD and just put the headphones to the belly, would be as effective while not tormenting others

There's a lot of science to back that children start learning in the womb, but very unlikely they could pick up hand signs. What may help is them hearing the verbal rhythms of the language.

Some rich Japanese people will hire English speakers read books to the mother’s pregnant bellies. No joke.

Well I guess you were a great student or they were great teachers still because your English is very good!

There's a saying that speaks to what you've written: "The USA and UK, two nations divided by a common language".

Getting taught any language by multiple people who have different accents is a nightmare.

@@turtle7459 Not even just accents, writing even. Colour vs Color, and with English as loosely-ruled as it is, I can imagine it can be hard to tell what's a regional difference in spelling and what's actually two different pronunciations - if not just two different words.

Just remember: American English is better. No superfluous u’s. Yeah, it’s common for there to be a high turn over-it’s seldom to do with students though-often it’s the management which people can’t stand.

I want to be an English teacher too in Japan. Let me give you some help. It should be "his life", not live. This is because life is a noun, his life. "Live" is a verb, to live. For example, living or have lived. I is always capitalized, in every sentence, so it is not "i". Generell is a misspelling, it should be general. "It might just be" sounds a bit nicer in the context of that sentence. I don't know how to explain why. Comma after "stories" You can remove "now" it sounds nicer without. I don't know how to explain why. Keep on practising your English you can do it! 🙂 It's a very hard language. I am lazy too a lot of the times to write it correctly. It is hard to explain WHY you need to apply all of this grammar, the rules and mechanics behind it. It is a completely different thing to speak a language than to teach it. English is not my first language, it's my 3rd. I also struggle from a mild form of dyslexia. It's gonna be hard to find a job in Japan, because the government there only wants US, Australian, South-African or British passport holders to be English teachers. And I'm Dutch, so I might not meet all the requirements. But I'm white so probably they will look past that cuz of my skin colour 😃

@@anthonygreenfield123 you can always go to the U.K. first and become a dual citizen and then apply to teach in Japan. Problem solved. Also I'm trying to learn Dutch and quite frankly I find it harder than Japanese so props to you lol.

@@Eruanne My country does not accept dual citizenship unless I marry a person from that country, I would have to renounce my Dutch one. Also getting dual citizenship takes like 5-10 years minimum. Too much hassle just to get a job. Dutch is easy to learn, the grammar and everything is the same. Just the pronunciation is difficult to master. I might marry a Japanese though. One with big boobs, if I marry a Japanese I can work without having to apply for a work permit in Japan.

@@anthonygreenfield123 before you marry one, take into account the fact that things get pixilated when Japanese girls take their clothes off.

Have you consider teaching kids in inner cities ghettos in US? If you can help 10% of them graduate without pushing through failed students, its a huge accomplishment.

@@Pepe-dq2ib I'd rather teach in Japan

I think point a is true for plenty of jobs. It's true for my job for example and I have 0 problems with it. b is generally true, even though some foreigners did become full time teachers in Japan, but 95% of people leave after a few years and these English teaching companies in Japan are built on constantly changing their teachers. It's what keeps the prices down unfortunately.

I do not think that's the case because staying 5 years at a job means they don't expect you to leave eventually and tbh that was a pretty important job.

@@Pepe-dq2ib people don't do it for the job or the people but for the opportunity to live in Japan longer than 3 months.

Check out the podcast with Pete (not davidson) he also talks about many of the experiences in detail, just without the whacky editing skills.

god damn is there any channel you DON'T show up on?

@@Scottagram he's becoming a bot

@@8.ui13 I just watch a lot of RU-vid and I do mean a lot

Wherever u teach u will always be babysittin

@@craigman7262 True! I worked in the UK with reception aged kids and had to change diapers daily.

@@craigman7262 Even teaching college these days is glorified babysitting.

@@cyberdragonzekrom6790 teaching has always been just over glorified babysitting don't pull that these days bullshit when it's been like since since time immemorial

@@augustuslunasol10thapostle No, college (and upper-level school, to a degree) used to be actual places of learning - mathematics, science, philosophy, history, statecraft. For college, I would say even through the 40s. But not since the Weimerican Cultural Revolution, now they're just j-left propaganda mills.

Would you go back?

No, I don’t think so. I am not a traveler of the world. I like living in places, but not traveling so much.

@@PS-eq6xe Its a streaming site that allows you to talk to and interact with people, typically, while they play games live. Not as exciting as youtube videos but great to get to know people more personally.

@@PS-eq6xe well you watch them play games, while you talk to them through chat. People play any game you could think of. I noticed Peter's twitch plays lots of old Atari and arcade games.

It's like a podcast with edited visuals. Top quality

never late for education yall

As a soon to be PhD student I can relate. I won't be finished until I'm around 25 to 26 either haha, it's painful

@Haung Jo That sucks. But I wish you luck. As long as you don't give up you're never defeated.

@@ericclappedthem Just make sure you don't mess up the first time. Got an Associates of Arts and a Bachelors degree in History. And while I don't regret that History degree one bit, I know that finding a job with it has been nigh impossible. Perhaps, after I get this Associates in Science Computer Networking degree, and land a job and live a bit, I will think about getting a masters in it or something close. But that will probably be a ways away, and if I can complete my goals without striving for another higher-level degree, I'd do that. College doesn't really compare to living and working. But it does enable you to do both better.

Same, been on and off and gonna be 27 while being a super senior, I feel you on that one.

I recommend ECC over Aeon. Interviewed for both, worked for ECC cuz I didn't have to sell anything. No tablets in class but it was pretty chill.

@@maiwei How did you find working at ECC? Have a job there and will be going over to teach English once entry/ visa problems disappear and all get sorted by the company.

Oh thank you. I'm only in 11th grade but would love to do this for my career, it would be great to make an impact on many and teach them another language while having fun.

@@WesticlesUK Keep in mind the company has changed since I left, but like any Eikaiwa, ECC was very inconsistent in many ways. The people can be very hit-or-miss. Many students can be great, others not-so-much. Sometimes you get schools very convenient for you to get to. Sometimes they are really far and you have to travel over an hour. Some schools are pretty chill. The bigger/busier schools tend to be more hectic and the staff tend to be more on edge. Really depends.

What sells better, cigs or manga?

agree this much VIPdeBIG sounds cool

This is such a humbling comment. I’m so glad you enjoyed the stories and appreciated the humor. I can’t help but laugh at myself or some of the more amusing situations I’ve found myself in over the years

this is actually so damn sweet

Wow peru sucked for 12 DAYS, i can't even comprehend 12 YEARS there....

I say you should go for it! I heard that you don't really have to speak Japanese to teach English because you would be speaking in English the whole time, but you should still try to learn the language. I suggest trying to learn the basics of Japanese, and you'd get better at it once you start teaching in Japan. Nothing's too late if you're dedicated

I wouldn't worry too much about the language barrier. The whole point of being a jet teacher is to expose the students to english and not use too much japanese. I would just make sure the place you go to work for can guarantee you salary and visa

Go for it while you still can! Many schools forbid you from using any Japanese whatsoever with the students in the classroom. So you'd only be speaking English during the workday. Outside of the classroom, it's actually very possible to get by with somewhat limited Japanese! Good luck!

You can apply for many programs that don't require a great understanding of Japanese. I started teaching in Japan three months ago and I'm still at an advanced beginner stage. As long as you know greetings and some very basic phrases, you should be fine. It helps tremendously if you make ALT friends who can speak Japanese.

@@inkyh2o701 did you need a bachelors for your program you went with? I want to teach as well, and im considering getting my bachelors, cuz ive always been told its necessary. thx!

4. all of the above

As someone who just arrived in Nagoya a few days ago it’s all of the above, simultaneously beautiful, scary and bizarre.

Great for tourists and vacation. I prefer to keep it that way. Stay in your home country and get the best job you can. Maybe every so often, visit japan. Keep the magic, magic.

All of the above

yeah? I want to visit Osaka more than Tokyo as a solo traveller next year, should I fly direct to Osaka or fly into Toyko and get a JR pass?

Yep. Teaching english in japan was an amazing gig until the mid 2000s when the few big companies took over and the pay+work went to shit.

Stories like these is why young people really hate boomers or older folk. Imagine if you stopped teaching when it was great and then someone taught today and said it was awful only for you to say "You're wrong, i taught and it was amazing. You kids are just entitled."

@@dericmederos1514 I guess that's why it's so important to listen and emphasize with other people, regardless of your own experience

Same lol. Convinced me not to renew my contract with a private school

@@dericmederos1514 Nuance is also important. The original commenter didn't say that ESL or EFL teachers are entitled or some self-righteous bullcrap. They shared their experience and sympathized with the reality of today. Taking your hate out on a innocent and innocuous comment is not okay. Much love and respect; and have a wonderful day/night wherever you may be.

Do you have any links to those videos?

Bro no way. I have to watch Cool Japan every two weeks as an assignment for my university class! lol I can't wait to find him

Wow! That’s where I recognize him from. Have watched Cool Japan for years now.

i had to check coz it felt like 10 mins. literally shocked it was over 30 mins!

This was my experience with the video also : flew right by!! Genuinely interesting stories from Pete!

He looks a lot more like Daniel Brühl in my opinion.

He's Mikey Day with a beard

Young Dana Carvey with Paul Rudd hair from Anchorman

Vagabond Paul Rudd FTW

I’d say more like the young Dennis Quaid

A bit off-topic question but how is japan's IT from a professional viewpoint? I know how old and rusty lots of Japanese website are or how antic japan's banking is, so I could imagine a Japanese IT company where the devs are saving their code on a central file share instead of git repos and the CI/CD is a batch script that copies the files to an old apache webserver... on the other hand, some of the best games of the world are coming from japan so it's hard to tell how modern the usual japanese IT company is. For example are things like agile software development, DevOps and Container (if we're talking typical REST APIs and websites etc.) even a common thing?

@@Blex_040 yes i'm very curious as well, as to compare the IT view point from eastern and western standards here in australia.

@@Blex_040 The old ways are not always worse than the new ways.

@@cattysplat true

@@cattysplat They are when it comes to web development

Don't buy into the BS that a few years when you are young will define your entire life. That only happens if you let it.

my grandparent and great grandparents literally farmed as a kid til they die of old age and cancer

I advise getting real teaching experience so you are more prepared and also benefit the education/experience of the students

I couldn't get an engineering job in 2010 Toronto so I moved to teach in China in 2011... after learning Japanese. Still teaching English in 2022.

You'd be surprised. Half the point is to watch people playing games that a) you wouldn't play yourself or b) that you aren't good at. Or to watch people play games you've already completed, and see how they react to the plot twists. Plus, it's about the community around the streamer as well.