Let's Japan.org

The Chunichi Shimbun writes about how Nagoya and Gifu Prefecture are favoring ALTs from private dispatch companies over the goverment-funded JET Programme when it comes to teaching English.

A new report by the Yano Research Institute shows that the language study market is still feeling the effects of Nova's collapse.

Another piece of NOVA dies.

Teaching private lessons for a pittance? What if I told you you could double your rates while working less using a proven method that can transform your life? Interested?

From Gendai net comes a story about...wait for it...students having trouble booking lessons! It's deja vu all over again. (I'm sure I've used that cliche already. Is there an echo in here?)

The Asahi Shimbun carried a short blurb that is encouraging news for ALTs in Akita. The Akita school board says it will hire hire it's ALTs as full-time instructors.

This is so good it makes you think it's an April Fool's joke. G.communication is upset that other schools have been poaching their students!

What Japan Thinks has a translation of a survey on online English lessons conducted by JR Tokai Research.

G.com is on a "hiring drive" and is looking for monkeys instructors to work for peanuts. According to the g.education/Nova website, they are looking to hire 20 part-time instructors.

Here it is in case it disappears in the future:

Sponichi reported last week that g.communication completed its re-opening of schools, but not without a few hitches along the way.

Just as Nova instructors were getting shafted yet again when g.communication reneged on its promise of jobs, the cover story of the December 26 issue of Newsweek was a special report by David McNeil on English conversation schools.

I was cleaning out my closet, and way at the back I found photocopies of an article on teaching English tilted "The Sure Thing" from the June 1991 edition of the Tokyo Journal. I thought this would be an interesting read. You might want to download the full-size images if you find the text too small to read.

When was the last time you saw some good press about Nova?

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Nova is still using its old refund method and ripping off its customers even after the Tokyo metropolitan government warned it to clean up its act.

Under Nova's old refund scheme, unused, expired points were not refundable. When students purchased additional tickets, the expiry date for the tickets was extended, but when a contract was canceled, the new date applied to the newly purchased tickets only and not the tickets that were carried over.

Nova has lost in court again. This should come as no surprise given the mountain of bad publicity surrounding the way it deceived and ripped off its customers.

As already mentioned in comments and in the forums, BNP Paribas has acquired an 11.85% stake in Nova in after hours trading on July 30.

Nova has issued a 750 million yen, unsecured corporate bond. Fifty million yen buys you a piece of the action [PDF] and a whopping 2% on your investment.

As has been widely reported in the media, the number of complaints about Nova keep piling up. According to reports, in the three months from April to June, there have been 1803 complaints, which rivals the 1935 complaints lodged for all of last year.

Here's the last bit of the METI press release on Nova's punishment. The PDF document contains the translation of the entire METI press release, including the the charts on the last two pages. The quality of the flow chart in the PDF isn't excellent, but it's still readable. I've attached the flow chart by itself just in case.