Students Get a Handout

I was a teacher at Odawara and there's alot of students that have been left out in the cold ! I know of students going from Yugawara to the closet g-cum school which is in Chigasaki. Odawara was a gold mine and its sister school Dyna city was raking in millions of yen (because it was in Itoyokado and had 300 plus kids)- sad to see them go - but the biggest worry has been the teachers who are still on Standby (living too far from Tokyo and having to pay 24,000 yen for a pass to Yokohama GABA is just crazy)...G-com needs to open a school in the area

Teachers sent home on standby to return who knows when..

Paycuts across the board for all J staff and paycuts for instructors to come..

Notes from Management suggesting dismissal for those who call in sick..

Instructor manhandled at MM Center by a senior G Com manager..

Letters of non re-employment given to those whose visas expire in Jan/Feb/March..

Morale at it's lowest point beyond Sept/Oct '07..

Nagoya we have a problem!

WTF?! What about the people who got sent home on standby?

What about us lot who are all still waiting for the two fucking months they owed us from last year?!

How about the fact that they're giving ex-AAMs severance packages and a plane ticket home? Where the hell were our severance packages?!

FFS!

"The Group" to investigate lawsuits against G.Com/G.Ed is meeting with lawyers on 30 January. If you have previously contacted The Group but were not notified about this meeting, please contact us again immediately at:

We will try to get back to you tonight.

(Sorry, for budgetary reasons we don't do keitais - only skype or land lines)

Unfortunately for you and me nothing happened to it. I got out of nova over 2 years back and work for gaba now. It's no shining beacon but is doing ok, but the sad thing is that japan hasn't changed one iota since i came here 4 years back.

did I say I was gaba!? I dont think I did! why are complaining about this government when I bet whatever country your from has some problems with its government! its just affecting you now so you are angry! ever heard of privite teaching!? you should know some japanese people being here for 10 years!?

Having spent a year in Japan and working as an english teacher, I would thing that for most foreigners, teaching english in a foreign country is not a career. So reading about some guy that put a decade into NOVA is pretty funny...and sad.

Perhaps you're one of those guys that just settles for whatever he can get or whatever is easy. Chances are its the latter since the job itself is a joke and you're pretty angry at people downplaying the english teaching profession.

Personally I hope people like you stay in Japan or Asia or wherever. You guys can't hack it at a real job and would likely just be a drain on the rest of society back home.

Japan isn't the problem, its the foreigners. You douchebags who think Japanese culture should conform to your shitty way of thinking are constantly being kicked in the balls by the Japanese government and society. Good, you deserve it.

Japan is a great country with a lot to offer, see and do. It seems a lot of Japanese are waking up to the fact that they have a large group of losers who show up in their country because their lives back home were shit, or they're lazy and need an easy job, or maybe they're still virgins at 25 and need a girlfriend. Whatever the case too many of you kids have zero respect for anything Japanese yet you seem to have this sense of entitlement because you're western.
So please, stay there until they pass new laws or rules that force you to move to some other country (since you'll be too lazy and/or stupid to abide by them), as long as you never have to deal with real life and can keep hiding in Asia, you should be fine.

"Why is Nova a dead-end job?" Are you serious? What just happened to Nova? What just happened to the employees and students? What just happened to Anders? what just happened to those on "standby?" Take a look in the mirror you naive idiot and ask yourself "what is happpening to me?" Wake the fuck up.Not a bit of sympathy from me for anyone who is dumb enough to depend on them for any kind of employment. Take charge of your own life and family....Weak...very, very weak you are....

"Why is Nova a dead-end job?" Are you serious? What just happened to Nova?...Take charge of your own life and family....Weak...very, very weak you are....

So, by that rational, people who worked for Enron for many years were weak, too? Just because the company someone worked for went bankrupt doesn't mean THEY are weak. Lots of companies go bankrupt, and lots of people get screwed when they do.

There were always issues with NOVA, but at the same time they were the industry leader for nearly 20 years, they offered teachers better pay than other big schools, and they even offered long-term workers a chance at promotions of various kinds. I know it's hard for you to believe because you probably only intend on staying for a couple of years, but some people actually do make a career out of teaching English in Japan. Does it pay as well as a lawyer or stock broker? No, but teaching is a fairly low paying profession anywhere in the world. But it's still a PROFESSION, to anyone willing to dedicate themselves to it. For many, many years NOVA was one of the better options for career teachers in Japan.

The downfall of NOVA happened within just a couple of months. Just one year ago, if you had said NOVA would go bankrupt you would have been laughed at. It's unfortunate for people who tried to make a career there, but it doesn't mean they are 'weak.' It's just bad luck; you could take a job with ANY company and it might go bankrupt. I respect anyone who is willing to make a commitment and stick with a job for 10 years. Most teachers I know spend their few years in Japan running around from one job to the next, never getting any farther ahead than in the last job they quit. If that's the kind of teacher you are I would say you are the 'weak' one.

Moving on would require people to change the way they think about everything in Japan. You can learn a lot in a year if you actually want to, a lot of foreigners who come to Japan don't care about anything besides an easy pay check. The system is on a downturn at the moment, and a lot of people are complaining and playing victim, what else do you expect? People to evolve and actually change? Get real

You want to make a career teaching conversational english? Go nuts, doesn't look like anything other then pure laziness and mediocrity.

eikaiwa's do suck, pretty obvious by this point. And a lot of foreigners suck as well.

I do lots of privates and keep my eyes open for good part time teaching jobs. So my pay is up and down, but I make between 300,000 and 500,000 yen a month. That's working far fewer hours than a full time GEOS or AEON teacher. My buddy who does the same has made as much as 1 million yen in a single month! My wife is a registered nurse, so her monthly salary is around 450,000 yen a month. I'm living a very comfortable life as an English teacher, thank you very much. Just because you haven't found a way to do it doesn't mean the job sucks, it means YOU suck.

Yeah, I speak, read and write Japanese well, also. I do freelance translation work, and I invest my money, as well. So I can do other things if I want to. But nothing beats teaching for good pay/enjoyable work, if you know how to go about doing it. Just because you can't make a successful go of it, don't project your failings on to others.

In case you have not learned, written English has something called paragraphs. People who cannot write in them are not worth reading (yes, I am sure I make plenty of errors too but missing something as basic as paragraphs is not one of them).

Anyway, it boils down to this Nova/eikaiwa (I was going to write an unkind word here but..)
1. Crappy companies like Nova fail all the time. It happens to lots of people every day. Stop expecting to be bailed out.
2. Teaching English has its ups and downs but simply does not take that much skill. You can easily be replaced.
3. you are a foreign worker. The locals simply do not worry about you. I doubt they would in any country.

Make the best of it. If things are not working out, go home or someplace else.

If you truly want to dedicate yourself to English-teaching and "care for your students", you don't (or shouldn't have) worked for Nova, or any of the other eikaiwa for too long.

Instead, you work for a company that "cares for its students", recognizes and values the efforts you put in, and offers proper training and development of your skills.

Nova plainly did not do ANY of that - they were largely interested in getting as much money off students as they could, and in the later years, cutting the salary and increments (amongst other things) to protect their profits. They did not have the best interests of their customers, staff and instructors at heart, far from it.

Anyone who went in there attempting to "do the best they could for the students" for years is/was, at best, naive, and at worst, had their head in the clouds - I can't see how you could get very far in improving your teaching skills and "customer care" credentials at a company like Nova, for the reasons I mentioned above.

You really do need a reality check if you think that Nova was doing a lot for your career.

Most of what you say is true of any company, in any industry, in any country of the world. Why do you think some other profession is going to treat you any better?

Many of you must be quite young and naive. I guess you went to college, got a degree and figured that now the world owed you a living. You were 'qualified' to be a productive member of society and believed you were going to make a difference. For your first conquest, you would go to Japan for a while and bring English to the Japanese masses. You would make a difference.

Then you got here and learned your first lesson of the corporate world; you don't matter. But seeing as how this was your first job you think it's only true of eikaiwa. Have fun with the rest of your life back in the States, Australia, UK or wherever you're from! When you get back there and start your 'real career' you'll realize that your new company sucks just as bad as NOVA. You still won't matter.

Nobody saying you have to have what you post proofread. I think I speak for most people though when I say that reading things written without paragraphs is pretty annoying and the literate generally do not bother.

In other words, it goes past informal to childish/illegible.

No, Japan is not all milk and honey.

To the guy who said his wife is a nurse, does she wear her uniform in the bedroom??!!!?

"Most of what you say is true of any company, in any industry, in any country of the world. Why do you think some other profession is going to treat you any better?"

Not too sure why you think that I think that, but anyway, perhaps you should take my advice and try and find a company that doesn't treat you like crap.

Or else put your money where your mouth is and start something up yourself, as opposed to taking it in the rear end off your managers day after day.

Why do we always fight?

A genuine concern, or just an excuse to dump teachers they don't want/need?

Anyone know exactly when this letter was sent out?

How long they will last depends on the student numbers of course. Anyone have any idea on how many students came back to G etc.?? Just wondering. I have never been part of the system but have been watching it also.

Mate, I've heard that story so many times. Ooooh, look at me, I have a family........ but I don't want to travel for work.........

I too have a family, and I travel 4.5 hours a day. I quit Nova 2 years ago and got myself an MA in linguistics and then sent letter after letter after letter to all the universities in Kansai. I eventually got a job. Yeah, I travel, but I have 5 and half months paid holidays a year and I make more than 500,000 yen a year. And I live in rural Japan. I want to look after my family and, for me, that was the best long term plan for me to support them. If you stay at G-comm,matey, then you aren't going to be in a strong position to support your loved ones.
Travel, for fucks sake. Japanese trains are pretty fast and reliable.

I've just received information from my ex RAAM that G Comm plans to close 10 schools within the next month!! Not sure which ones, but the teachers there are gonna be put on standby...which basically means layed off!

Why don't you stop calling each other names and start supporting one another? I know we've all had a rough time but behaving like rude badly brought up teenagers isn't going to help.

"I don't see how you could get very far improving your teaching skills at a company like Nova."

The above statement is true only if being at Nova would somehow prevent a teacher from taking the initiative to try different things. The random booking system and the 40 minute blocks of lesson time can't be gotten around, but other than that what's to stop someone from improving their teaching ability just because they happen to be at Nova? Is there something in the air at a Nova school that somehow neutralizes one's ability to improve on things like knowledge of vocabulary usage, grammar, the nature of language acquisition, teaching technique, etc? Except for official observations that happen only twice a year, its ridiculously easy to even use texts and materials that are totally different from the "official" stuff, or if you want to make a nod to convention have the book out for five minutes and then bring out whatever stuff you want to use. If you've planned it out and are making a sincere effort to actually teach something, the students will appreciate it. The idea that teaching skills can't be improved just because you are physically present inside of a Nova school is simply not true.

And for those of you who think there is no skill to teaching, simply think back to some of your own teachers. Was there not one, even one teacher whose explanations made a seemingly complex thing easy to understand, who showed patience and empathy when you had difficulty mastering something, who was genuinely interested in who you were and what you had to say? That's teaching. If you think the teaching profession itself has any worth at all, than Nova, G.comm, or whoever ultimately has no power to diminish it. A good teacher is a good teacher. If he wants to get better, he will, and no AT, AAM, IAM, etc. can stop him. The refusal to comprehend this is the true sign of needing a "reality check".

Well, if you look at what I said more carefully, I said I don't think you could get VERY FAR in improving your teaching skill at Nova.

Sure, you can do what you said and try to improve your teaching, and see if the students get what you're trying to teach them. Sooner or later however, you're going to need an outside, expert opinion on your teaching, as opposed to your own assumptions (and maybe pretensions) about yourself, plus proper training to further your skills.

Next to none of the Trainers etc I came across at Nova had the ability to do that. Even the ones who did have some genuine teaching credentials didn't seem too bothered about it. These were the things "in the air" at Nova that "neutralized one's ability to improve on things" to quite an extent.

To quote what you said, "if you think the teaching profession has any worth at all", you work for a company that itself thinks the teaching profession has any worth. Nova didn't think that, and didn't care about you improving your teaching ability. They only cared about getting as much money as they could off students, even if it stuffed everyone else in the process.

The inability to appreciate these points are yet another indication that one needs a "reality check".

Those of you who think you have the right to tell anyone, let alone an instructor of 10 yrs, to go home need a good kick in the teeth. He's right in his criticism of the government and japanese society as a whole. Under a so-called 'democratic system' the same party has been in power almost without change for the last 50 yrs. The ruling class has done such a crap job of looking after it's own people it can hardly be overly accomodating to foreigners. This is not to say that japan is unique in having a dark side, it may well be that foreigners (those not too naive to look beneath the surface) are more likely to see the crap side of any country because they didn't grow up with the shit that may seem an inevitable part of life to natives. People in japan say 'shou ga nai' quite often.
If you know anything about NOVA, you'd know that teachers who've been with NOVA 10yrs used to get pretty decent raises every year, meaning Nokimo's salary would be almost double that of newer instructors. That's a good reason to stay so long, (esp if he was married?) he was never going to get that anywhere else. They put him on standby because he was expensive and older.
But there's an instructor of similar experience where i work who got reinstated after hassling the buchou. He just said he was talking to his lawyer and asked the buchou to put everything in writing. He also gave him some grief in the 'interview', and I guess Suzuki Buchou felt like shit afterwards, cause he later wrote a letter to the guy's wife apologizing for causing so much stress.

Paragraphs are great, but point-form's for people who can't write interesting paragraphs.

Hmmm, not a single teacher has called in sick where I work, but there may be cancellations because they put half our instructors on standby after staff had already taken bookings based on the original number of teachers, 3 weeks in advance. Sure we had a lot of frees but i heard this has caused some headaches. Maybe this fax is a pre-manufactured excuse for student complaints to come? I don't beleive that number ... actually I'm not entirely convinced the fax is genuine. Anyone else see it? It didn't appear in our office.

It baffles me that anyone would even consider working for g cum in these circumstances, but I am not going to get into that.

The last thing I would be worried about is the students though. How many of them do you think loose any sleep over what happens to you? More than that, you know what they say about a fool and his money. Anyone dumb enough give g cum large sums of cash now needs to have that money taken off their hands before they do something really dangerous with it!

SaggingUsagi our branch also has not got that fax. I don't think management would hide it from us because it specifically says to show it to instructors (also it claims that we should call our branches and not head office if we're going to be absent, and we need to know this). I've checked with my AT and he says we still call head office (and he hasn't heard of this fax).

I won't believe such claims of faxes without seeing photos.

"A good teacher is a good teacher. If he wants to get better, he will, and no AT, AAM, IAM, etc. can stop him"

Just one more point to add to the discussion we were having above - I don't think this comment is true if you consider the damage to morale that Nova management and company practices did to people.

When you have to put up with a company that's, amongst other things, cut the salary, cut salary increments, gave little real feedback on your teaching, plus managers who acted like they were God's gift, purely because of their title, had an obnoxious attitude, couldn't be bothered doing their job properly, and treated you like kids at times - under these kinds of circumstances, it gets harder and harder to keep your motivation up to improve your teaching and service you provide to the students.

Unless you're very thick-skinned, totally insensitive to the BS going on around you at Nova and absurdly self-motivated, your teaching will ultimately suffer, no question. So I think that, in a sense, ATs and AAMs etc can, inadvertently or otherwise, stop you getting better as a teacher.

Exactly - I don't understand why certain Nova careerists slag off other teachers for not trying to improve, or for not giving a shit about their job - the company creates an attitude amongst teachers of not giving a shit about the job, and does nothing to change or discourage that attitude.

I can see the argument that, if you want to stay at Nova, you should try and improve anyway for your own sanity, self-respect, or personal desire to improve. But like I said, it gets more and more difficult to keep the motivation up to do that.

And the bottom line is, just as all those naughty teachers couldn't give a shit about doing their jobs properly, the fact is, Nova couldn't give a shit about it either.

If you do return, make sure you get hired directly by a Board of Education, so companies like Interac don't pocket your holiday pay, don't pocket your national health insurance allowance (give you travel insuracne instead), and don't eat into your hourly pay rate.

The scam they run - they undercut what the Government Instrumentality would have to pay you legally, by about 2%, and then cut the salary they give to you from that amount by around 30%. You get a shit wage, no pay during your holidays, insurance you would not wipe you bum with - the money the Board of Education gave them to cover that - that's their profit.

Cunning little fuckers, aren't they?

Oh, they bluff the Boards of Education into hiring their services, by saying foreigners are very unreliable (unpredictable "Gaigin Scum"), and that even if one of their ALT's is sick, or abscent for any reason, they will supply another one.

Some Boards of Education still do hire directly, and if you can't find one that does, go for JET.