Posts Tagged ‘english teaching’

Osaka City Government Cutting Budget: Foreign English Teachers Losing Their Jobs?

Some of the most experienced foreign English teachers at Osaka public schools may soon lose their jobs:

Nearly three dozen native English teachers called Monday on Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto not to cancel an education program that places native speakers of English in the prefecture’s schools and expressed concern that the teachers have only been offered four-month contracts.

The Osaka Fu Special English Teachers Union (OFSET), which represents the 34 native English speakers working at prefectural-run high schools and special education schools, hand-delivered a letter to representatives in the governor’s office in the afternoon and requested a meeting as soon as possible.

“The Osaka Prefectural NET (Native English Teachers) Program is currently under threat of cancellation due to budget concerns. NETs, working closely with Japanese teachers of English, have spent years developing sophisticated English programs at schools throughout Osaka Prefecture. Without NET teachers, these programs would become unsustainable and simply vanish,” the letter says.

After taking office in February, Hashimoto announced that the prefecture would enact a four-month emergency budget to run from April to July.

By then, two special project teams, appointed by the governor to review all prefectural spending, are expected to have their final recommendations on what should be cut. Osaka Prefecture has nearly ¥5 trillion in outstanding debts and is nearly bankrupt.

Many NET teachers are very unhappy about their four-month contracts, fearing that it may be a sign that their jobs will cease to exist under the new city budget:

At a press conference attended by about 15 union members, Steven Thompson, general secretary of the union said: “A four-month contract [for teaching work that requires long-term planning] is just crazy. It’s a terrible problem.”

For more details on the situation, check out the OFSET Union’s homepage.

Nova President Sahashi’s Ridiculously Luxurious Office

It seems that every day since the collapse of Nova brings new discoveries of shady practices by its president and management. Today the press discovered the palace-like private office Nozomu Sahashi built for himself at the company’s expense [hats off to FTV's news staff for adding the dramatic music]:

The whereabouts of Sahashi, dismissed from the Nova board last Thursday, remains unknown.

Higashibata also allowed the media inside the Nova president’s room at the company’s administrative headquarters in Osaka. “We show this as an example of his (Sahashi) calling the company his own,” he said.

At the back of the red-carpeted reception room of the 330-square-meter executive suit on the 20th floor of the building is a luxury private space including a dining room with a large-screen TV, a bathroom with a sauna, a Japanese-style tea room and a room with a double bed.

Oh, and in other Sahashi news, it’s been found that he probably unfairly profited from sales of overpriced video phones used for Nova lessons. Ripping off students with overpriced products? Who would have thought!

Government to Promote Adopt a Nova Teacher – Workstay Program.

With the collapse of the largest English conversation chain in Japan throwing thousands of foreigners out of a job, and often out of a place to reside, the Japan government announced today that it will sponsor, with public funds, a relief program to provide food, shelter and employment to hungry homeless former Nova teachers by putting them up in workstays across rural Japan

The project that will be largely funded by the government at first, is expected to eventually pay big dividends. It is also expected to promote rural revitalization efforts and is in line with other programs already in place by the Agricultural and Health ministries. It will also give young, non Japanese, a taste of rural living, along with satisfying the labor shortage among farming and fishing households across Japan,

“This program will further enhance the internationalization of the Japanese countryside by bringing together two needs, the need for jobs, and food by former Nova teachers and the need for slave labor and entertainment among rural households” said an Education Minister. “We will be killing two birds with one stone. Instead of payment of unemployment insurance and welfare, from public funds to idol teachers, the farming households will subsidize the program by providing food for the foreigners and make payments for their labor to local government coffers, which are badly in need of additional revenue given the depopulation and dire straits of the countryside.”

It is expected that the former teachers (who many may have never experienced living in a rural setting) may find the physical labor demands on them to be strenuous compared to what they have been used to doing. Besides sitting in a classroom all day, possibly only exerting themselves occasionally to escape from a policemen or a stalker, most have not lead particularly active lives in Japan up till now. “This real work will improve their health, and their attitude, and let them see firsthand what living in the Japan countryside is really like, dispelling stereotypes and misconceptions” said a government spokesperson.

Some will be distributed to mountainous regions to assist with harvesting activities and construction work, others may be called to help out with undermanned fishing operations, some others may be assigned road clearance tasks. “It will be up to each individual to perform the tasks required to the best of their ability, if they don’t they can just go back to their home countries”, added another minister, “We have no particularly good feeling about helping non-Japanese with public funds that everyone’s taxes support. That money is needed for expanding territorial claims against neighboring countries or to support cultural icons like dolphin and whale slaughter, it is a waste to give it to Gaijins to buy imported beer and strange foreign foods” added another high ranking administration official.

Many rural areas of Japan have never closely experienced living in close proximity to a non Japanese person, so it will be a good chance for them to practice their English, compare cultural differences, and get some help with the more demanding tasks the government refuses to pay for.

Many rural households are not able to find suitable marriage partners, this has been a growing problem over the years. These young people from overseas are enthusiastic breeders and good entertainers, they will add a very energetic element into the aging, inbred, and depopulating countryside of Japan.

Government spokesman were very enthusiastic about promoting this ‘adopt a teacher’ campaign. They want everyone to understand it solves a problem for everyone concerned. Your government is working for the best interests of all. Please participate enthusiastically.

Nova Update: Teachers Still Not Paid, Many Stop Working

If you’ve been following the news about the collapse of Japan’s largest chain of English conversation schools, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that Nova failed to keep its promise of paying teachers on October 19th (after failing to pay on the 15th). As a result, a large number of teachers and staff have simply stopped going to work. According to Let’s Japan, Nova’s office staff has sent out notices to all teachers that thank those who are still working and plead for other teachers to come back to work:

We totally understand your situation, but your decision not to work is making our company’s recovery worse. If we cannot provide lessons to students then we have to close branches. In this case, the company, that has not paid us, and those that don’t carry out their duty to work bear responsibility.

We can prosecute the company for the salary delay. If you chose to walk out on the job and not work it does more damage than good for the students and for your case against the company. Striking is a legal way to do this, rather than walking out. please try to stay calm, stand together and protest to get the public’s understanding and sympathy.

If you report to your home country’s Foreign Affairs Aministration, you can and solve this problem in a diplomatic way. The more of you that do this, the better because ther’s power in numbers.

Most teachers posting on forums and blogs have scoffed at such a request, seeing no reason to work for free in the wild hope that giving a few extra lessons would somehow save Nova from its horrible financial situation.

An article in the Asahi Shimbun on Nova’s future gives three possible outcomes of the current situation:

1. Nova goes out of business
2. Outside investors step in
3. Drastic restructuring

Even if Nova doesn’t go out of business, it’s a given that school branches will continue to close across Japan, possibly leaving some staff and teachers without jobs.

Nova Instructors Forced To Teach Retarded And Mentally Disabled

Nova teachers with seemingly little to lose and possibly just wanting to relieve the stress of dealing with possible termination and non-payment of salaries, have turned to Internet forums and blogs to communicate their frustrations with their employer. One very interesting fact that has recently come to light is that apparently some teachers at Nova were forced to teach retarded and mentally disabled customers often together with normal students. Reports of stalking of teachers, threats, assaults and various odd and abnormal behavior from students has many wondering what sort of operation is/was Nova running.

Here is one especially detailed account from Nova teacher CynicalBeyondReason :

“Students routinely showed up drunk, passed out or fell asleep in class. There were three cases of foreigners being stalked by Nova customers (2 of them female customers), one of which made strange, violent threats when the object of her infatuation was transferred (“I will destroy the city!”). In ALL of these cases, despite the endless complaints by us that went all the way to the AAM level, nothing was EVER done in any of these cases. Not ONE of these “students” was ever asked to leave. And this is not restricted to Nova, because I have acquaintances that work at small eikaiwa that tell me EXACTLY THE SAME THINGS HAPPEN THERE.”

It seems cases of stalking and threats are more commonplace at Nova than previously thought. One recent case that turned tragic Lindsay Hawker comes to mind, where here stalker lured her into his apartment under the guise of private lessons only to murder her and dump her body in a bathtub filled with dirt. Despite widespread publication of the suspects picture by police and authorities, he remains at large. The authorities have been accused of bungled police work in that case by letting the suspect escape bare footed out a window as 10 officers arrived to his front door.

What is disturbing in the accounts of some Nova teachers is the lack of concern or responsibility by upper level management in dealing with these cases. Many complain of being ‘chewed out’ by staff when they failed to handle what were obviously bad situations and even in some cases dangerous.

Too true, but the other eikaiwa schools don’t take it to the extremes that Nova does.

We had an obviously insane woman show up for a demo lesson.

Borderline psychos are still perfectly acceptable, and the stalking problem is both rampant and largely ignored. But that is more the fault of the lazy-ass Japanese police, who even when called up by the eikaiwa management, will cuss out the stalkee for getting stalked rather than arrest the stalker (they wouldn’t even arrest a stalker who actually attacked a teacher in the middle of a lesson! School knew he had been a stalker, too, but don’t know how they’d handle his contract because he did the honorable thing and killed himself the next day after a mere talking to by the cops. Problem solved).

In many cases even if police authorities are involved, the mentality is “blame the victim” in many cases. It would seem there are many standards the police use to measure the seriousness of a crime or even a potential one. Self-defence is not an acceptable response to being threatened or attacked in Japan and will often result in the arrest of the foreigner regardless of the circumstances.

Teacher allblacks wrote the following:

What got me was the number of students that were there at Nova because their doctor recommended them learn a language to keep it together when recovering from their illness. I must have had a good 7 or 8 of these people. Nova is psychiatrists aid? Yeah.

Are psychologists and mental hospitals across the nation recommending to parents and guardians of mental patients that they enroll them in Eikaiwa classes? This is how it seems. Are English teachers qualified to deal with mentally disabled and those suffering from neurosis? Nova staff seems to think so. In fact, Japan has a myriad of rules and regulations on how those with mental defects are to be handled, educated, housed, and cared for. It is one of the most strictly controlled areas for public educators and administrators for good reason. Educating these handicapped people is a job that requires special training and aptitude, not everybody can or should do it. Forcing unqualified English teachers to deal with mental disabilities is criminal as it is irresponsible and just asking for a disaster to happen.

More from CynicalBeyondReason:

The craziest students I had were sent to Nova as part of their “job training” or because their shrink told them to. The students freely admitted it. Especially “rain man” who wouldn’t even do listen and repeats, just rocking back and forth in his chair as the other students stared in horror.

Another teacher writes:

We had a guy called Frankenstein and we also had a woman who lost it in the classroom of a JHS that she was teaching at. Dunno what she did there but I know that she went on leave for three years. In Nova she would scratch her entire face all the way through the lesson all lesson long.

And from Cynicalbeyondreason:

I have known of students who threw books at instructors, threatened them, blocked the door so they couldn’t leave.

These are adult students not kids.

NOVA, should just send sales staff into the mental hospitals. It would be easier.

Fumanchu writes:

How about this: An autistic kid who would have a temper tantrum if you tried to make him do anything but would then grab you and dig in his nails when you tried to leave the class at the end of the period. All this while the parents watched and smiled.
Come to think about it, why the hell did we put up with this shit? I’m actually ashamed of myself.

Are parents of autistic children to blame when they put their children into classes of normal children and things don’t work out? One can only sympathize at their desire to give their children some form of normalcy, doctors may even recommend spending time with normal children as good for autism, but an English class taught by an untrained instructor would push the bounds of even common sense it would seem.

It almost seems criminal that these situations remained in the dark for so long and that the financial and legal difficulties Nova finds itself in these days provided the teachers there to come out with their experiences. One can only respond with a big “whew” that worse events didn’t occur. Who would have been around to take responsibility then?

[Quotations found on letsjapan.org]