Teachers Discussion

Competitive Teachers

Posted By: David
Date: December 17, 2007

I worked at a small, private, but well established English language school in Japan. I am withholding the name of the school since the owner is a friend of a friend. The intent here is to make a general point and not to engage in school bashing.

The school was run on a point system. This means that students paid a certain amount of money for a certain amount of points and they used these points when they signed up for classes. When they used up all their points, they could pay again and get more points.

The students were allowed to sign up for classes with their favorite teachers. My classes became very popular and outgrew the small room I was using. My classes were moved into the conference room, which only the Japanese teachers who taught English grammar in Japanese were allowed to use.

The other teachers, both foreigner and Japanese, resented this and wasted no time voicing their concerns to the owner. Within a week my hours were cut from full-time to Saturday classes only, a time when the other teachers wanted to be off anyway. Since the school was the sponsor for my visa, I stayed on teaching the Saturday classes and went off and taught privately.