[I'm With Stupid]

Oh I know about the situation in Japan. I've got a friend working for Nova at the moment (or not working as the case may be). Hopefully that particular situation will have settled down by the time I finish a PGCE though. I've actually got an interview with AEON next weekend, so I could be one of those people with a tie and a pulse, but even if I get it, I'm not sure I'll accept it.

But my point was that presumably if I have a PGCE, I could progress beyond merely being an assistant to a Japanese teacher pretty quickly? My impression of the situation is that you have the proper qualified teachers who tend to work in high schools and public education, and then the unqualified teachers who work in private conversation classes, (the likes of Nova, GEOS etc) and they don't really compete for jobs on the same level. You probably wouldn't put an unqualified eikaiwa teacher in charge of a class of 30, for example. Incidentally, what MA do you need to start going for university jobs? (A whole other minefield, I'm reliably informed). Obviously, I'm only wanting to go to Japan to try it out for a year or two and see if working abroad appeals to me, but it can't hurt to have a plan in case I do like it.

My main question though was about the difference between teaching in England and Japan. Obviously the UK will be far more advanced English, but teaching non-native English speakers no doubt has its own challenges because I would imagine they're quite different jobs? In fact my friend did a CELTA and said there were people with PGCEs doing that course too.