Depends... - English Teacher American Language School Employee Review

American Language School, or ALS or IB Japan, is not te worst company out there but ther's more a testament to how bad some companies are than anything in favor of the school itself. However, some things they do well are; Good, helpful managers who generally speak good English Two weeks off for summer and two weeks off for winter A relatively easy job.

The bad things? Oh, where to start. First off, don't be fooled by their pitch. A lot of things they try to sell as good things in the contract actually are really bad. For instance; 1.5 year contract. They sell it as more job security but actually it's an excuse to make you work half a year longer without having to give you a raise. Sick days of SPA days as they are called. They say that if you don't take any time off you will not have to work certain weeks. This is not true. You will not teach classes but you will be doing administrative work if you did not take any sick days. No national holidays. Unlike ECC, and other bigger companies you will work during national holidays. Very disorganised head office. They take forever to reply to emails. They force you to live in their own housing and profit off you by selling you the housing at almost twice the market price. Very little support after training. May spring unpaid work on you suddenly. This happened to me several times in which I had to give up my Sundays to work without being paid for it. And you cannot say no.

I was a teacher for ALS for two years and enjoyed my experience. The staff always treated me well. the training was informative and the meetings helpful. I was paid promptly and in full. If I had any questions I could call the head office and speak to someone. The school managers were also helpful in answering any questions about life in general in Japan. I was able to pay off most of my student loans and could travel to other Asian countries while saving money. I also made some friends there that are still friends today. I am now in law enforcement and I can honestly tell you that my experience as a teacher here greatly helped in training me how to better engage with people. I would like to recommend this experience for everyone in law enforcement.

There was sometime confusion and misunderstanding which is typical in any overseas environment. The apartments are definitely smaller than back home but it was private. My biggest complaint was with snot-nosed college grads with no experience but all self-absorbed who constantly complained but thought they were great teachers. Also teacher relics with all of their past experience but who couldn't teach their way out of a wet paper-bag. These supposed teachers were just endlessly negative complaining about students, managers, the school, life in Japan, yada-yada-yada. I felt so sorry for their students and whoever else they subjected themselves to.