How to be a JET Teacher

How to be a JET Teacher

1. Get a degree in anything. Whether it be in English Literature, Philosophy, Biochemical Engineering or Fine Arts; for legal and visa purposes a degree is needed to become a JET participant.

2. Speak English. Another must for visa purposes is that you must be a native English speaker from a country which has English as their first language. However, I met a lot of JETs who were from non-English speaking countries but came to North America when they were in their teenage years and they were considered native because they had citizenship.

3. Write English. I am not a good writer and all through University I got by on the fact that I was more creative in thought then mechanical in writing. But the essay portion of the application has the highest bearing on whether you get an interview. I wrote an essay that I liked and showed it to my friend who is better at the grammatical details. Using my ideas and his proficency in the editing we came up with a pretty impressive piece of writing.

4. Dress formal. I noticed that JET is really more about the image than about the teaching. Not to make it sound like a popularity contest but JET really focuses on the visual as that is what Japanese students and teachers will judge you on since they don’t know you on a personal level. You shouldn’t change your identity completely but I would think of it as wearing a costume and props for a play you will be performing. Play the part of the bright, outgoing, professional foreigner and you will be fine.

5. Be charming. At the interview all they really want to know is that you can handle the pressure of being in a room where some people understand you, some people don’t but everyone likes you. If you can act calm, professional, curteous and still let a little of your personality show then you will have a good interview. They want you to think on your feet by giving you interesting questions, making you do a demo lesson or have you introduce yourself. Sometimes you even get interviewers who purposely rub you the wrong way to see how you will react. As long as you don’t go in there and tell them you want to go to Japan to pick up highschool girls and get the latest issue of Hentai manga, you should be ok.

And that is about it. I thought teaching experience, previous experiences in Japan and other connections to Japan might have some weight. But after seeing the people that were hired along with me, most of them were either unfamiliar with any Japanese language and culture or were fresh out of University.