Need advice - wanting to teach/translate in Japan and Australia

[purrsian]

Hey

I'm thinking of studying to teach ESL and I just have a few questions - the amount of information about it all confuses me but everything seems so general

I'm looking at, in future years, teaching English in Japan. Now I realise it's not too hard to get a job there but you need a bachelor degree, but what I'm wondering about is how hard is it to find a job teaching English/Japanese or translating in Australia?

I get the impression that most jobs to teach Japanese (aside from primary/secondary schools) only want native speakers, is that correct?

When it comes to actually figuring out what to study, can anyone tell me if doing a bachelor of arts or a bachelor of languages and applied linguistics is enough, or do I need to then go and do a TESOL course too? And does it matter whether I do just a BA with subjects related to Japanese and linguistics or if I do the bachelor of languages and applied linguistics?

Sorry for the long post and many questions, just totally confused as to what to do!

[gfell]

Definitely a bachelor's degree does go a long way in getting you a job in Japan. Without a bachelor's degree, a bare minimum would be a diploma and TEFL certificate of some sort.

If you wanto to find a job teaching Japanese in Australia, then you would need to be a native Japanese person. I used to study Japanese in North Sydney and even the beginner classes were Japanese nationals.

As most non-native English speakers want to be taught by a native English speaker, so too do most native English speakers want to be taught by a native of the country's language they are learning. How good is your Japanese? Why don't you just focus on trying to teach English rather than Japanese?

A bachelor degree in any discipline is enough to get a teaching job abroad. Obviously the more focused your degree is on education / teaching, then the easier it will be to gain employment upon graduation.

[purrsian]

Yea I kind of figured it would just be Japanese people teaching Japanese, just didn't really know because I've only ever learnt Japanese at primary and high school, where I guess it's just different because of demand and the fact that it's not really aimed at language acquisition.

My Japanese is not very good yet, but I'm trying to look ahead at my goals to help me decide what to do now. I think for now, I will do a BA with majors relating to linguistics, Japanese, that sort of thing and then do the TESOL cert. I was going to do the bachelor of languages and applied linguistics, but if it doesn't really matter on the degree as long as it's relevent to linguistics and teaching, I'll go to the closer uni! Thanks for the help gfell, it's just confusing to know my options and what's best to do but I think I have an idea now

[gfell]

Great to have helped.

There are many teachers here in Japan with a Bachelor's degree in Business or Science (nothing to do with teaching or education), and yet they could find a teaching job quite easily. But if your long term goal is make a career out of teaching and perhaps someday become a lecturer in a university, then you will need a degree in Education to help open those doors.

I have been learning Japanese now for 8 years, and finally have reached level 2 Japanese proficiency. It's a long track to mastering a language.