I hear the best way to get Japanese citisenship for an American is to Teach English, how do you go about it?

Question

What I mean is what are the Job requirements to being an English instructor in Japan. What do they expect you to teach, because our English classes are not like our foreign language classes, so is Japan the same or do they use the same style English classes we have. In other words is it teaching to read, write, and speak well enough to understand a foreigner, or is it teaching the nitty gritty stuff that a novelist would want to know?

Answer 1

Well, I don't know about it being a good way to go about it. These days it seems everyone and their brother who wants to move to japan that I meet wants to teach English as a second language in japan mainly because it requires them to speak hardly any to no Japanese and it's easy. To those people I would say to try and learn Japanese fluently before going there, I would strongly recommend it since most Americans wouldn't appreciate someone trying to do business with them in another language too much. That's just advice for when you live there, I'm not trying to discourage you, and I'm not saying you don't know Japanese, I just felt like saying that in case you either don't know it or have a very cursory understanding, especially since Japanese people, like a lot of other people, no matter how much they say they respect all races equally, they have an inward bias against foreigners. I'd say they expect you to teach basic grammar, vocab, writing, etc. just like when we learn other languages.  

Answer 2

Well, thats one way to work in Japan...you need to stay in Japan for at least 5 years to even be elgible for naturalization.  And its pretty diffucult to become a Japanese citizen.  

Answer 3

Most English teachers in Japan are here to teach 'conversational English' at private language schools (like Berlitz, back in the US). For these jobs you don't have to teach literature, or even grammar very much. Text books are provided and mostly you are supposed to make conversation with your students and help them to practice speaking. Most English teachers come with little or no previous teaching experience. All you really need is a college degree in any field (for the visa). It's not a difficult job, and the pay is ok for someone just out of college. But there isn't much room for advancement, there isn't a lot of job security, and most people get tired of it pretty quickly.

If you really want to be a 'professional' teacher in Japan, you can start out in conversation schools but you should keep working to get a Masters degree in education or linguistics, or get a TESOL credential, or some form of higher degree. Then you can start the hunt for the coveted university jobs. Much harder to get but the pay is much better.

But all of this is moot about trying to get citizenship. What kind of job you have is completely irrelevant. In fact, I'm sure the people at immigration would be MORE impressed if you mastered the Japanese language and started working for a regular Japanese company. There are A LOT of foreigners in Japan just teaching English, not so many who ever advance to something else.

To get citizenship (as opposed to permanent residency, which is easier) you will have to live here for a MINIMUM of 10 years, and probably closer to 15. You will have to have a reputable job, show at least an intermediate level of Japanese ability, have no criminal record... It's not easy! To get permanent residency, if you're married to a Japanese spouse you can probably get it within 3 to 5 years, without too many strict requirements. But for citizenship the Japanese can be very choosy.