English teaching in japan. well, it seams like a grate idea if you cant speak the language so well and want to live over there and experance the "true Japanese couture" (laugh) dosent it? the moneys usually very good for the hours you do, and you normally have alot of free time to play around when your not working. so yea, what could be wrong with that?
(so begins my rant)
for starters, there are a few very large schools (compernys) that deal solely with teaching english, nova and anyon are good examples of this, the pay at these places is alittle lower than the smaller compernys but for a person who knows very little about japan thay will set up everything you need to live in japan. unfortunitly, due to the nature of hiring people from other country's who genrelly know very ittle about the culture (and the odd bastard who just runed it for everyone alce), thay do not treat there forren workers as people, more like trained monkeys. thay like to place limits (such as cerfues, where you can travel) on thayer workers as to always keep them under control and use threats to insure that the workers can not to anything but as the comperny wants. to insure that the workers are more easily controlled Nova, until reasintly has had a policy of trying not to hire native english speakers who can also speak Japanese as these workers are able to find work outside the comperny when thay get sick of being miss treated. in fact nova in particularly has come under scrutiny by the japanese government reasintly (who certinly have no love for forreners in japan) for there miss treatment of workers. now, if you understand the japanese work ethic, you will realize just how bad it would have to be for nova to be investigated for mistreating its workers. thay are having problems with thayer service to custermers as well. it is not only nova but several of the other large english teaching compernys as well that treat thayer workers like this.
my recommendation, if you want to do that kind of work in japan, is to work for a smaller school or one of the government run institutes. these kind of jobs are allot harder to get and wont usually set you up with a place to live (you'll probably get a nicer place if you do it yourself anyway) but thay will treat you more like a normal "japanese" worker, which allows you allot more freedom when you not working, lets you to lirn more of the culture and normally gives you the chance to meet more normal japanese people instead of the ones who just want to learn english or have a "gijin" fetish.

So it begins....