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I like how you’ve structured your post with the sub-headings rather than one huge diatribe. Makes it easy to read.

As for sexual experiences, aside from having a 15 year old girl ask me to walk her to the train station after her lesson, I haven’t had a single encounter that could even be remotely misunderstood as being related to such a thing. This is probably for the better, though, as my wife would kill me if another woman even hinted at such a thing

Although your work is not quite to your taste, I hope it’s in a field you enjoy. This way, despite whatever conditions you might be working under, you can at least come away with valuable work experience that is tranferrable to any nation.

I can certainly agree with you to a certain extent regarding the intention of many English “schools”, but I don’t think that they all fall into this category. There are some that do try to get customers at least semi-comfortable with the language … I hope.

As for the hitting on students, you’d be surprised how often I’ve heard of this being a problem at some of the companies in and around Nagoya. Many students will complain, and the place I work at has a two-strikes policy regarding this (depending on the severity, and the amount of evidence that exists). My biggest gripe, though, is with the number of English speakers that have come here and made their intentions incredibly clear in the teacher’s lounge between classes or while on break.

Dressing for success is also quite important, regardless of how far a person wants to get in their job. If someone just wants to be a teacher for 20 years that’s all fine and good, but customers typically pay a premium for their lessons, so it’s better to give them some appearance of value, even if it’s just a fascade

You may be right about the differences between being an ALT and an Eikaiwa English teacher, but I have no experience as an ALT.

1- 英会話 (English schools) are first and always: A business! They might have had good intentions when they started, but overall, it’s always going to be MONEY before anything else, and that includes actually “TEACHING” English. Come on, it’s like what Chris Rock once joked about “pharmaceutical companies don’t want to cure AIDS, because there is NO MONEY in the ‘cure’, but there is in the ‘treatment’”. Point is, even though I have not been in Japan for that long, I have been to many occasions where I have met these people who have “no complaints” about their popular/expensive English school; but still after going there for a couple years still can’t order a Big Mac properly if they visit an foreign MacDonald’s. English schools are just a way for people to make money off of scamming locals into believing that if they throw money at the English company they will become fluent, just gotta keep throwing the money at it.

2-”Hitting on students” is bullshit man, anybody who has ever hit on their students usually have had some kind of signals coming from the (always female) client. Just speaking from experience and from friends, if they ever hit on a girl, they made sure they were getting some kind of signal, if not, then the client would simply COMPLAIN! Japanese people are not scared-not-expressing-emotions-ever kind of humans foreigners would like to imply they are, if they have a probleｍ, they might not bring it up with the GUY hitting on them, but they will certainly tell a manager and something will be done (again, just speaking from experience). Point is, at least in my opinion quite a bit of women (and yes, dudes too) go to the schools to meet a “free” English teacher, aka-get a foreign boy/girl-friend. Nothing wrong with that, but like I have encountered in the past and even with friends that are dating their former students, the girls didn’t seem to mind because they liked the guy to begin with or over time eventually felt that way.

3-”Dress for Success”, come on dude, you’re an ENGLISH teacher! That’s THE JOB people usually try to get or end up in when they come to a foreign country because it’s 1. Easy to get hired 2. Decent money 3. Easy job, anybody can do it. But what kind of “advancement” can you get in “English teaching”? Sure, if you work at a “good” school, you might be able to make a good wage, but chances are, unless you are looking at the manager’s position of the school, you’re not going anywhere for a while.

Overall, I think being an ALT at a public school in Japan might be a better experience for anybody wanting to actually become more involved in learning the language and culture. OR, if you just want to make enough money to get by, be able to party, come to work with wrinkled shirts, not have the chance to learn a lot about your host country, and of course “hit on your students”, then an Eikaiwa English teacher might be the job for you

Interesting you mention teaching English. I think you left out a whole lot due to your relative inexperience and ignorance on the matter. First of all, no one is ever hired to teach English, per se, but rather are hired to act out a curriculum set by the schools, which turn out to have very little originality.