Japan Ichiban! Number One!

Just in my mail box from ETJ (English Teacher’s Of Japan).

There have been rumors that Geos is in trouble since last September when a Geos spokesman admitted that sales were down and that the Nova collapse had caused ‘distrust among the public about English language schools’. The EL Gazette now reports that Geos is strongly denying the rumors.

According to the report, Chad Lafferty, Geos Teaching Ltd’s human resources director, said ‘Opening and closing locations is a normal part of business… The global recession has certainly impacted the way we do business but it would be wrong to say that any closures of the company are directly related to the recession.’ He went on to say that ‘Geos hasn’t laid off a single employee due to business results or the recession. Furthermore, we have no plans to do so.’

Click here to see the EL Gazette article (you will need to register). The digital version of EL Gazette, a news magazine for English language teachers around the world, is published monthly and can be accessed free of charge.

When Japanichiban started out many moons ago as a job support and advice organisation before the internet was even getting off the ground, we had an ad in the old Tokyo Classifieds advertising our services. It was a phone in help line and I remember our first person to use the service was a young lady from Geos on the verge of suicide. That was close to 15 years ago now and Geos are still ticking.

Let’s Japan started out their site also from Geos experiences as an outlet for teachers to debunk the myths of teaching English in Japan, especially for Geos.

Nova fell as have countless other English schools but Geos just keep on ticking away.

This latest news? Could this really be the end?

From Wiki!

An article in The Japan Times noted the deplorable working conditions of GEOS staff. In 1999, the company was taken to court by fourteen of its managers over unpaid overtime. At the time of the case, the main plaintiff said that she was working a 72-hour week under constant unmanageable pressure to increase sales at her school. Even though the managers won their suit, costing GEOS 300 million yen in unpaid overtime, the media mostly overlooked the case. In the same article, managers noted high staff-turnover and long working hours. However, a spokeswoman for the company insisted that GEOS, and the language learning industry as a whole, provided women with rare opportunities to begin business careers.[6]
Recent economic woes have lead Geos to be late paying the Japanese staff in August and September 2009. It is further reported that foreign teachers working at the adult schools were not paid on time in October 2009. Geos is currently asking clients to pay as much as 5 months in advance for the following year’s lessons in a bid to raise the necessary funds to meet payroll obligations. This financial distress has led many Japanese staff members to resign.[7]
GEOS began closing some of its branches in Japan in 2007, with more than 10% of domestic branches shuttering their doors in under two years. At its height, GEOS maintained teacher recruitment centers in London, Melbourne, Toronto, and Vancouver. Melbourne closed in March 2004, London and Toronto in October 2006, and the Vancouver center closed in October 2008.

Falling birth rate raises problem for Japan

Japanese 20-year-olds celebrate their Coming of Age day all around the country. It is the age at which they are allowed to drink alcohol and vote in elections

Tokyo, Japan - Today is a joyous national holiday in Japan known as the Coming of Age Day. The day marks the time when girls and boys become women and men.

Young people celebrate Coming of Age Day in Tokyo.

All over Tokyo, young women who are turning 20 this fiscal year are decked out in the fanciest, brightest, and most expensive kimonos you’ll ever see. Young men show up in the sharpest (and likely their first) black suit. The women are adorned with all the stylings of youth: huge hair, flowers, furs and silk. You have to forgive them if they’ve gone a bit over the top — you only become an adult once in Japan.

At the Shibuya ward office, 1450 people arrived at the important Coming of Age Day this January 11, 2010. Compare that number to years past, and you get a glimpse into one of Japan’s most pressing economic problems.

Five years ago, Shibuya ward had 1,917 people turn 20. Ten years ago, that number was 2,462. Twenty years ago, it was 4,380. That’s a steady decline in 20 years, down almost 70 percent. The number of young people is declining, not just in Shibuya, but all over Japan.

The birth rate in Japan is 1.37, among the lowest in the world. Japanese women, in survey after survey, report they’re holding back from having children because of the lack of daycare, inequity of domestic duties in marriage, career concerns and the high cost of living in Japan.

At the same time, the number of elderly is growing. By 2050, Japan’s government predicts 40 percent of its population will be over the age of 65. It’s a crippling population problem which analysts say will make this current recession and recovery look like a brief hiccup.

Japan celebrates its young today. But the joy diminishes every year.

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Keeping in line with our recent focus on Japan related youtubers (J-vloggers), Japanichiban brings you

That Japanese Girl. (TJG for short).

TJG gives interesting youtube lessons on Kansai-ben, which is the dialect of Japanese spoken down and around Osaka & Kyoto. (The Kansai area).
She doesn’t just teach Kansai-ben though as some clips are not about language at all.

There is a band of Japan based vloggers who also make collaborations which are very entertaining and edited to perfection. These collaborations are good ways of seeing and being introduced to the other popular j-vloggers around. TJG is in a lot of these and they can be hysterical at times.

TJG has been at it about a year now and has a large following of about 5000 subscribers.
I’m sure she will double that number in no time.

To keep you in suspense TJG will sometimes do a quiz where the answer is not revealed till the next video. Students of Japanese then have a chance to try and answer the quiz in the comments section.

Even if you’re not interested in Kansai-ben I think you will still become addicted to watching her.
After watching one or two of her clips you’ll want to watch all of them.

Check out some TJG vlogs.
This is a good one that sums up her youtube story for 2009 with sub-titles.

Many photos of TJG in her photo booth here.
TJG’s youtube channel here.
TJG’s blog here.
You can follow TJG on twitter too.