Hi there, I'm currently residing in Malaysia (and have lived here all my life, actually), and am considering doing an i-to-i online course (the 120 hour package looks ideal), with the view to teach in Japan.

A little background, I am a native speaker of English. In fact it's pretty much my only language, and I am 100% fluent in it. I have studied in an English-medium school (it was a British International school, which used the Cambridge syllabus rather than the local one) all my life (from kindergarten until High school), and scored well in my English language (this is English as a primary language, not ESL) exams. I've always been interested in Japan and its culture, and have been learning Japanese at a language school for just under a year now. I do have a university degree (in communication), am under 30, and from what I've been reading online, I pretty much meet all the requirements for working as an ALT in Japan, EXCEPT that I happen to live in a country whose official language is not English.

Also, it seems that most of the big recruiters only have recruiting offices in the USA, Canada, the UK, and such. My question is, is it possible for me to get an ALT position in Japan? My country does have JET, but according to the embassy Japan hasn't asked for any positions for a few years yet (they receive like one or two people in non-ALT positions once in a blue moon). Thanks!

Hi manic,

I fully recommend you contact your embassy regarding JET. Sadly, you've missed the application deadline for 2012. In my opinion, JET/CLAIR love to promote how many countries the participants come from. I've met ALTs and CIRs from France, Germany and Russia.

It will be more difficult for you to find a position outside of Japan, but I imagine your chances would be good if you actually moved there. It's a bit of an expensive gamble but it's certainly an option if you have your heart set on it. The main boxes to be ticked are being a native English speaker and having a University degree. Are you at a disadvantage because you're from Malayasia? Yes, I'm afraid. Japan has moved on from the 80's but a lot of schools would probably still prefer Americans with blue eyes and blond hair. It's the case for everyone though. A school might only accept teachers from North American. Another might prefer someone from Australia. However, that doesn't mean you'll never find a job. I've met Korean and Chinese people who teach in eikaiwa schools and are doing very well. Please be aware that they might use the fact you're from a country whose language isn't officially English as a reason to pay you a bit less.

I hope this helped! Good luck.

If you look on the JET website they will give you an idea of the requirements and give you an indication of how many people they accept from each other by looking at the previous years intake... 

JET is gradually reducing its number of intakes even though they still get thousands applying - originally JET was set up to introduce native speakers of english to the japanese classroom and in return the teacher gets a cultural experience with many benefits including no taxes...however this is costing the government a lot of money and especially after the tsunami etc the government needs to make cut backs - one of which is maybe increasing taxes, another is making foreigners pay pension and another is for JETs to taxes and reduce intakes...

Small board of educations benefit from having JETs but larger ones its better to go with a private company because they offer more for less...generally other companies do all the work, in some areas teacher teach the whole class whereas JET is still stuck on the old way which is team teaching.

in short - JET is going to be very difficult for you to get onto, not impossible but still very difficult (many people get turned away from usa, uk etc)... so my advice is apply to smaller companies such as interac, joy talk etc... or apply to language schools directly (language school usually teach adults, business classes and sometimes students needing extra english - they are small classes or one on one)... also check out gaijinpot.com for jobs

as for moving here first - most companies accept people from oversea - they only except applications within the country IF you already have a valid working visa (not a tourist or working holiday visa)...its actually become increasing difficult to get a job within japan without the correct visa so i strongly disagree with this advice because ive known so many people be in japan for 3 month during the main employment time, then had to return home, applied whilst at home and got the job that way.

Thanks for the info guys. A little update: I've checked with the Embassy, they do have JET here, but Japan hasn't asked for applications since, you guessed it, the tsunami. I guess I can try out with Interac and such.