Vantaggi
NOTE: I was in junior high schools some of this may be different from elementary or HS I spent two years with Interac and really enjoyed the experience. Here's some pros -Much easier to get into than JET who didn't even give me an interview -Pretty painless hiring process compared to JET and you don't have to wait around a year. -Much better than a lot of the other teach in Japan opportunities -They help set you up with an apartment -You can contact the office about whatever you need to (finding a doctor, trouble at school,etc...) -You get to work in Japanese public schools -The pay is more than enough to live on, I managed to save quite a bit, but you do need to be reasonable with your spending, don't travel/go out to eat/buy stuff constantly and then act baffled that you have no money. -They help with getting a phone, getting the national health insurance set up, etc... -They mostly stay out of your way and leave it to you to be an ALT at your school -They are really big so you can request a new location in Japan after you finish your year contract -Lots of vacation, all of August and lots of July off for summer break. -They help set you up with Japanese lessons if you want -Potentially pretty great hours, I had to stay until 4:45 everyday the first year but the second year at my new school I could leave at 3:30 which was great and gave me lots of time. -Co-workers are generally a good crowd, made some great friends. -Pretty chill about side jobs -Pay was always on time (With the exception of my last paycheck which had some complications with getting information from my landlord) -Some great placements in cities and suburbs as opposed to JET who have a reputation for rural placements
Svantaggi
-Less pay/benefits compared to JET but if you could get into JET you wouldn't be here anyways. -You're experience will vary wildly depending on where you're placed/what school you get. You can get a school that expects you to walk in and do a 50 minute lesson the first day or a school that never expects you do do a lesson at all and just kind of assist the teacher with having kids repeat stuff in English, maybe play some warm-up games, it all depends on where you end up. Some schools are really into using ALTs some are much less so -Months with lots of time off have partial pay (the specifics are on the website) -There's about 2 weeks of training, but it's kind of up to you to figure out how to be a teacher -In my opinion this is not a long-term position, there are people who stay in it for a long time but there's no advancement you'll basically be in the same job at the same pay forever, but you can definitely take the job and look for better jobs throughout your year with interac, many places only hire people already in Japan -Supposedly they are into this dumb tearing you down and building you up mentality when it comes to training, my training only had a tiny bit of that element, but I've hear from people who had pretty bad training experiences particularly in Tokyo. -This is not a job for people looking to be like English teaching professor legends it's a job for people who want to goof around with Japanese kids and try to make their English class more fun while getting to experience living in Japan, I put this as a con because some people go in thinking they are going to be doing a lot more serious teaching than they are. -Co-workers who are bad with money and living way above their means complaining -Interac has to tell you to follow rules that nobody actually follows like no team teaching in certain areas which I did all year both years all the time mostly -Japanese schools are seriously lacking in ways to discipline their kids because they can't suspend them. That means if you get an awful kid everybody wants to strangle they can't kick him/her out, although you can talk to interac/the teachers you work with if there's a problem life a kid being rude to you a lot and they may be able to help out a lot with that.