ENG102: research essay

Nova

According to Wikipidia and Nova company, Nova is the biggest private English school in Japan with over 640 branch locations and approximately 50% of the total market share. Nova established its first small office in 1981 in Osaka (“Nova: company”). Everyone who lives in Japan knows Nova. Nova schools are everywhere and they are constantly advertising themselves on television. I have met many Nova teachers or ex-Nova teachers in Japan. Based on my experiences, 99% of employees are not happy with the company and many of these individuals complain openly about Nova. In addition, I have Japanese friends who currently attend a Nova school. I do not see them learning English. I believe that Nova is a bad English company for three reasons: focusing on only getting students, having bad management and treating their employees badly.

First, Nova’s focus is getting students to attend, rather than on teaching them. They understand the Japanese culture well and use it to their advantage. In Japan, education is very important. “Japan is probably the country with the largest number of preparatory schools in the world” said Namiko Abe. Most elementary, junior high and high school students go to cram school after public school. Cram schools are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. The standard education received at school alone is not enough to survive examination war in Japan (Abe). English is part of the cram school curriculum. English has become a big part of Japanese society. We believe that English is necessary for us to learn. Most schools teach English from junior high through high school; some of them begin instruction in elementary school now. English is a required subject. In public schools, they focus on the skills of reading and writing. Many students cannot speak or comprehend English properly (Abe). Nova focuses on a student’s speaking and listening skills. They advertise that they have only native English speaking teachers. Most Japanese believe that native English speaking teachers are the best to learn English from. Nova doesn’t really care who they are which I do not agree with. I believe that learning English from native English speakers is better than learning English from Japanese instructors who speak English. I know there are a lot of Japanese English teachers that speak English with a Japanese accent. However, Japanese explanations are sometimes necessary, especially for beginners who just start learning English. For example, if beginner adult students cannot speak English at all, they have no idea what is going on or what the teachers are talking about in English. How can they learn English if they do not know any English, without any Japanese explanation? It is better for Japanese teachers in these cases to teach English with Japanese explanations.

Nova has also increased the number of students through advertisement. Commercials affect a lot of people. They make unique commercials that are very catchy. They also created a character called “Nova rabbit.” He is funny and cute in the commercial. Many Japanese find that the Nova rabbit is cool. They choose Nova instead of other English schools so that they can get a Nova rabbit doll. You might not believe this because this sounds silly; however, this is happening. Half of my friends who go to Nova have decided to go there just because they think that the rabbit is cool. This rabbit is the center of a big fashion trend now. In addition, my friends who teach at Nova tell me that students decide to go to Nova for this same reason. Most people who decided to go to Nova for this reason do not try to learn English there. Nova also hires people to hand out free tissues and leaflets to students.

Second, management is not good for their students. They have a ticket system. As you buy more tickets, the tickets get cheaper. One normal class needs one ticket. For a one to one class you need three to four tickets. For example, if you buy 25 tickets, one ticket is $35. If you buy 600 tickets, one ticket is only $10. These tickets have expiration dates; when it expires depends on how much you buy. Most students who decided to go to Nova plan to buy just a few tickets; instead they end up buying more than they planned. They tell you that you can get a refund on the tickets that you do not use. Once you decid to get your refund, they do not give you the correct amount of money that you are supposed to get. I found in the news that, “Government authorities have rapped the knuckles of private English school chain Nova Corp. for allegedly shortchanging students on refunds and providing false accounts of its cancellation policy” (“Nova probed”). For the classes you take, students are divided into levels by their abilities in conversational English. From lowest to highest are 7C, 7B, 7A, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 (“Nova: English”). They use the same method in every class and every level from beginning to advanced (Caversham). If Nova truly wants to help students to learn, they should make different methods for each level. The worst part that really frustrates me is that any native English speaker who has a college degree in any subject, it does not matter who they are, can be a teacher at Nova. Most people who cannot get a job anywhere go to Nova (Caversham). They hire anyone if they are a native English speaker. They do not need to know about teaching. I am in the field of teaching and I believe that teachers need to have knowledge of teaching and education. Nova does have three days of training for the teachers (Bruckbauer). How much can you learn in three days? To get a teaching associate degree, a person needs to go to school for at least two years. Most teachers cannot answer properly when students ask questions like “What is the difference between see and look?” or “When do you use to and for?” Moreover, the teachers get no time for preparing lessons. They have a ten minute break between a class and another class. In those ten minutes, they have to write comments on each student, what they learned and what was bad about them; also they have to prepare for the next class (Harmon). What if they have to go to the bathroom? How quickly can they go to the bathroom? I believe preparing for a class is very important and it takes a lot of time. As you can guess, the class is not going to be any better if the preparing time is only ten minutes.

Finally, Nova does not treat employees well. Most of my friends who were working at Nova were trying to find another job. Nobody stays with Nova for a long time. Nova is always looking for teachers and they advertise for teachers every week in the Japan Times which is the most common newspaper in Japan for English speakers (Caversham). Actually pay is not too bad at Nova. English teachers in Japan get about $2,000 to $2,500 per month which you can live comfortably off of in Japan (Bruckbauer). However, English teachers in Japan get paid higher than the average Japanese salary. Nova can be considered to have the worst pay rate out of English schools. Also, Nova stands for “No vacations” to foreigners who teach English in Japan (Harmon). They do not get national holidays. Teachers get 10 paid days off after they work for six months; however, in reality they cannot get holidays because of a lack of teachers. I remember my friends were complaining that if they take their holidays, other coworkers have to work overtime so they could not take vacations. Japanese employees get treated even worse. Japanese employee’s positions are only for management or advertisements. They get paid from $1,800 to $2,000 a month (“Nova: recruitment”). They work from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. They do not get paid overtime, as we call “service overtime work.” They have to deal with managing customer’s complaints and employee’s complaints. They are always pressured to get new students by the headquarters. One of my friends was a manager at Nova and she lost ten pounds in a month because she was miserable working there. Surprisingly, many people apply for that position because they can get the benefit of learning English for free. As you may know now, learning English is expensive in Japan. Nova takes advantage of that and not many people stay for a long time (Harmon).

I do not think that I want to be a student at Nova or even work there. They have been successfully getting more and more students and getting profits. However, they are not focused on how to make student successfully. They are focused on how to get more students and how to make the company bigger. From my perspective, I see them as bad company. I believe they will be better if they change their teaching method, get more Japanese teachers to assist English teachers and treat their employees better.