[jasonbvr]

You have to hold a bachelor's degree and speak English to meet the minimum requirements. A few criteria you can meet that will make getting a job teaching English easier are being a native of a country where English is the official language, choose a major like English or an area of teaching and studying Japanese helps especially if you take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test which is made by the Japanese government. You can also get a certificate in teaching English as a foreign language but all this does is really show your dedication to trying to be a good teacher.

I have a BA in International Studies with a concentration in East Asian studies. I minored in Japanese and studied Mandarin Chinese as well a few other languages which I was horrible at. My Japanese is bad too because I did Mandarin for two years after finishing the minor and studied it in Beijing. When I was applying for a job, I was doing some certification program online but dropped it after I got hired. It did help a little in preparing me to teach and makes you aware of some of the difficulties your students will face in learning English.

Looking back on it now, I should've done the International Business just so I'd have a degree to fall back on since mine is mostly political science, religion, culture and history studies.

Oh and I am 25 going on 26 this year. I was out of school for a full year before coming to Japan. This year I will either stay in Japan as an ALT or start studying Korean and move there for a year. After that I have to decide whether to return to school for business or attempt a Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language, aka TESL.