What GTA has to say about Gaba and ESL in Japan - an interview with “Gaba Teacher’s Association”

On January 15, 2008 in Interviews

After a bit of a delay, here is the rest of the interview we started a few days ago with the GTA, onion.com of ESL news.

DailyJ: Why did you chose Gaba and what has your experience with them been like?

GTA: I chose Gaba because I don’t like rejection or going to more than 1 or 2 job interviews. Nothing is worse than being rejected by an English school. So I’d rather take the safest bet.
Working there is perfectly pleasant and there are lots of good people there. You won’t make a lot of money , but the job itself can be enjoyable. I’ve never been treated unfairly.
The real problem is that schools such as Gaba are using a non-full time “flexible” schedule system, which allows them to pay part-time salaries and cut out all your benefits, vacation time, sick leave, and so on. If you want to make 280,000, you’ll have to “flex” out your schedule.

DailyJ: What is the purpose of GTA? Purely entertainment?

GTA: Mainly entertainment. But I hope it also neutralizes some of the marketing images, words, and euphemisms, that are used when English Schools market themselves. Particularly, Gaba because they market their product to both students and teachers. It’s inescapable if you ride the train or look at a newspaper.
I’ve never studied marketing, but it’s fun to try to figure out what marketers are thinking or why they include something. There’s a lot of lonely people who looking for fulfilment everywhere, but think its particularly evident in Japan. There’s a lot of English School advertisements that aim for that.
In Gaba’s case, they also market their product to the teachers. They have an employment system where they can actually get more revenue, by increasing their staff as much as possible. Thus, they need to not one, but two ads on the front page of the Daily Yomiuri. Teachers are usually recent University grads, so they need to market a commodity that they are searching for–mainly things like professionalism, career growth, stylish environment, and professionalism. I mention professionalism twice, only because Gaba mentions it twice in their recruiting ads.

So, rather than simply write about how this school sucks or this school is like a sweat-shop (which I think is insulting to real fast-food and sweatshop workers), I wanted to take these images presented and turn them against the schools who created them.

:)  good stuff. That’s all for today but we will hear a little more from GTA tomorrow. But first I want to ask you:

Did you have fun? What do you think of GTA?

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