In this issue:

2019 JALT CUE AND
BIZCOM ESPSYMPOSIUM

TWO FEATURE
ARTICLESCUE CAREERS

CUE CIRCULARISSUE 9NOVEMBER

2019

News and articles from the JALT College and University Educators Special Interest Group

Fukuoka Jo Gakuin Nursing University

Photo by Mathew PorterAll roads lead to Nagoya.
Welcome to issue 9 of CUE Circular, coming out just as we finish preparing our posters
and slide decks for JALT 2019 in Nagoya!
Again, we’re running a shorter format now, with two feature articles rather than three,plus the regular CUE Careers column. Two articles will shed light on the job and careerside of things; Akiko Tsuda shares her insights as a mid-career female university faculty
member, and Michael Parrish and Richard Miller in the Careers column explain thearray of job titles and job descriptions within our field. To round things off, Daniel
Velasco returns to CUE Circular with a great story of what happened when he lost his
voice for a few days, and how it changed his views on certain aspects of his teaching.
That idea for an article that you have been holding on to for a while probably will makefor a great read. Go on and write it! CUE Circular is all about sharing the experiences,

CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

insights, opinions, and advice that teachers inJapan’s CUE sector can benefit from reading but
which might not find a home in more rigorously
academic publications.
I hope you enjoy this issue of CUE Circular.

Steve Paton, Editor
2019 JALT CUE SIG and BizCom SIG ESP
Symposium
The 2019 JALT CUE and BizCom ESP Symposium
took place on Saturday, September 21 in Osaka.
The Osaka branch of Uchida Yoko proved an
excellent venue for the one-day symposium.
The event got started with a plenary talk from
Laurence Anthony detailing the current state of
the field of ESP and recent changes to ESP
programs. He shared several useful tools forcreating and analyzing field-specific language
corpora. Anthony finished by examining future
directions the field of ESP could take.
After lunch, the second plenary speaker, Winnie
Cheng, outlined collaborative ESP projects thathave been taking place in Hong Kong, withparticular emphasis on the process of creating
profession-specific corpora. She detailed theeffects of these interdisciplinary research projects
on ESP education.

2019 JALT CUE and BizCom ESP
Symposium
JALT CUE SIG

There was ample time for exchange during thetwo poster sessions and breaks. As the posters
were split into two separate sessions during which
no other events took place, it was easy forpresenters and attendees to move around andexchange ideas with others. The setup of theposters along the perimeter of the break room
meant presenters never waited for long before
conference goers arrived to view and discuss theirposters.
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CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

After the second poster session, plenary speaker
Judy Noguchi discussed how ESP methodologies
can be used to improve communication in
specialized fields even for native English speakers.
She modeled this with examples from science,engineering, and medicine courses. The
symposium finished with closing remarks and abook raffle. Four lucky attendees won signed
copies of speaker Laurence Anthony’s latest book,
Introducing English for Specific Purposes(Routledge, 2018).
Following the symposium, many gathered at a
nearby restaurant for the friendly conference
dinner.

Jamie Taylor, Outgoing CUE SIG publicity
officer*Thanks to Jamie for four years of service to the SIG!

Feature articles
Why are we so busy? Reflections of
a mid-career Japanese female
faculty member

4

Akiko Tsuda

Teaching in silence

7

Daniel Velasco

CUE Careers column
The hire-archy of Japanese
academic employment

11

Michael Parrish and Richard Miller
2019 JALT CUE and BizCom ESP
Symposium
JALT CUE SIG

3

CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

Feature articles
Why are we so busy?
Reflections of a midcareer Japanese female
faculty member
Akiko Tsuda, Nakamura
Gakuen University
Akiko Tsuda (M.Ed., M.A.,
Ph.D.) is Associate Professor
at Nakamura Gakuen
University in Fukuoka. Her
research interests include
ESP/EAP and interculturalcommunication.

Busy, busy, busy. Always, we Japanesefaculty members complain about ourhectic lives. Probably 20 or 30 years ago,the job of sensei in Japanese universities
was more relaxed and more respected, I
suppose. Before getting a position as afull-time teacher at a Japanese university
myself, I couldn’t imagine how busy
faculty members actually are. Tenured
teachers in higher education in Japan
have four responsibilities: research or
kenkyu, teaching or kyoiku,
administration or komu, and contribution
to communities or chiiki koken. I havebeen evaluated on these four factors by
my university, as most Japanese
universities have introduced the same
criteria for evaluation.
The majority of teachers choose thisprofession to do research, and usually weare evaluated based on the number of

JALT CUE SIG

publications we produce; if we would liketo climb the career ladder in academia, weneed to focus more on research for a more
attractive CV as researchers. However,year by year, the research budgets ofuniversities have been decreasing, so weneed to get research grants from outside,
such as kakenhi, the research grant from
the Ministry of Education in Japan. In
October, the first month of the fall term,
one of the busiest months for teachers, weneed to write proposals for kakenhi while
preparing for classes. The acceptance rateof kakenhi is usually just 20-30 percent,and some universities have cut the budget
for researchers who do not submit
kakenhi proposals, like a penalty. I feel it
causes awkward relationships among
faculty members, as of course some of thefaculty members work at universities
because they want to be teachers in acertain field, not researchers.
In my case, after completing an M.A. and
Ph.D. course while working as a part-timeteacher in several colleges, I finally got afull-time lecturer position on the tenure
track. I regard myself as a researcher/teacher and really like teaching, so I wantto prepare for teaching as much as
possible. That’s why I feel stressed. Even
though I would like to focus on teaching,
I’m almost always overloaded by my otherthree roles. To keep up with trends inteaching, I need to be active in academia.
Teaching and researching should be twowheels which affect each other. On top of
that, budgets for teaching have beenslashed, especially for private universities,4

CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

and the ratio of students per teacher isbecoming larger. Classes which do nothave a certain number of students
registered might be cancelled the next
term. The minimum number of students
per class is set by individual universities,
and usually it is not known by students
and part-time teachers.
The third duty of teachers, komu, is less
known by outsiders. Full-time teachers
need to attend a lot of faculty meetingsand belong to several committees, such as
educational affairs, entrance exams,
public relations, international exchange,
research, ethics, and so on. Basically,
part-time teachers don’t have to attend
these kind of meetings. In addition, fulltime teachers in Japan need to take full
responsibility for entrance exams, fromdesigning and proctoring to marking.
Nowadays, also, to attract moreexaminees, more and more private
universities have to set several
examination venues in other prefectures,
so faculty and administrative staff
members need to travel as proctors
during the season of entrance exams. In
addition, many universities now haveseveral kinds of entrance exams: ippan
nyushi (general exams), AO nyushi(enrollment by Admission Office), andsuisen nyushi (enrollment byrecommendation), and these causes awide disparity of academic abilities
among students. To solve these issues,
many private universities which arelabeled as mendomiga-ii or universities“accommodating students” have highnumbers of school-like events; forexample, we need to organize one-day
excursions, escort students on studyJALT CUE SIG

abroad programs, arrange PTA meetings,
etc. Faculty members work like classroom
teachers in secondary education. My
institution is one of this kind, so I am aclassroom teacher of 55 first-year
students. I have sometimes called
students who have been absent for too
many classes and met with them as one of
my duties as a classroom teacher eventhough I have no experience as a school
counselor.
In my opinion, the fourth duty, chiiki
koken (contribution to communities),
tends to be given the lowest priority, as
teachers are already stressed out fromtheir other three duties. Usually, chiiki
koken at my institution is done as open
lectures or extension courses to local
people, but in some cases, the speakers
are just invited from outside of theuniversity. Also, in the hierarchy of theuniversity in Japan, younger faculty
members don’t dare to “contribute tocommunities”. As they are rather low instatus in the committees in universities,
they cannot afford to spend their timeoutside of their institutions.
Looking back more than 10 years as afaculty member, I have been juggling my
private life and professional life, and I
have felt sorry for my son as I’ve rarely
attended his school’s events. If I had
attended them, I would have had to cancel
my classes and schedule make-up classes
on weekends or evenings, which are notideal for my students or family. Now myparents have reached their 80s, and I
need to think seriously about their care in
the near future. I admire many seniorprofessors I know who have been facing
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CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

these issues, caring for their elderly
parents and managing the four
responsibilities I mentioned along withfamily issues.
What’s the solution? How can I become amuch happier researcher/teacher? One
thing I can say is that one person alone
cannot change anything, and it takes time
to change this trend. Japanese society is
aging, and the birth rate has been
decreasing, so universities in Japan are
categorized as “a declining industry”.
In my case, I have shared my opinion withmy co-teachers and tried to speak withEnglish speakers (including English as
Lingua Franca speakers such as thosefrom the Philippines, Russia, andSingapore). Compared to Japanese faculty
members, they are less informed or not
informed at all due to Japanese language
barriers and our cultural patterns. Even
English speakers who have been working
for a long time in Japan experiencesimilar problems, especially if they don’t
live with Japanese partners. Throughdiscussions with them, I can think outsideof the box of the current system. The goal
set by the Ministry of Education isnurturing “global-minded humanresources”, but I often feel a lack ofcommunication between Japanese andforeign (or international) teachers, andthis might hinder the globalization of thecampus. Except for English-medium
universities, faculty meetings are held inJapanese, and important decisions forEnglish education in institutions are
made in Japanese by only Japanese
decision makers. If the Japanese faculty
give enough information about these four
JALT CUE SIG

responsibilities to English speaking
teachers, we can collaborate more
efficiently. I would like to research
together, teach together, work together
for institutions and external institutions,and contribute to local communities,
regardless of nationality and differencesin first language to make the most of ourtime and efforts.
Reference
Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science. (2019). Grants-in-Aid for
Scientific Research KAKENHI. Retrieved
from https://www.jsps.go.jp/english/egrants/index.html

Submit an article!
What’s happening in your teaching?
What obstacles have you overcome, andhow?
What ideas or opinions do you have that
others might be interested to read?
What have you read, heard, or seen
recently that’s changed your approach toteaching, either in or out of theclassroom?
CUE Circular aims to publish quality,interesting, practical articles about theday-to-day nature of teaching in our
sector.

w w w .j a l t c u e .o rg /c u e c i rc u l a r

6

CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

Teaching in silence
Daniel Velasco, Rikkyo
University
Daniel Velasco is anassistant professor andmental health therapist.
His research interests areinterculturalcommunication andcounseling support foruniversity students.
dvelasco@thechicagoschool.edu“Why aren’t you wearing a mask?”
I have never actually seen anyone infectedwith the Black Plague, but in typicalhypochondriac fashion, I assumed thatwas what my student had caught. He wascoughing violently and sneezing all overthe place without even the slightest effort
towards covering his mouth to keep atleast some of the contagious particles atbay.
“I don’t have one,” he wheezed.
I frantically looked around the room forsomeone wearing a surgical mask.
Apparently, while I was talking to thisstudent at close range, exposing myself tothe deadly infection, most of the otherstudents took the opportunity to put onmasks for their protection.
“Does anyone have an extra mask?” I
asked. Fifteen students sifted throughtheir bags and simultaneously produced
masks, but it was too late. Over the courseof a month, one by one, students became
infected with the illness and disappeared
from my class until only five remained.
Then one day, I, too, felt the onset of what
JALT CUE SIG

would become one of the worst colds I
have ever had in my life. Initially, it felt
like a regular terrible cold, but then it hit
me with a barrage of fevers, chills, coughs,
aches, and pains that one only reads
about in French tragedies. In the end,
after the fevers and chills subsided, I lost
my voice. Completely.
I had a choice to make: cancel classes orpush forward and hope for the best. Most
teachers would not even hesitate to cancel
their classes when they’ve lost their voice,but I had a planned vacation coming up,
and canceling classes would mean 2-3
weeks of missed lessons, which would nothave been looked upon very positively by
the front office. I decided not to cancel
classes and hope my voice returned intime.
It didn’t. I tried a mom-sworn remedy of
gargling for 5 minutes with tablespoons ofsalt poured into hot water, drank amedley of boiling hot herbal teas, andeven resorted to using some strange black
liquid that the Japanese swear heals mostailments. Unfortunately, nothing brought
my voice back. Shortly thereafter, I foundmyself sitting in my office on a Monday
morning nervously pondering my options.
Silence
The word frightens people for various
reasons and in various situations,
including relationship argument
strategies (the “silent treatment”), eerie
horror films, or pick-up approaches (the“silent gaze”). There’s even a medicallyrecognized fear of silence (sedatephobia),
and a growing concern connected to therise of technology: “Many experts believe
7CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

that technology has also given rise to theconstant need for sounds around humans.
For some people, it is impossible tomeditate or sit in a quiet room for even a
few minutes as they always need theirphone, music, TV, or the noise of trafficaround them” (Olesen, 2018). In the fieldof education, silence has also received abad rap: “Silence…is often problematizedin a classroom situation, with theunderlying implication that classrooms
are for talking – as long as the talking isunder the control of the teacher” (Ollin,
2008, p.278-281).
Lees (2012) has written extensively aboutsilence as a powerful tool in education,
but it might be advantageous to also
reflect on what teachers say about silence.
One educator suggests that pausing
during a lesson can achieve several
things; it can build intensity and suspense
for a culminating statement, diffuse andlessen the anxiety of a situation, show
dominance and communicate power, andindicate that you are listening andmentally digesting a student’s question orcomment (Reddy, 2015). Also, teachers ina study on silence in the classroom usedsilence in a number of ways:
•
•
•
•
•
•

dramatic impact;relaxation, slowing down at the
beginning or end of class;focus, discipline and control;
inner reflection;
creative, intuitive or reflective
space for students; andfreedom from intrusion (fromclassmates, teachers, etc.) (Ollin,2008).

JALT CUE SIG

Coping with Silence
Reflecting on the loss of my voice, I didn’t
consider any of this. All I could think
about was how on earth I was going to getthrough these lessons. With twenty
minutes left until the start of the first
period, I decided to just write out what I
would say onto PowerPoint slides andhope for the best.
I walked into class, powered up the AV
equipment, and waited patiently for the
chimes to ring. Once they had, I clickedon the first slide and pointed to anaturally charismatic and talkative
student. Confused, he robotically read thefirst line: “Good morning. I’ve been very
sick and have completely lost my voice.”
The class collectively gasped, and thenerupted into amused chuckles, after which
the student reader continued reading theslide with a more conversational tone.
What happened next was unexpected andamazing. First, after the initial shock wore
off, the students simply switched into“classroom mode” and listened attentively
to the student speaker while scanning theslides for information and taking notes.
Nobody stared at me, giggled, or lostinterest in the lesson. Even more amazing
was the leadership role taken by thestudent speaker. He would occasionallystop and ask in English, “Is everyone
good?”, or “Does anyone have any
questions?” He even adopted a few of mymannerisms and read some of theprompts as I would have (e.g., clapping
hands together while enthusiasticallysaying, “OK, let’s get into small groups
and talk about these discussion
questions!”). The class ran smoothly,8CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

students were having fun, were engaged
in the topics, and I never uttered a single
word.
Although the students in this firstMonday class had high English
proficiency, my two classes on Tuesday
consisted of low-intermediate students, so
I expected I might be facing a bigger
challenge. Also, I never use PowerPoints
in these two classes, so bringing one intoplay now would seem out of place. It took
a bit more time, but I wrote a few
sentences on the blackboard, similar tothe previous day’s first slide, and thendrew two big buttons on the right-handside: one labelled “Please read” and theother “Please do.” I continued the lessons
by pointing to a student, “pressing” one of
the buttons, and then gesturing to thesection, exercise or discussion question I
had written on the chalkboard. Again, thestudents were amused at first, but settled
into the lesson and worked together to getthrough each activity and discussion. The
most incredible part of these lessons waswhen a few higher-level students began
explaining in more detail certain points
that other students weren’t
understanding. These classes were
definitely a challenge, but it was inspiring
to see leaders emerge and students
working together with very little
assistance or prodding.
By Wednesday morning, my voice was
beginning to return, but I decided to testout some of my “silent treatments,” if you
will, on two more classes. Similar toTuesday, I relied on student readers andguides for these lessons, and, surprisingly,
the classes once again ran smoothly.
JALT CUE SIG

Students were engaged and not distracted
by the absence of my voice. In a way, they
seemed more relaxed than when I was
guiding them through the lessons using
my voice.
Becoming One with SilenceThis experience allowed me to not only
learn about my students, but also more
importantly it offered me the opportunity
to reflect on how much I was actually
speaking in class and how I could
potentially use the class time more
effectively. I reflected on this during theweekend, and asked myself some pretty
difficult questions: I promote studentcentered, active, experiential learning, but
how much room was I allowing for this totake place in my lessons? Was I talking
too much? Were my lessons
overshadowing the natural leadershipabilities of my students? Were my classes
safe spaces for students to engage in open
discussion?
With the recent shift to 100-minuteperiods, the time to re-evaluate daily
lesson structures has come, whether welike it or not. Admittedly, over theprevious couple of years I had grown
comfortable with my lesson formats,mixing things up by throwing in a
textbook DVD video now and then (seemy article on TV commercials and mullet
hair-styles in a previous CUE Circularissue), but I must now reflect on how toeffectively use the additional ten minutes.
My recent experience with the positive
aspects of teacher silence has encouraged
me to search for appropriate uses ofsilence within my lessons. I hope that my9

CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

experience losing my voice via the Black
Plague encourages you to do the same.
References
Lees, H. E. (2012). Silence in schools.
Staffordshire, England: Trentham Books.
Olesen, J. (2018). Fear of silence phobia:
Sedatephobia. Retrieved from https://www.fearof.net/fear-of-silence-phobiasedatephobia/
Ollin, R. (2008). Silent pedagogy andrethinking classroom practice:
Structuring teaching through silence
rather than talk. Cambridge Journal of
Education, 38(2), 265-280.
Reddy, C. (2015). Silence as apedagogical tool part 2. Retrieved from
h
t
t
p
:
/
/
thepragmatictvteacher.blogspot.com/
2015/08/silence-as-pedagogical-toolpart-2.html

CUE Circular
www.jaltcue.org/cuecircular

Autumn colors (and a helicopter!) at
Obihiro University of Agriculture andVeterinary Medicine, in Hokkaido
JALT CUE SIG

10CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

CUE Careers
The hire-archy ofJapanese academic
employment
The CUE SIG stands for College andUniversity Educators special interest
group, and under that overarching term
there are many different types of positions
and titles that are used to describe ourjobs as educators. As with many
professions, the field of education has animplicit hierarchy of jobs with “university
educator” having an elite status. But even
within this category, there is a hierarchyof positions, each with different terms of
employment, responsibilities, and pay
scales. There is no professionalorganization that dictates thenomenclature for titles and levels of
university employment, so any list isbound to be fraught with special cases anddiscrepancies. The following generalized
guidelines are adapted from Miller (2017),
where he advises readers to “think caseby-case” when considering the various
positions and what they mean and entail.
Although there may be unique positions
that are not listed here, the following will
cover most of the posts in Japanese
universities and colleges (both private andpublic).
The first division in university education
is between full-time instructors (jyokin
koushi 常勤講師) and part-time or adjunctinstructors (hijyokin koushi 非常勤講師).
The former teach between 8 and 12 koma
JALT CUE SIG

In this regular column, Michael Parrish andRichard Miller offer insights on theemployment market for college anduniversity language teachers in Japan, as
well as general career guidance, advice, andstrategies.
Contributions from readers with specificareas of expertise, or regarding specificissues or changes in the job market, areencouraged.
Michael Parrish and Richard
Miller are the current cocoordinators of the Job
Information Center at the
JALT National Conference,
and are former editors of the
Career Development column
in The Language Teacher.
email: cuecareers@gmail.com(90-minute class sessions for universities)
per week, are solely employed by one
institution, and are paid an annual salary.
Adjuncts, on the other hand, receive
payment per koma taught and often teachat several institutions concurrently. We
will describe the situation of full-time
employment first, then part-time.
The situation of full-time employment is a
bit complex in terms of the types of
positions, contractual conditions,
responsibilities and expectations, andposition titles. When the first universities
were being set up in Japan, just after the
Meiji Restoration, the government
followed the American system, specificallythe Harvard model, of titles and positions
for faculty: instructor, lecturer, assistantprofessor, associate professor, and full
professor. There was a divergence in theuse of the term “tenure” because in Japan
11

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one who has tenure has a permanent, fulltime position, irrespective of academic
rank. Some may refer to it as “full-time”
though that can be confusing as there are
numerous tokunin or ninkisei instructors
or even part-time, adjunct-faculty
members who work full-time hours of
10-15 koma to make a living here,
generally under a limited-term contract.
The changes in the national labor law in1997 and 2013 ensured that workers
would have the opportunity forpermanent employment after working forfive years consecutively. This has had
mixed results; some universities haveinstituted positions with no term limits(continuous employment until retirementage) while others have doubled down on
increasingly strict enforcement of 5-year
or at most 10-year limits on employment
for full-time as well as part-time
employees (Williams, 2019).
With the growth of English teaching,specialized, limited-term foreign
instructor contracts were promulgated.
Under these contracts, non-Japanese,
specialist language teachers wereencouraged to teach at universities, butthey were given neither the opportunity
for advancement, nor permanent
employment with tenure (Arudou, 2002).
Subsequent increases in hiring of nontenured instructors related to economic,
social, and legal factors led many of theuniversities to adopt a variety of terms todescribe this type of position. As a result,
there are terms of contract and tenurethat would not be easily recognized in the
United States or other Western countries.
The nomenclature for these limited-term
contracts serves mainly to emphasize that
JALT CUE SIG

the positions are not tenure-track(sennin) positions, and even if anequivalent rank (assistant or associate
professor) is affixed to the English
translation, the Japanese title is whatcounts officially. Ninkisei (任期制) andtokunin (特任) are common terms. They
are often translated as “Contract Associate
Professor” or “Project Associate
Professor,” which implies that the level ofexpertise required is more than a lecturer,
but the term is limited to the time frameof a specific “project.” This might besimilar to the position of Visiting
Professor in the system in the UnitedStates, where an instructor or professor ishired for a limited time and is not eligible
for tenure or advancement. So, as thesystem has evolved, it has diverged
somewhat from the original model.
The following list, with the Japanese termin romaji and kanji, along with theEnglish title, includes a brief explanationfor each:
Tokunin koushi (特任講師) is a term used
to describe a contracted position(generally from two to five years). Within
that, the title translated into English is
instructor or lecturer, though at times it
might be assistant or associate professor.
This type of one-year renewable (from 2
to 4 times) goes by many names:
Shokutaku Full-Time Language
Instructor, Instructor of English as a
Foreign Language, Associate Lecturers ofEnglish, Contract Instructor of
Languages. Usually, these positions
require a minimum of a master’s degree
and three publications. The workload is12

CUE CIRCULAR 11/2019

often 8 to 12 koma a week, without many
extra duties.

continue to teach at the university after
retirement.

The ninkisei (任期制) is similar to the
tokunin koshi but usually with theassistant or associate professor title that is
attached to it. This is a contract position,
but the contracts are often longer,
sometimes as long as 10 years. This has
the same requirements as the tokunin
koushi but often requires better
publications and perhaps a Ph.D. These
positions are often granted to instructors
who will teach specific content in English,
rather than just TESOL oriented courses(Williams, 2019). There will likely beother administrative, research, andmanagement duties as well; Japanese
language ability is often required.

A recent development has been thecreation of a hybrid position between
tokunin and sennin, sometimes referred
to as Super Shokutaku or a Special
Instructor, consisting of a year-to-year
contracted position with unlimited
renewals until retirement age. The
instructors are not guaranteed an increasein salary or rank during the terms of thecontract, but the position provides the job
security of tenure, if not the status.

Sennin is a tenured position, in the
traditional academic sense. There is job
security until the mandatory retirement
age of 65 or 70. Such a teacher may start
as a lecturer before moving towards
professorship as his/her level ofexperience and qualifications increase.
Generally, a Ph.D. (or equivalent, i.e.,significant publications and specialized
experience) is required, a solid research
track record is essential (more than theminimum three publications are
required), and a good grasp of Japanese isneeded. In this position, sennin becomefaculty members, are expected toparticipate in various committees, and,theoretically, to have a say in how theuniversity is run and organized. Afterretirement, a few professors are granted
the special status of Professor Emeritus(meiyo kyouju, 名誉教) and allowed to

JALT CUE SIG

Complicating the full-time university
employment category are the newpositions that are becoming more popular
as universities create self-access learning
centers. People in these positions are notconsidered instructors, but rather
language coaches or facilitators. They
have different responsibilities and may
only require a bachelor’s degree.
The other main employment category isthat of part-time or adjunct instructors(hijyoukin koushi, 非常勤講師). They areoften language teachers but are
increasingly playing a greater role inpicking up the course load in many
faculties and disciplines. The part-time
instructor is expected to show up andteach the classes without having any otherduties. Duties outside classroom teachingand preparation are minimal, except forthe occasional orientation or staff
meeting. The term part-time can bemisleading, as there are many instructors
working a full-time schedule at several
institutions. They try to efficiently
maximize the number of classes into theirschedules, and some try to add as many13

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into the same day as possible. As there is a
maximum of seven classes scheduled on
any given day at universities, more than
three classes per day might be possible forsome hijyoukin as they move fromuniversity to university.
In terms of compensation, the salary andbenefits go up from adjunct, to contract,through the various ranks of professor.
Adjunct employees receive their salary perkoma taught. At some institutions, suchas national universities, they are not paid
during non-teaching months. The average
hijyoukin earns less than 3 million yen
per year (Williams, 2019). They may
receive commutation expenses but noother benefits. On the other hand, mostfull-time employees (of any rank) are paid
an annual salary and typically receive
benefits, such as transportation
allowance, living or housing allowance,
health insurance, and they are enrolled ina pension scheme. The amounts that canbe earned vary dramatically as well, withsome tokunin earning as little as 3.6
million a year. Generally speaking,however, it should be possible to make atleast 5 million yen a year fairly quickly
and some full-time professors earn triple
that. In the case of outsourced instructors,some are treated similarly to part-timers
and others are treated as lower-paid fulltime employees.
As the terms and conditions vary somuch, it is important to clarify during theinterview process, pre-hiring, or very
early during the contract what
possibilities for renewal and/or
advancement exist for a particular
position.

JALT CUE SIG

References
Arudou, D. (2002, September). Ninkisei
in Japan's universities: Symptoms,
effects, and legal underpinnings. Paper
presented at Peace as a Global Language
Conference, Itabashi, Tokyo. Retrieved
from http://www.debito.org/
pglconfhandout092702.html
Miller, R. (2017, December 21).
University job titles in Japan mean
wildly different things. Retrieved fromhttps://jobsinjapan.com/blog/living-injapan-guide/university-job-titles-japanmean-wildly-different-things/
Williams, L. (2019). Working at aJapanese university: An attractive option
for international humanities PhDs? [PDF
file]. Tokyo Humanities Insights,1.
Retrievedfromhttps://
www.tokyohumanities.org/insights.html

CUE Circular
Issue #9, November 2019
A publication of the JALT College andUniversity Educators Special Interest GroupISSN 2432-5570
All rights re se rve dw w w .j a l t c u e .o rg /c u e c i rc u l a r

EditorSteve Paton

Assistant Editors

Dion Clingwall
Mark Howarth

Proofreading

Mary Hillis
Ryan Richardson
Glen Hill

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