Nova
The Nova chain of English schools has been in the news recently. It seems that customer complaints have been reaching high levels and this has attracted the attention of regulatory bodies who have responded by stopping Nova from recruiting new students for a six-month time period. During this time, Nova is expected to improve its business conduct.
Over the last few years, I have met a fair number of foreigners working as English teachers in Nova schools. Very, very few have had anything good to say about their employer and most are quick to start looking for new positions. So, it’s not only the students who are unhappy with the way Nova does business. The teachers mostly feel they are treated as if they are robots, and not human beings. Students also seem to feel dissatisfied with the impersonal nature of the company’s organization and procedures.
I think the English teaching business in Japan is hugely over-blown - this is in part, no doubt, due to Japanese people having been made aware that their English competency is considered one of the lowest in the world. I don’t really see how making people feel so inadequate about their abilities is going to help them improve their skills. Anyway, the huge demand for English teaching has enabled companies like Nova to grow dramatically and make huge profits. But, is this actually contributing to an improvement in the overall English ability of the population? I don’t really think so.
The fact of the matter is that most students (and not only at the big chain schools like Nova) do not really make much effort to work at their English. Perhaps there is a tendency in Japan to believe that since one has a ’sensei’, and attends lessons every week, that one is doing enough to gradually transform oneself into a competent English speaker. Very few students actually study in their own time. Why do so many Japanese people waste their time and money in this way - only to go abroad and find that they are far from being able to understand or communicate with foreigners?
Schools like Nova are happy to allow students to labour under such illusions - preferring to spend vast sums of money on TV advertizing campaigns with catchy slogans that ring all the right bells. And, it seems, that this is enough for the majority of Japanese consumers. One might say that students get the school they deserve.
I’m not against people just enjoying attending English lessons without really trying to improve - it’s their money and their time and they may enjoy various social aspects of joining a school. Just as long as they don’t expect a teacher to wave a magic wand and turn them into wonderful English-speaking socialites. (By the way, I have been surprised recently how so many normally-polite Japanese people forget all their manners when they are talking with their English teacher. This week I used a slightly difficult word with an adult student and she said 「vague」って何だ！？As if it was bad of me to dare to use a word she did not know.
I get the feeling that schools need good students, just as much as students need good schools - forget about all the dross (though winning their custom is the way to get rich) and focus on attracting good students and then you will have a truly good school. Unfortunately, it seems like the Nova chain has long since sold out and set its targets on pure profit at the cost of its reputation.
Enoshima wrote:
実際に通っている者として感じるのは、ネット上で言われていることと、現実との隔たりです。私はまとめて３０、４０万円を払うのには抵抗があったので、レッスンはとりませんでしたが、１ヶ月当たりにすれば１万円ぐらいなので、習い事として法外な金額とも思いません。（もっともこの一括払いに問題があるんですけどね）少なくとも私がVoiceでお会いした方たちは熱心だし、先生たちもライセンスは持っていないにしても一生懸命教えてくださいます。ほとんどの先生が１年以上働いているし、この仕事はそう悪くないよと言っています。問題はワンマン経営にあると思います。ヤオハン、そごうを連想します。経営トップが変わってやり方をかえればいい学校になると思うんだけどな。
それにしても、事業成績の悪化をマネージャーのせいにして怒っている図はいただけないですね。そういえば、社会保険庁の元長官も今回の問題を現場のせいにしてたっけ。
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 9:28 pm | Permalink
ben wrote:
Thank you for presenting another view on the story, Enoshima-san. I’ve only ever heard negative comments about Nova from teachers who work there. I am glad to hear that there is a positive side as well.
Maybe I was a little too quick to take a critical position.
Posted on 15-Jun-07 at 8:20 am | Permalink
子供（こども）英会話教室の実録 wrote:
こども英会話教室の比較…
こども英会話教室の比較を行いたいと思いますが、ここで問題になってくるのがなにを持って比較をするかです。人によって重きを置く所が当然違うので、それによって最善のこども英会…
Posted on 15-Jun-07 at 3:32 pm | Permalink
Enoshima wrote:
Ben san, what were the people complaining about? The company or the students? If they’re complaing about the students, those students would be everywhere(anywhere? all over?). If they said the company should spend the money to make lessons better and make theachers and students more comfortable, I quite agree with them.
By the way, your opininon is very interesting. Especially, I completely agree with you on your fourth paragraph.
Posted on 16-Jun-07 at 3:07 pm | Permalink
ben wrote:
The teachers I spoke to complained that they were not treated well enough - reading between the lines I drew the conclusion that relations between management and teachers were not very respectful. I think it went both ways.
I think the tone of my post was a little negative, in many respects, and I am sure that Nova teachers mostly do a good job. It certainly sounds like the Voice concept is an excellent idea and obviously very useful for enthusiastic students like Enoshima-san!
Maybe I was a little influenced by the hardcore Nova bashing that has been going on in the media this week. Having been working in a single-teacher school for so long it is sometimes hard for me to realize that there are thousands of other people out there doing their best to teach English, too.
Posted on 16-Jun-07 at 6:47 pm | Permalink
bamboo4 wrote:
Ads are abundant saying that, all of a sudden you can hear and understand what foreigners are saying or that you find yourself suddenly speaking English after you invest so many yen in to this or that program. There are enough enticement for young people to pay money to become an overnight linguist without really trying.
I don’t really think that those who teach on that basis and those who study (two hours a week perhaps) on that basis believe in such ballyhoo, but both teachers and students keep going on that illusion (one is motivated by pay and the other is motivated, perhaps, by that illusion). Thus, there is noone to tell them that it’s all illusory and that there is no camino real to becoming a linguist.
I think it is not teachers or students of Nova, but it is the management of Nova which took the advantage of such illusion to make money. Both teachers and students were victimized in that process.
It is indeed a sad thing, but the fault partly lies with those who want to study English. They want an easy way to get there and there simply ain’t no such thing.
Posted on 16-Jun-07 at 10:26 pm | Permalink
Enoshima wrote:
All the students, the teachers, and the ex-teahcers of Nova whom I’ve met so far said Voice was a very good system.
I know the Voice system isn’t profidable for the company but they’re trying to keep it.
I think the president’s idea and vision which he thought at first was good except for wasting a lot of money for advertisements, but when the company was getting succeesful and bigger, his overconfidence and ambition led this company into a hard situation.
Anyway, Im enjoying going to Nova, so I hope this company survives and changes to a better company.
Posted on 17-Jun-07 at 9:07 am | Permalink
InKawasaki wrote:
My roommate and I are both Nova teachers and we have just read your article. We both think its incredibly true that Nova treats its teachers badly and make very little effort to keep them, even if you’ve worked there for several years. For example, a teacher I work with was recently denied over 10,000 yen in travel money compensation, which is promised to us, because he didn’t reply in what the contract says is a “timely and correct manner”. What exactly is that supposed to mean anyway? Furthermore, neither the staff nor other teachers are able to adequately explain what this means. I have recently found out that my branch is closing, which I was told by my students rather than my boss. When I asked my boss, he was shocked to learn that we are actually closing - he had no idea, no one from the Japanese side of the company had told him. If Nova wants to continue existing, there should be better communication on both sides of the company, and also I do realize that we rip the students off with some of the more ridiculous loopholes - the same loopholes that we as teachers face. Instead of trying to keep us through respect, they try to keep us through traps. I just wish I knew where else to go, and my roommate does too.
Posted on 17-Jun-07 at 7:56 pm | Permalink