Nova (eikaiwa)

The Nova Group is the largest of the Big Four eikaiwas (or private English teaching companies) in Japan, with approximately 50% of total market share. In 2004, Nova totaled about 70.6 billion yen in sales, and as of March, 2004, there were 618 Nova branches and the Multimedia Center located in Osaka, Japan. In addition to providing English language education, Nova provides Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian, and German language education, telecommunications, and travel agency services. Nova typically places its branches near train stations, and uses the term ekimae ryūgaku ("foreign studies near the train station": 駅前留学) as well as promotion of its flagship fiber optic real time interactive multimedia network ochanoma ryūgaku ("study abroad from the living room" お茶の�"留学) to describe its programmes.

Nova was founded in August 1981 and first publicly traded on November 1996. Nova corporate headquarters is in Osaka, and the company is led by Nozomu Saruhashi. It has a student base of about 450,000 with several thousand foreign instructors (who comprise 70% of the total company employment). There are 35,000 former instructors spread out across the world at present. Typical monthly pay for a new instructor ranges from ¥220,000-¥290,000 before taxes, rent and utilities, according to their website. Actual salaries are about ¥180,000 for part time, and ¥220,000 for the most common 34 hour per week shift, and ¥250,000 for Americans who by virtue of their visa must work 40 hours per week. Nova provided accommodation is usually about ¥55,000 per month including up to ¥8,000 in utilities.

In addition to its prominent blue and white logo, which includes a flower, Nova has a pink usagi (rabbit) for its mascot that appears not just on television and other advertisements, but also on candies, school supplies, keitai (mobile phone) and other products offered for sale; the latter has become one of the most recognizable symbols in a country dominated by kawaii (cute) culture. More recently, NOVA marketing has featured wooden stick-figure mascots "kikuchan" (listener) and "shaberu" (speaker) in its ad campaigns.

Lessons at Nova

Level System

Students at Nova are assigned a level based on their abilities in conversational English (or whichever language it is that they are studying). When a new student joins Nova, they are given a level test by an "instructor," which typically takes 20 minutes, and their level is decided based on their performance. A student is able to "level up" after a minimum of 10 lessons, and only if they are given a recommendation by two instructors. At this point they are given a chance to take the same level test again, and if successful they move up one level.

The levels in order from lowest to highest at Nova are 7C, 7B, 7A, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. According to the level criteria of Nova, 7C means that the student either demonstrates no knowledge of the spoken language, or very little. Level 1 is the equivalent of "an educated, articulate native speaker," and therefore typically Level 2 is the highest a student at Nova can reach. The average beginner at Nova starts in level 7B in English, since Japanese people are required to study English for a total of 6 years in their junior high and high schools, and typically have some understanding of the grammar and vocabulary. This is not true, however, of the other languages that Nova offers, of which the students typically have no prior knowledge.

Typical Lessons

After being given a level, the Nova student can then take lessons. In most cases, they take lessons only with other students of the same level, although a "challenge" lesson - in which a student takes part in a lesson one level above their current level - is available. One lesson is 40 minutes long, and depending on how many students made an appointment for a given time slot, there are anywhere between 1 and 4 students (3 students is the maximum in the teleconferencing lessons). Students also have the option of requesting "Man to Man" lessons, but in order to do this they are required to pay 4 times as much as they would for a normal lesson, because they are paying to reserve every possible space in the class.

A single nova lesson costs around ¥2,000 but may vary with location.

Voice

Nova also offers what it calls "Voice lessons," although the availability of these lessons depends on the branch. The "Voice Room" is much larger than the average classroom in Nova, and (in theory) there is no limit on how many students can enter and take part in the lesson. Again, the lesson is 40 minutes long. In the "Voice Room" an instructor leads a guided discussion among Nova students. The purpose of the Voice room is for instructors to participate as little as possible, and to permit the students to practice their language skills in an unstructured environment.

Other Lesson Types

Nova also has special programs for children, business English, and test preparation (TOEFL, TOEIC). Typically, all these lessons are also 40 minutes long, although in some cases extended 80 minute lessons are offered in the case of business.

Textbooks

In late 2004, NOVA finally began phasing out its notoriously dated QUEST textbooks, a version of Bernard Hartley and Peter Viney's American Streamline series. First published in 1983 (and apparently written a few years earlier) as grammar textbooks for Spanish-speaking ESL students, the lessons were full of references to disco, East Germany and O.J. Simpson's football career. As NOVA attempts to focus on conversational English, the old textbooks were frequently at odds with the school's objectives.

NOVA currently uses a textbook produced in house called "Diplomat" which is designed to be more useful in everyday conversation situations. There are different Diplomat versions for all levels of students which include audio CDs and workbooks.

Teacher training

Nova teachers are not required to have traditional educational training, although certified teachers or teachers with TEFL training are prefered during the hiring process. NOVA does provide a small salary bonus for teachers with an accredited TEFL certificate or a degree in education. Teachers can be admitted straight from university graduation with any degree that allows them to obtain a work visa .In terms of mandatory educational training, Nova teachers receive one day of orientation and three days of training upon arrival in Japan, prior to beginning work at their branch school. Usually this training is done at school with a titled instructor (in Nova terminology, any foreign personnel who have been promoted above the starting position of 'instructor'), who conducts the training and observes the new teachers as they teach lessons. This is later supplemented with follow-up seminars and regular observations throughout the instructor's career. If the teacher will be teaching a specialized course such as Eiken, TEFL, TEOSOL, or the NOVA Kids program they also receive additional training sessions.

Controversy

Drug testing

In 1994, a Nova instructor was arrested on drug charges, which led the company to ask all of its instructors to sign an agreement to have a mandatory drug test. A group of instructors asked the Osaka Bar Association to look into the policy, who concluded that the policy violated instructors' human rights, and also was discriminatory as it applied only to "foreign"　staff.

Anti-fraternization policy

Nova instructors' contracts forbid them from any interaction with any students for any reason outside of the workplace (although students aren't told of this rule). The company stated that the reason for this was that female students used to complain about foreign instructors asking them for their telephone numbers or to go out with them, and instructors' refused to stop doing this as they said the company had no right to interfere with their private lives. The company said it was also to prevent trouble arising from misunderstandings due to students' lack of language ability and the cultural differences of Japanese and non-Japanese people [1] (see 1.2).

On December 11, 2005, an Australian who had been teaching in an Osaka Nova branch reached an out-of-court settlement of ¥400,000 after claiming that Nova's Anti-Fraternisation Policy had interfered with his life. The teacher had been demoted when the Company found out he had a relationship with a student.

The Osaka Bar Association recommended that the company drop the non-socialization clause from the contract, saying that it restricted instructors' freedom of association, was problematical from the point of view of equality as it only applies to "foreign" instructors and not Japanese staff, and the wording of the clause was too vague to be used for regulations [2].

Shakai Hoken (Public Health Insurance)

In addition to the anti-fraternization issue, The Nova Union has raised concerns about Nova's alleged over-charging on (optional) employee housing, unfair dismissal due to unionizing activity, and Nova's non-payment of Shakai Hoken, Japan's pension and insurance programs. Due to union pressure, in March 2005, the Japanese Government's Social Insurance Agency began to investigate Nova (and other Eikaiwa) non-payment of Shakai Hoken. Nova argued that teachers should not need to pay into a pension due to their short stay Japan (96% stay in Japan for less than three years) and that it enrolled teachers in its own private insurance system, even though the law that states they must give their employees the option of enrolling in the Shakai Hoken system before enrolling them in their own private system. In response Nova instituted new teacher working hours, where regular teachers would work just under 30 hours a week, while their bosses would work on 40-hour a week contracts, thereby making teachers ineligible for shakai hoken under the 75 percent work time rule (companies must enroll all employees working 75 percent of the hours of a full-timer). An editorial in Metropolis argued that the Union's militancy would actually harm the majority of teachers and impact the wider community of foreigners working in Japan.

See also

* JET Programme
* Eikaiwa
* Gogaku

External links

* Official website (in Japanese)
* Official Company Profile website (in English)
* Union movement website (in English)
* One teacher's experience.
* Another teacher's experience.
* Nova's English-language site for prospective employees
* NOVA reaches settlement with former teacher over fraternizing with student
* English schools face huge insurance probe
* Union crusade bad for foreign employees (republished from Metropolis magazine)