[hyfe]

I've got a friend who worked there as a langauge teacher.. Canadian guy, really cool guy.

Firstly; if you get a position out of the major cities, people are *really*, *really* ridicilously friendly. You won't have any trouble with anything ever (atleast as far as food, getting sick, getting housing etc goes).

Secondly; the students drove him crazy. "Never ask for help", "Never admit you don't know","Never ask to explain more clearly" etc. Everything had to be dragged out of them.

Thirdly; they use their wacked up system for spelling english with japanese characters, so the english they wasn't intelligeble *ever*. If you're not explisitly hired for teaching real english, you problably have to learn their english in order to communicate with them; he did.

In short , don't expect to be able to communicate *at all* with Japanse english teachers at normal'ish schools.