Classroom Confidential

From Japan Today, a pretty standard interview with the president and CEO of an English school, but this bit caught my eye:

Do shady operators in the English school business tar everyone with the same brush?

As a postscript to Sahashi's trial, I noticed this short blurb in the news:

「うさぎ」ＣＭも再開　「ＮＯＶＡ」再拡大目指す

ワンマン社長と呼ばれた猿橋望被告（５７）の手で国内最大手に成長したＮＯＶＡの経営破綻（はたん）から１年半。行き場を失った受講生の救済や外国人講師の雇用など、課題山積の事業を引き継いだジー・コミュニケーション（名古屋市）は、約半年で黒字化を達成。今年３月には、かつて人気を集めたマスコット「ＮＯＶＡうさぎ」のテレビＣＭも再開した。

経営破綻後には、サウナや茶室付きの「豪華すぎる」社長室が公開され、企業のイメージは大きく傷ついた。社長室の机に飾られていた「ＮＯＶＡうさぎ」のぬいぐるみが繰り返し報じられたこともあり、ＣＭは長く封印された。

The blog Tofugu has an interview with a current neo-NOVA employee. There's not a lot you haven't heard before, but it's still worth a read for its summary of the aftermath of NOVA's collapse and the perspective on what it's like working for NOVA now.

If you're thinking about working in Japan, the word on NOVA is simple: Don't bother working for them.

G.communication has limped along since it scraped up the remains of NOVA in 2007 and tried to put it back together. Sales have not been good and complaints have been piling up, so management apparently decided to write a memo about it. Mr. X in the forums provides a copy of the .

A propos my comment on now being a bad time to come to Japan, an example of how the economic meltdown affects English teachers:

In light of the comments rumours here about GEOS's troubles or impending doom, I'll start a thread here to entertain those concerns. If you want to talk GEOS, do it in comments here. I have no idea whether the claims about GEOS teachers not getting paid are true or not. Judging by the lack of information and outrage in other forums around the internet, I assume that it's nothing more than a rumour.

It's a slow news day at ELT News:

Language school owner condemns websites that allow anonymous posting

March 01, 2009

RandyDickson in the forums has about G.communication:

BEFORE:

Not that you need more reminders about the fall of Nova and the chaos over the past year, but Jordan Pearson offers an excellent account of the collapse.

It would have sucked to be Jason Cornish:

The Chunichi Shimbun writes about how Nagoya and Gifu Prefecture are favoring ALTs from private dispatch companies over the goverment-funded JET Programme when it comes to teaching English.