Generally speaking you need a TEFL or CELTA to teach abroad in a "decent" school. Although you can get away with a degree, a lot of countries ie Korea, are trying to stop this.
This is quite a good site to help you:
www.tefl.comYea I've been having a look at that so will probably do some sort of course before going out. Although not sure where I'm gunna find £300 lying about!
Kinboshi, how long do you reckon you need to spend in Japan to be able to speak Japanese fluently assuming you put in the effort to learn it and speak it every day? I assume learning to read and write it takes longer than it does to speak fluent.
Depends on how you define 'fluent'?
I had friends who went to Japan with no Japanese knowledge and after two years out there (they studied whilst they were there as well) they could get by fairly easily in day-to-day situations. Obviously their vocabulary was limited, but that's going to be the same in any language.
I learnt how to read and write Japanese at uni, and so the focus was more on that rather than on the spoken side. I went out to Japan after I'd finished in order to improve my spoken Japanese, as I don't think you can't learn it properly (or as quickly) without being immersed in the country and being exposed to the language all the time.
Lots of people go over to Japan and pick up a level of fluency in spoken Japanese, study some of the written side too, and then come back to the UK and do a masters or other course in the language to get a formal qualification.
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