Leveraging your language teaching experience in Japan for a global market

Randal Potter

Randall Potter, as a representative of Aperian Global in Tokyo, talked with us about how we can use ("leverage") our teaching experiences for a wide range of potential employment opportunities. He began with an open discussion about the kinds of skills we have gained as language teachers. For example: management of groups of people and time, communication between speakers of different languages, cross-cultural competency, planning and public speaking were all mentioned as skills we have gained. He guided us to see how these kinds of skills can be used in a wide variety of professions, such as: recruitment, training, project management, sales, government work, NPO work, public relations, consulting, etc.. Randall's main message was that we should not belittle ourselves because our main working experience has been in teaching, but see that as a door to many other opportunities. With the current economic situation in the world being quite precarious, some of us will need to look at new possibilities for work in the future. The meeting was very upbeat and thought-provoking.