The Nov. 4 editorial, "Nova burns out," about the rise and fall of the English-teaching company, was very enlightening. Instead of painting a dark and destructive picture of the situation, it illustrated basic facts: Nova had 300,000-plus students who were paying for mostly English lessons, and in Japan contact with foreigners is something people will pay for. I was a Nova instructor, and from my viewpoint the Nova formula to success could succeed with some changes:
• Management must be more open and diplomatic. Too much power and pride was running the show. There need to be some checks and balances within the old system.
• Teachers must be better trained from the start and not just thrown into a teaching situation. Nova never encouraged teachers to increase their qualifications with respect to their English-language teaching ability. They gave qualification allowances for getting extra degrees, but it was minimal. There was no real system of guidance in place if someone wanted to gain a master's degree in TESOL or even an online TEFL certificate. To push teachers to become good teachers, one must really open the entire spectrum of the industry to them. One would think that the largest English school in Japan would have had these systems in place, but they really weren't.
• Giving the consumer cheap English lessons isn't a problem, but you do get what you pay for. If you want to offer premium lessons and charge the equivalent, then everything has to be worth a premium. You don't spend money on a Yugo and expect to get a Lexus.
All of the above said, there were and are teachers who gave and would continue to give all their efforts to helping the students. Unfortunately, past management didn't fully understand this. Hopefully a new management will be more insightful.
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