Jessica Cork

The Japanese consulate general in Atlanta is currently recruiting college graduates to participate in its JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program, a 21-year-old initiative funded by the Japanese government to attract foreign English teachers to paid positions in Japan’s rural or suburban areas. 

The position pays about 3.6 million yen (a little more than $30,000 based on current rates) per year, and the deadline for applications for the term beginning in late July 2008 is Dec. 3.  Applicants need no Japanese language skills to apply, but they should be ready to demonstrate international or cross-cultural experience, said Jessica Cork, the consulate’s adviser for cultural and educational affairs. 

With 40,000 alumni having already passed through the program since 1987, the JET Program has become one of the largest exchange programs in the world, drawing more than 1,000 teachers annually from 40 countries worldwide, Ms. Cork said.

A Japanese major in college and a JET alumnus, Ms. Cork said the program not only gives teachers an opportunity to impact the lives of young students, but it also provides a immersive environment highly conducive to learning Japanese language and culture.  

“(JET) emphasizes not only the teaching aspect but the learning aspect as well. We’re hoping they’re going to learn just as much about Japan as they teach about their country,” she told GlobalAtlanta.

After three years in the JET Program, Ms. Cork is fluent in Japanese.  She recently made a return visit to the small town of 4,000 where she taught, and the mayor and city council threw a party in her honor.

Millie Linville, a Georgia Institute of Technology graduate who participated in the program for two years starting in 2001, now works as a substance abuse prevention specialist in Gwinnett County and heads the JET Alumni Association for the Southeast. 

Anxious to promote a program that drastically shaped her character, she helps the consulate recruit applicants at colleges around the region.

She will travel next to Western Carolina University to make a presentation about the program after having met the school’s head of Japanese studies at the annual JapanFest weekend in Gwinnett, an event sponsored by numerous Japanese organizations and companies around Atlanta. 

Ms. Linville is half Japanese and was conversational in Japanese before she went abroad, so the language and the food weren’t the biggest adjustments in her experiences teaching in Ogawa town, about 25 miles and a two-hour train ride from Tokyo. 

“The food was everything I’d always eaten,” she told GlobalAtlanta, adding that she was excited to have foods from her heritage as near as the local grocery store. 

She said that the newfound independence and novelty of being thrust into another country without a safety net was key in helping her mature during those crucial post-college years.

“On a personal level, I think I did a lot of growing up.  I think back to how I behaved on the JET Program, now I’m more aware of my attitude and how I want to behave,” Ms. Linville said.

She also developed an understanding of how to deal with other cultures and not give in to widely circulated stereotypes and said that Georgians participating in the program could help boost the international image of the state and the nation.

“The more great people we have going to Japan from our area, the better Japanese people will think of the United States,” she said.

The alumni association has about 150 members in Georgia, and consulates around the country are required to recruit teachers for the government-funded program.

For more information about the program and how to apply, contact Ms. Cork at the consulate.