I 100% agree with this comment. AHP is still a real hell for language teachers, three years after the message I am replying was written. The president of this school has a scary psychotic profile and a low rate of emotional intelligence. She is an old woman whose name I omit despite it can be found in the official website of this school, which it has not been updated in two years: for example the four teachers who are in the website are not currently working for AHP, because they probably ran away from there, same as me.

Fortunately, I just needed two working days to discover that the lady who runs the school is the problem in that school and she only pretends to trick the teacher.

I was contracted as a teacher of Spanish (I am a Spanish native speaker), French and English. For me it was incredible that she wanted me to teach English and French, because in Japan native speakers are always preferred, but that's because her attitude does not let her find right teachers. She even wanted me to teach Italian just because it's so close to Spanish, despite I never learned Italian.

In the original contract, she wrote she would pay me 12,000 yen per worked day and she offered me an appartment. The appartment is another trick: AVOID IT! She is just interested on you not as a teacher, but as a guest who rents her house. She offers a few lessons to you but the first day she asks you to pay 120,000 yen (60,000 yen for the monthly rent plus a 60,000 yen deposit). She is not interested in your profile as a teacher, because she never asks you for your diplomas or certificates to prove you are a real teacher: I showed my MA, master in Spanish language teaching and my employment letters to prove my experience and professional background but she did not show a big interest, because for her "papers are not important, the only important thing is to trust each other, this is the normal way in Japan". She acted according to her beliefs and she refused to give me a copy of my contracts (working and leasing) but she warned me that both were linked, so if I decided to quit her appartment and move, I should quit the school too!

The contract she prepared for me was for three years but she was not interested on my visa situation. I just told her I had a spouse visa but she didn't ask me for my passport to check if what I was telling her was true.

I insisted to have a copy of my contract so yesterday she finally did it, although she was very ungry and nervous because she "you don't trust in me", she said. Surprisingly she had added some notes with ballpen to the original contract after I had signed it. For example, she added that a working day means 8 hours, so any work of less than 8 hours means that the teacher is paid per hours. So that's a trick: you can spend the whole day with her, being her emotional handkerchief, but if you just had one hour lesson, she just pays you 1,500 yen!

She still insisted that trust is first, but I replied that I can't trust on somebody who add notes to a contract after it has been signed by both parts, so I kindly ask her to break the contract and return my 120,000 yen for the rent. She cried and repeated again her naif philosophy of confidence, but finally accepted and gave my money back, while she destroyed the contract.

I must say that it has been the worst working experience in my life and of course this is a very rare exception in Japan, a country where contracts are clear and confidence is important, of course, but it must be always accompanied by the proper documents.

So you are warned. If you intend to work for AHP and her emotionally unstable president, think about it twice!