Building a bilingual network so teachers, schools, and learners in Japan don’t have to work in isolation anymore.
The Problem I Kept Seeing
I’ve been working in English education in Japan long enough to notice a strange pattern: there are incredible teachers, small schools, and creative materials everywhere — but most of them are invisible to each other.
I’d meet an Eikaiwa owner doing thoughtful, community-based teaching, or a university teacher running ambitious project-based classes, or a creator building a clever app for learners. Each time I thought: “More people should know about this.” And then… nothing. Their work stayed local, fragile, and hard to discover.
A brilliant worksheet might live and die in one classroom. A small school with a great philosophy might be loved by families nearby but completely unknown a few stations away. Someone launches a unique bilingual resource, and only their own students ever see it.
There was no real hub. No home base where all this good work could be seen, shared, and strengthened.
Why a Hub Matters
When everything stays siloed, everyone loses a little:
- Teachers reinvent the wheel instead of building on each other’s ideas.
- School owners struggle to stand out, even when they’re doing quality work.
- Learners & parents have a hard time finding options that actually match their needs and values.
Japan doesn’t just need “more content” or “more apps.” It needs a trusted, bilingual place where good people and good work can actually find each other.
What PPEN Aims To Do
Pera Pera Educators Network (PPEN) is my attempt to build that missing piece — not as a giant corporation, but as a human-scale network that grows around trust, clarity, and shared purpose.
In practical terms, PPEN aims to:
- Make educators and schools more visible through bilingual profiles, features, and links that help the right learners discover them.
- Highlight thoughtful materials and tools so teachers don’t have to dig for hours to find something that actually fits their context.
- Create a space for honest, on-the-ground stories from classrooms and schools across Japan — not just theory, but what’s really working (and not working).
- Encourage collaboration instead of competition by showing that when one good school or teacher does well, the whole ecosystem benefits.
How I Hope Teachers Will Use PPEN
I don’t see PPEN as “my project” in the long term. I see it as infrastructure: something that should become more valuable as more people add their voice to it.
My hope is that you’ll eventually use PPEN to:
- Share your own school, lessons, apps, or publications with people actively looking for them.
- Discover other teachers and schools whose philosophy resonates with yours.
- Swap ideas, failures, and small wins so we all move a little faster together.
- Point learners and parents to a curated hub instead of sending them into an endless search loop.
A Personal Note
I’m building PPEN because I’m tired of seeing great work stay hidden. I’ve seen too many thoughtful teachers burn out in isolation, and too many small schools doing meaningful things with almost no support.
If a network like this had existed when I started, it would have saved me years of trial and error. So I’m building the thing I wish I’d had — and I hope it makes your work feel a little less lonely and a little more seen.
Want to Be Part of the Network?
Whether you’re a teacher, school owner, or creator, PPEN is built for people like you. If you’d like to be featured, share your materials, or just stay in the loop as things grow, I’d love to hear from you. Learn More & Join PPEN
Written by the founder of Pera Pera Educators Network (PPEN). If you’d like to share your own story as a teacher or school owner in Japan, get in touch via the Teachers Hub.