Job Discussion Forums

[ghost]

Can any of you folks recommend a school in Japan where a foreigner can study the language, and possibly have the possibility of teaching at the same time.

One was told that it might be possible to study and teach at the same time? This was not the case in Taiwan....but in Taiwan, many Mandarin language students taught in the evenings after their classes ended.

Ghost also studied Mandarin in Taiwan at a University every day from 10am -1pm, and then worked in the afternoons and evenings teaching...it was largely doable.

What about Japan, would studying Japanese and teaching at the same time be possible?

In Taiwan it was not legal to study and teach at the same time, but most students of Mandarin still did it.....to make ends meet.. the risks were minimal

thanks for any info.

ghost

[Venti]

[Glenski]

Venti wrote:

[markle]

Most decent Japanese courses are expensive enough to negate what you might be able to make part time

[fat_chris]

Would paying a grad student or another private tutor be common and/or feasible in Japan?

[wintersweet]

I kind of want to do this too, but I haven't found a feasible way to combine formal institutional study of Japanese with teaching full time.

yamasa.org says you can about break even on their tuition by teaching part-time (with the visa exception or whatever as mentioned above). I need to do better than break even, though.

If you look for a private teacher, do make sure s/he has training and experience.

[6810]

There is always the informal route.

Figure out the good texts, put yourself in a Japanese language environment and arm yourself with enough motivation to keep ploughing through - regardless of isolation, culture shock or loneliness. You'll get there, but only through hard work.

[Glenski]

[drlubanski]

[Venti]

[6810]

Self study is good. Only if you have the commitment and the motivation. My partner is Japanese and the whole reason I uprooted myself and came to Japan was so that I could learn Japanese, to communicate with her more directly.

As a PhD candidate, I am also flat out reading all the time. This has translated to my Japanese learning experience as well. I used to get so frustrated going into a book store and not being able to read anything (big bookstores in big cities with English Language selections excluded - natch).

Since I restarted my PhD and revitalised my Kanji/reading study my reading ability has skyrocketed. Mostly through a commitment to studying EVERY day, sometimes for only 30 minutes, but if you get the review to new material ratio right 30 mins can be ample. It's all about how you use the time.

Once upon a time I used the Jpnese for Busy People series. It was a good start but lacked some finer explanations on grammar etc. I finished the course but ended up with some significant gaps... Since then, I've been a staunch supporter of the Asukul Series (アスクル). They print a range of texts covering

reading ability
vocabulary
kanji recognition
grammar

for 2Q and 1Q. Each "lesson" can generally be done in around 40 minutes and I find these texts absolutely brilliant.

In addition, methodologically working through the Bojinsha Kanji tests (Basic 500 and Intermediate 1000 plus) have helped me immeasurably in my quest to read Japanese.

The Intermediate books are pedagogically brilliant, they take self learning to the next level by getting you to construct your own "homework" by (for example) reading newspapers (before you actually "can") looking for nouns, adjectives and verbs and then figuring out if and what their antonyms are...

They are plain as paper, but brilliantly designed and relatively up to date.

But if your main aim for the time being is speaking... then you could skip them for the time being.

That said, in my opinion, people focus too much on speaking at the expense of reading. This in particular frustrates me, since I am in a context where I meet immigrants who've lived in Japan for 14 or more years, speak excellent Japanese, but can't read or write. Where the local Brazilian community don't send their kids to school so the kids end up speaking a Creole of Japanese/Portugese (not that I have anything wrong with creole, and after all, creoles are frequently a powerful form of environmental/social adaptation) and can read/write neither language...

[bornslippy1981]

Ghost,

When Bornslippy was working at Nova, he had a co-worker who was on a student visa and going to a Japanese school in Shinjuku. Originally bornslippy's co-worker was on a working holiday visa, but switched when it expired.

Bornslippy's co-worker was able to attend classes from 9-12, and then come for his part-time work at Nova.

Bornslippy's trainer was also very accommodating with the guy's schedule because he's also a musician who travels around Japan a lot with his band. Many times the guy would work days with 10 lessons to cancel out a 5 lesson day. However, Ghost shouldn't expect all trainers to be like this.

Bornslippy doesn't have the guy's number, otherwise he would find out what school he was attending. The co-worker did say the school was very good and recommended it for anybody wanting to learn a lot of Japanese in a structured environment.


*edited because I noticed a spelling mistake, and didn't want Canuck to get angry*

[ghost]

[Miyazaki]

Has anyone here ever used the "Wasabi Brothers" Mangajin series to try and learn authentic Japanese?

If so, did you find it useful for learning every-day, street-level spoken Japanese, idioms and so on?

Here's the Link: http://www.mangajin.com/

[canuck]