Hi hi,
I'm thinking about 6-12 months at a language school. Mostly for the experience of living in Japan and to scratch a "wish I'd done it when I was younger" itch that won't go away. So went to the interweb to research and wow, the Go! Go! website looks amazing! So many cool looking schools to choose from! I'll have to save hard, but it's doable! Woohoo! Let's goooo….
Whoa, slow down there, cowboy. Something doesn't smell right.
So I did my due diligence and a deep dive background check of the schools on my shortlist, and… my gods, the negative reviews! Are the schools on the Go! Go! website really that bad?! Some 1-star reviews make it sound like I'd be studying in a broken, flooded toilet cubicle with 50 Chinese students and I might not make it out alive.
Are they accurate? Trash talk from rival schools? Reviewed by ex-students with a grudge and terrible personalities? What's the real story?
Like I said, I'm realistic. Only looking at a language school for the visa to live in Japan for 6-12 months, and experience Japanese culture in my own time. I'll make an effort in class, of course. But if these negative reviews are accurate… I think I'll just book a holiday instead. I'd rather have the best 90 days of my life, than 360 days of misery. And for the tuition costs, I could do 90 days easily.
Thanks in advance.
by WushuCat
2 comments
It’s worth remembering a few things here:
1. Internet Review Syndrome. People generally don’t leave reviews if they had an ok experience. Hell, people generally don’t leave positive reviews unless their experience was mindblowing and life changing. But negative reviews? Oooh boy. People will leave a negative review if even the slightest thing didn’t meet their expectations. Which leads us to…
2. Expectations. A lot of people have incorrect and misplaced expectations about language schools. They assume that by attending the school they’ll magically absorb the language. When they learn that they actually need to *work* for it their idea of an idyllic stay in Japan and coming out with N2 is shattered. Or they think that their language school stay is going to be a holiday. They’re not there for the language, they’re there for the culture. (Ahem. Not saying you’re one of these folks, but…) Again those expectations tend to run into the hard wall of attendance requirements, homework, and effort, which leads to bad reviews.
“ I’d be studying in a broken, flooded toilet cubicle with 50 Chinese students”
If you go to any of the cheap/unknown schools other than the big 5/6 (the main ones, JACS, Akamonkai, ISI, etc) you’re gonna be stuck with students who are there not to learn the language but to provide themselves with an easy pathway to some kind of shitty job and a visa. I won’t call out which regions these students are from.
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