This post is to share my experience and also to solicit others who may have input on the topic. I’m really happy to have found an expert, credentialed and experienced teacher who understands my learning goals and when/how much to push me, but before this teacher I had a horrid experience that I do not wish on anyone.
You may rightly ask: What’s the point of getting a private teacher?
In my case I have the time, the financial leeway and an upcoming move to Japan which means I want to become functionally fluent (hearing, understanding, producing and speaking Japanese in real time) quite quickly, and given that comes with both grammar, kanji acquisition and lots of speaking and writing practice, I decided a tutor was well worth the money.
My TERRIBLE teacher was positioned by the Japanese language school as “native”–but I found out she had legally changed her name to a Japanese name, had only lived in Japan for a couple of months for seiyuu training, and had no teaching credentials at all. She repeatedly tried to show off how her computer was set entirely to Japanese and would prattle off in Japanese about MMORPG and Anime every chance she could. I don’t hate anime and I play games, but the way she highlighted how she had personally absorbed all her Japanese through anime and how hardly anyone else will be able to do that seemed very cringe. She had no respect for the fact I wanted to learn about daily living for my professional purposes, and that I wasn’t spending my hard-earned money on lessons to chatting the whole hour away about this or that anime.
Anytime I said I was interested in going into more depth about the kanji and sentence structures she would say it would take me years to get there, and avoided my questions. Total rip off and if I was a more spiteful person I would retroactively leave a seething review for the school and teacher. I spent way too much money for 20 hours in which I learned only list after list of names of the week, months, seasons, counters and nothing of substance that helped me speak Japanese at all.
I’m grateful now I am learning from a teacher certified to teach up to N2. He accommodates my tangential questions because it still qualifies as learning and he knows how to navigate what I’ve picked up and what I don’t yet know, and is always structured, prepared, and very insightful about kanji, grammar, customs and more, all very politely. In just 30 lessons hours he has helped me get comfortable with conversing in broken Japanese and writing in it too, keeping a diary and holding full conversations during our lessons.
WHAT THEN SHOULD YOU NOTE WHEN PICKING A PRIVATE TUTOR/TEACHER?
1. Ensure they are certified to teach Japanese
2. Make sure their goals and yours align.
3. Experienced teachers will own most common books and may be happy to use the one you prefer, but they’ll have recommendations on which one may be best.
I meant for this to help others avoid the pitfall I fell into but it appears to have turned into a rant. Sorry… But needed to get that off my chest!!!
3 comments
I would like to add on that people place too much of an emphasis on having a native speaker as their teacher. That’s not to say that can’t be good teachers, but how a native acquires a language and how someone learning it as a second language acquire it are completely different. Obviously a native speaker will have a greater mastery of the language, but it doesn’t mean they’ll teach it the best.
I’m a tutor and I teach Japanese at a local high school too.
1) I’m up front that I’m not a native and there may be better ways of saying/doing things BUT as I’ve spent quite some time studying and tutoring/teaching the language, I generally know how to find good answers.
2) Certification for TUTORING doesn’t exist. Anyone can tutor, but not everyone is a good tutor. Certification for teaching also exists, but it doesn’t guarantee a good teacher either. You can get better (my tutoring has evolved in the past 10+ years, and my teaching is evolving as well) with experience.
You want someone who has experience or is willing to learn and try new things. I tell my private tutoring students I’d stand on my head and yodel if that helps them learn better. In a less silly vein, while I might use Genki, I try to round out what it presents and provide better explanations where it lacks.
3. Yes – be specific about your goals. A good tutor will be able to help you get there and provide the necessary support, or be willing to try. A teacher at school may be held to particular standards or methods a tutor isn’t. An independent tutor can do as they please.
Also be up front about how you learn, learning disabilities and anything else which may impact the session. I have a few students with disabilities that I provide more support for, while other students can usually perform just fine without cheat sheets or color-coding.
4.
No, you should definitely leave an honest review.
The key idea of input-first learning isn’t that anime is magically amazing, it’s that learning works much better when students care about what they’re learning. Also, even if you do have shared interests, talking about them in English is only an effective way to, well, practice English.
> Anytime I said I was interested in going into more depth about the kanji and sentence structures she would say it would take me years to get there, and avoided my questions.
That sounds like a serious lack of skill on her part.
A lot of students assume that if they just logically understand language they’ll be able to use it. This is a mistake: “I’m honestly not sure why, it’s just what people seem to say,” is something that even a good tutor will have to say at times. **But** it’s really not that hard to master the broader strokes of grammar that are found in beginner and intermediate textbooks – especially if someone has a good grasp of how Japanese is actually spoken.
I would expect that effort of someone who is holding themself out as a teacher or tutor. Bare minimum.
Now, personally I feel that “certified to teach up to N2” rings an alarm bell – it’s certainly not “I need to change my name to be taken seriously,” but while the test is overseen by the Japan Foundation, teaching to it isn’t. And the test might not align well with your goals. (JLPT N1 is not “I know enough Japanese to do everything I’ve dreamed of” – another common beginner mistake) So I think you’re in a *much* better situation now, but you should periodically reevaluate and make sure that you’re working towards the things you want to be working towards.