Private Japanese lessons with qualified teacher

Konnichiwa! I am Mina, a qualified Japanese teacher who has taught for more than 10 years.

I first taught Japanese at Naganuma School in Tokyo for 8 years. Naganuma School is the oldest Japanese language school in Japan and was established in 1948. At Naganuma School I taught all levels from beginner to advanced. I also designed intensive summer course curriculums and managed classes and lessons designed for Daiwa scholarship students from the UK as well as for the Vulcanus Program(students from Europe). While I was teaching there, I also taught Japanese part-time at Surugadai University for about 2 years. I also taught Japanese privately to people working at various companies, for example, the Italian Embassy, TOD's, and Samsung for about eight years. Since moving to the UK in 2017, I have also been teaching Japanese to children and students who are studying GCSE Japanese.

I studied Linguistics and have a certification from Tokyo Woman’s Christian University to teach Japanese as a second language. I also have a MA in Applied Linguistics at the University of Essex.

Here are three things I focus on for all my lessons:

1. It’s Fun!
Firstly, I make sure my lessons are enjoyable for the student designing my lessons around what my student might find interesting as much as possible. For example, if students are into Pokemon, I use Pokemon as a theme to teach colours, body parts, countable, to frame my questions to students etc. If students like football I might use football kits to teach colours, numbers, countries etc for example. Also, in my lesson, I combine using textbooks as well as real life examples such as trending news, anime, manga, adverts, restaurant menus etc as supplement material.

2. Uses Direct Method
At Naganuma School, we applied “direct method” and taught Japanese by Japanese without using a students’ native language. My lessons try to avoid using English, teaching Japanese by using only Japanese as much as possible (If students struggle to understand, I’ll of course explain it in English and also if students want me to use English in my lesson, I am happy to). This introduces only the vocab and grammar the student already understands which improves a student’s speed and ability to learn the language quicker.

3. Plenty of conversation and speaking time
In my lessons, I try to maximise the speaking time for students by spending time on questions and answers. At the same time depending on the student’s preference I can design lessons accordingly. E.g. a focus on reading or writing over speaking.　

Lesson fee:
£50 for one hour+travel expense(face to face)
£40 for one hour(online)
The first trial lesson is £20 (for one hour).

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding my lessons or anything I’ve mentioned. I look forward to hearing from you!