Hey there cyberspace! I hope your 2023 is off to a wonderful start!<\/p>\n
For a lot of people, the beginning of a New Year is a time to start fresh! Normally, I don\u2019t do anything for New Year\u2019s, but this time, I decided to try something really big! Unfortunately, it didn\u2019t go as smoothly as I had hoped, so maybe I should go back to my normal routine next year. Anyways, let me explain.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure you know that I\u2019ve been at Fruitful English for a long time, and love teaching. I always live in Japan, and while my Japanese has been \u2018good enough\u2019 for a long time, I wanted to do what many of you are doing on Fruitful English: I wanted to take my language skills to the next level, learning from a native speaker and trying to get to that \u2018native\u2019 level!<\/p>\n
So, I enrolled in a Japanese language school, and this was actually my first time formally learning Japanese. I\u2019d always studied on my own, if not sporadically, from various resources online or in textbooks from friends. Plus, being lucky enough to be able to travel and live in Japan extensively, I always had opportunities to practice speaking with friends. However, I realised through my own teaching that the only way to improve is learning with a native speaker, so I signed up for a school in Okinawa.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I learned quickly that there\u2019s a big difference between a \u2018good\u2019 teacher and a \u2018good\u2019 school, and a bad one. And, unluckily for me, I got the worst of both. I won\u2019t \u2018name names\u2019 as we say, but despite the school\u2019s seemingly good reputation, they couldn\u2019t have been much worse.<\/p>\n
Despite promises of classes tailored to students\u2019 level, and opportunities to practice, the entire class amounts to a \u2018tutor\u2019. You\u2019re given a variety of teachers with widely varying competencies. Some just tell you to \u2018ask them questions if you need it\u2019. Others are good enough to actively sit down the students and help them through the textbook. But, in the end, it\u2019s just that: a tutor. There are no lessons, where the teacher explains something for all the students. There is no \u2018chatting\u2019 where the teacher asks questions to give students speaking practice. In short, it\u2019s a disaster.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to end on a sour note though, so there\u2019s a silver lining! As I always say, mistakes are good, if you can use them to improve! Well, though my school was disappointing, it\u2019s inspired me to really study Japanese in earnest. So, it\u2019s time to seek out a private teacher, and continue learning from comfort of my own home!<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll talk more about my journey next time! Get in touch if you know of a Japanese teacher too!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey there cyberspace! I hope your 2023 is off to a wonderful start! For a lot of people, the beginning of a New Year is a time to start fresh! Normally, I don\u2019t do anything for New Year\u2019s, but this ti…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":8932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[230,462,3],"tags":[504,63,505],"class_list":{"0":"post-8917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-native","8":"category-japanese","9":"category-liveabroad","10":"tag-learning-japanese","11":"tag-lifestyle","12":"tag-505","13":"article cf"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/iStock-1298277940.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8917"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8933,"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8917\/revisions\/8933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fruitfulenglish.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}