John Woodward

I've taught English to the Japanese at all ages and levels, and would like to also teach Japanese to those who wish to learn before they come here for work, study or a holiday. Lessons will be built around the needs and level of the student. In my opinion pronunciation and listening practice are vital, and the key to this is learning hiragana and katakana, the two phonetic scripts used in Japanese. Learning kanji is also a plus for vocabulary building but that is something a student can do on their own time. Being a resident in Japan my preference would be to use a lot of realia, items you might actually see in Japan. For the basics, learning to pronounce the names of stations and destinations, finding your way around a menu, knowing how to give a destination to a taxi driver. Building on this, learning informal and formal greetings, survival Japanese for an office environment, the difference infrerences between words with similar meanings, classically, the importance of inflection in apparently simple words and phrases, basic business and social manners. The beauty of Japanese is that the grammar is very regular, so this can be covered quite quickly, the challenge is in buidling a useful vocabulary and learning to use it appropriately in a range of situations. For higher levels reading and writing texts messages and emails is a good skill to acquire, and to learn to recognise what is really being said behind what can often sound quite simple.