Schedule: 2 times per week

★Lesson Notes

He has repeated the 50 lesson course four times and is currently in the middle of his fifth 50-lesson course. He has been studying Japanese at this school for about two and a half years.

●Learning Approach

Teaching materials: Original text, Minna no Nihongo, Manabou nihongo

Class frequency: 2 times in a week 

How to proceed with the class:

① Vocabulary and Grammar: 

He uses original texts based on Minna no Nihongo for N5 to N4 level learning.

He learns two to three sentence patterns per hour of class, and tries to complete one lesson in two to three hours.

At the N3-N2 level, he reads a long passage at the beginning of a lesson, where he identifies the necessary vocabulary contained in the topic of the lesson. There are three to four sentence patterns in each lesson, and he spends two to three hours learning three to four sentence patterns and related conversational expressions.

At the N1 level, more specialized and complex vocabulary is introduced, but students are asked to look up its meaning during preparation and review outside of class. Learning about sentence patterns is limited to review in class, and time is spent reading and understanding more practical content that uses the sentence patterns.

② Speaking

At the beginning of class, we talk about recent events, weekend plans, etc., and have free talk. He would often show me pictures of places he had been to or things he had eaten, so in those cases I would ask more specific questions to deepen the conversation and find other directions. Have him develop the story and practice responding flexibly.

③Listening

His initial goal when registering was to “enjoy casual conversation,” so in between class content, we talked with a little broken language, just as if we were talking with a Japanese friend. Sometimes we refer to videos on YouTube and other sites and practice listening to sentences that are not based on the textbook.

④Writing

At his request, he asked for some writing homework, so I submitted some writing homework from “Minna no Nihongo Easy Composition.” Apart from that, sometimes he would spontaneously come up with fantasy/science fiction stories in Japanese and send them to me, so I would correct them, then exchange opinions about it.

⑤Reading

He improves his reading comprehension by reading the long summary questions in the text “Minna no Nihongo” and the long sentences at the beginning of the text “Manabou nihongo”.

●Achievement

【 Level : N2 (Level 8 in our level chart)】

① Vocabulary and grammar : N2 level. Can understand most of the meanings of words that appear in N2 level texts and can read kanji. Most of the grammar is also used.

② Speaking :N3 level. Although he is still a little short of reaching a business level, he can convey most of what he wants to say in Japanese.

③ Listening : N2 level. He can even understand sentences spoken at the same speed as those spoken by native Japanese speakers.

④Reading :N2 level.He has enough vocabulary and knowledge of kanji, he is able to read N2-level long texts by himself and understand most of the content.

Overall

When he started the Japanese course about two and a half years ago, his Japanese level was just at the beginning of N5, but now he has grown to the point where he can challenge and understand content at the N1 level. 

His goal of studying at an anime vocational school in Japan is almost coming true.

Continuation of learning is important, and it is truly amazing that he is able to maintain such high motivation.

He  exemplifies that if you continue to study hard, you can definitely reach the level you want in the future.