Sunday, May 24, 2009

Adult Beginner's Japanese class syllabus

I'm planning to do things a little differently for this class. I've used textbooks in the past that are very methodical and systematic. They lay out the bones of the language, but not in an easy to retain way. This class will use a more thematic approach. It will be 10 lessons, with 5 themes. The first 5 lessons will introduce the 5 themes, then lessons 6-10 will review those themes, while building upon them with new vocab and sentence structures. I feel like this method will encourage the most retention possible in a 10 week course.
Another change I want to make is the length of each class. I don't think I could concentrate as a student for more than 45 minutes, no matter how interesting the class. An hour might be a little too long.
So here's the structure: 10 classes of 45 minutes, taught once a week. Assignments will be given to allow the students exercises to retain information during each week. The progress a person can make with only 10 minutes of practice a day is surprising.
Leave a comment if you would like to participate, and what your favorite time slot is. Can anybody do Fridays at 5:45, somewhere downtown?

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Adult class starting soon!



I plan on teaching adult beginner Japanese classes again very soon.

Each class will have a healthy mix of games and exercises, quite unlike a high school foreign language classes. Most of my students start as absolute beginners. I'm flexible in catering to specific learning styles, so classes are casual but effective.

Leave a comment if you are interested or would like more information. Check back soon for updates, and thank you for your patience.