Kyoushitsu Learning

[irishwars]

Has anyone else had this experience? It has bummed me out. Along with this website I signed up for a japanese course in the city where I live. On the first day there where 8 students, all who seemed eager to learn. The teacher who is also the owner of the business is a native japanese person who, to me has been great. There are levels in this school, japanese 1 - 9 I believe, each running for around 3 months.

I had high hopes that maybe we as a group would be taking the first few courses together, learning from the beginning, practicing what we had learned with each other etc. Where I live the only asian people are chinese, so I dont have many people to talk in japanese with. I got everyone's phone number and email address, it was going to be fun. 3 months later.... all but myself and the young chinese girl in the class are left

"I didnt have the time anymore", "I dont think I can ever speak this language" "its too hard", "I will retake the class next fall, things came up", endless excuses. Its none of my business really why pretty much everyone quit but has anyone else had a experience like this. Where everyone around you lost interest in learning ?

[QuackingShoe]

Hey, just means you have to spend a lot of time with a young Chinese girl. Things could be worse, right? >.>

No, I'm 100% self-study, so I haven't had this experience. No one near me has had the interest in learning in the first place. It is somewhat unfortunate, though. Language learning is one of those things that it'd be nice to do in pairs, if not in groups. But like other things that are nice to do in pairs or groups (dieting, quitting smoking, exercise regimens), you're pretty much guaranteed to have everyone else drop out, or else plateau, and perhaps even keep you plateaued.

Ah well.

[Belton]

It happens.

I don't think anybody who I started my classes with made it to the end of the courses offered. Maybe about 1/3 of the people I joined in level 2 made it all the way to the end of level 5. And most people didn't make it to every class.

It never really bothered me, beyond thinking it was a pity that some people dropped out.

I think that's how it goes in adult education. A lot of other things in life tend to take priority. With beginner levels people find it isn't for them, or is harder than they think, or don't realise the amount of hours (days, years) it takes to learn a language.
I might not have made it myself, at times I thought "what am I doing?!', but in the end I stuck with it.

My classmates were great but the most important things I got out of attending a class were a bit of structure to my learning, access to a native speaking teacher who'd correct my mistakes and the regular discipline of preparing for a class and turning up.

My advice is for you to stick with the classes as long as the teacher will give them and you find them useful. On the bright side with a smaller class you get more individual attention and have more chance to speak with the teacher rather than enthusiastic yet invariably flawed classmates.

(For those without access to classes or Japanese people in their locality (and even those who do) I really recommend finding a Japanese tandem partner on the Internet and using Skype or email to talk with them. the Mixxer is a good place to look. )