If you are looking to learn Japanese online, you have many choices in online Japanese schools. These schools serve students who want to avoid commuting to a local school or simply prefer online lessons. You can choose group or private lessons. Convenience is a big factor in choosing an online Japanese school, but lesson quality is just as important. Consider these three factors:
1. Teacher Quality: Experience Makes the Difference
The quality of a school’s tutors is critical. It is easy to masquerade as a “school” and present “teachers” who know nothing more than how to speak Japanese. However, learning Japanese is more than chatting. Chat will definitely help you improve listening skills, but if you aren’t learning the nuances of vocabulary and getting a solid understanding of Japanese grammar, chat alone won’t get you proficient in Japanese. You’ll be able to say some individual sentences, but when you try to string them together, you might struggle to be understood.
Before enrolling for online Japanese classes, take a look at the credentials and experience level of the school’s teachers. You want a teacher who is more than just a native Japanese speaker–someone who knows how to teach Japanese, not just speak the language. It’s also good to check whether a teacher’s has any experience with online lessons. Many Japanese teachers have official credentials, such as completion of a program for teaching Japanese as a foreign language. In the hunt for a great teacher, certification is a start, but it’s not the whole story. Perhaps more important is a teacher’s experience–specifically, online teaching experience. Be sure to ask the school for details if you can’t find the information on the web site. Tip: Lots of youthful faces among the teaching staff probably indicates a low level of teaching experience. Read reviews from other students carefully. Most sits post student testimonials, but beware that these reviews might be biased or incomplete, or written during that initial phase, when the student was excited about learning Japanese online. Check blogs for more even-handed testimonials. Chat rooms at some of the sites are another great place to meet other students and ask questions.
Teacher pay makes a difference: Pay at many online Japanese schools is quite low, less than half of your lesson tuition in many cases. If an online school keeps half of students’ lesson tuition for overhead and administration salaries, where does that leave your hard-working Japanese teacher?
2. Lesson Quality: Learning Japanese takes more than simple chat The quality of lessons varies greatly among online Japanese schools. Group lessons with students at different levels are less effective–if the students change with each session, the coming and going of students makes life tough on teacher and student alike. A school that advertises Japanese chat lessons is focused on the wrong thing: learning is not chatting. No foreign language is easy, and you simply won’t achieve proficiency in Japanese with chat-style lessons alone. A fixed curriculum for all students is offered at some online Japanese schools. A standardized curriculum works well in many cases, but if you are looking to learn Japanese as fast as possible, consider schools that focus on each student’s needs rather than standardized lesson content. If you plan to take private Japanese lessons, the best lesson format is tailoring to your goals. An occasional special topic–interpreting a poem or having a short composition corrected–can keep lessons challenging and broaden your Japanese knowledge. There may be an extra charge for this kind of special lessons, so ask before you enroll.
3. Classroom Quality: Chat vs. Conference vs. Online Classroom I keep emphasizing that learning Japanese online is more than chat. That applies to the classroom, too. Most online schools use Skype or other free video-chat systems. Skype is a great chat tool, but it isn’t designed for learning and doesn’t create a classroom environment. With free video chat software, you have no whiteboard, no tools for the teacher to guide you as you learn Japanese. Other schools use business conferencing software. You get a presentation area, but some don’t work with Japanese text correctly. To keep costs down, these schools often share classrooms between teachers, which might make for a hurried online lesson, or, at the very least, no after-class Q&A with your teacher. Naturally, the best classroom is an online classroom designed for Japanese lessons. Features like a Japanese dictionary for the teacher to call up and tools for learning to write Japanese enrich the lesson, and make your learning faster and more effective.
Quality of teachers, lessons, and the classroom are the three essential factors that determine success in online Japanese lessons. A great teacher in a chat-only classroom can take you only so far. Or, even the best classroom technology won’t make up for an below-average teacher. To make the most of your online tuition dollar, consider these three quality factors carefully before committing to online lessons.
Author Terry Phillips travels frequently to Japan, has been involved in online Japanese education for over 5 years, and currently operates Nihongo-Pro, an online Japanese school. Nihongo-Pro offers private Japanese lessons tailored to your goals, including Japanese for business, JLPT, and travel Japanese. For a limited time, a free trial lesson is offered in a custom online classroom.
