TL;DR
I am not a huge fan of Japanese language class schools and I will be going back to one ~ 2 weeks and I would like to get the most out of it. Suggestions and / or feedback please.

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Youasuki Wrote:I've never been a fan of classes, but I still have the equivalent of 8 private lesson hours or 15 group lesson hours paid at a school I enrolled more than a year ago and I am thinking about using it now (or rather I need to), otherwise I risk losing the credits and there is no money back policy.

I am not all that thrilled of going back to school here in Japan, I would say >60% of the Japanese I have learned the past 4~5 years is the product of self study and individual research / efforts. The past year has been very different though, as I married a Japanese-only speaker and was also able to get from 1 to 2 Japanese friends. I almost exclusively use Japanese on a daily basis lately, except for work which is in both Japanese and English (though it's from home anyway). I rarely study from books or review with Anki anymore (I did that for 3 years straight!), but I do text a lot with friends (mostly wife) and tweet as well. I also listen to some music in Japanese that I have come to like over the years (mostly 90s stuff \m/) and watch T.V every now and then like when I visit my parents in law, etc.

My conversational skills have improved a lot, but my Kanji writing is not as good as it was before (Kanken 5 in 2012~2013). I hope I can continue improving over the years and when I have more time, but I am not that interested in studying Kanji right now.

I am going back to this school for a while however and I would love to get some tips/advice from you as to what you think would be the best way to get the most out of Japanese classes.

SUMMARY

captainporridge:

+ Study all the material before class whenever possible
+ Use the language in your free time
+ Start using new learned material immediately.
+ Take notes and organize them in a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Hmm, from my time at language school (not in Japan, for other languages) the way to get the most out of it seems to be:

— Study all the material before class whenever possible, as in, get through the material before the class covers it. You may be a bit sketchy on how it works but by the time the class covers it, or after the class covers it, you'll have it down.

— (You already do this) Use the language in your free time whenever possible - this means reading manga during the coffee break and watching Japanese tv when you get home etc. You can really notice the difference in who "just studies for class" and who "does everything possible". Anything new they teach, start using it immediately so other people can give you enough feedback on how to use it etc. so that you pass the tests without a problem.

– I always took notes in class, typed them up the same day or the next day, and organized them when I typed them up ("vocabulary, example sentences, grammar"), then at the end of the week I compiled the daily notes, at the end of the month i compiled the weekly notes. So in the end I had text files of organized notes per month. It helped me, but I don't know if it'd be useful for you.

— Do not expect that the lessons are any good. Self-study is still good, just switch to self-studying the topics they want you to learn. Sometimes I'd had times where the lessons completely neglected to mention rules or exceptions, or so on but you could find them via self-study.

Possibly the tests are a bit special. For example, in some of my tests, despite being accurate in all the grammar they had already taught us, if I went further and wrote in more advanced grammar than the rest of the studenst knew but messed it up, I still got points taken off. So they were taking points off for "anything wrong" and not paying attention to what level class i was actually in.

Likewise, at some points, even if I had much better ex. vocabulary and grammar than they expected, what they were actually looking for was the use of certain keywords and if you didn't use enough of them you failed, despite if you were better all other regards. Similarly, when I had oral exams, instead of "good language skills" what some actually wanted was "do you talk a lot even if you say everything wrong". Meaning even if you were to have flawless speech, if you still didn't talk enough for them they wouldn't pass you. At the same time sometimes they restricted your talking. One test (JLPT N2 level equivalent) we basically wouldn't pass if we didn't speak exactly the right amount, which meant about 3 sentences for short answer questions and 2 minutes for longer questions - despite that all these questions were ones that in real life, you'd have a nice long discussion about them (ex. "how do you think people saw status differently in the past?")

So it's worth it trying to ask around and see if you can find anyone else who's been to the school recently, and pay close attention to how the tests are done and so on.

As for the writing problems... I also never write so I know how you feel lol! Advice given to me has been things like "take the new words you're supposed to learn and make a crazy story with them" "translate stuff into Japanese, not out of it" "just write more, it doesn't matter what it is, write blog posts about pokemon if that's all you have an interest in, but just write something".

Thank you, a lot of good advice. I guess I've done a bit of that throughout my learning experience. I also know 2 weeks is a short period of time, but even if I am not a big fan of class study I would like to make the best of it and not just go, blow it and get back to my normal life.

I actually have one more tip but it sounds really mean so I didn't say it earlier. Most likely it's also not a problem for you since the class is so short and you have your wife and all.

I would advise to stay away from non-fluent-speakers as much as possible. They end up teaching you the wrong things or confusing what you already know. An easy example is that someone uses the wrong particle in class in a group discussion, then insists they're correct and for some reason everyone else around them also thinks so, so then you get a bit confused thinking you remembered it wrong (due to groupthink) when actually you were right. But some people don't mind this at all, I just personally mind it since I'm already bad enough that I don't want to get worse on accident lol!

Thanks captainporridge. I will go summarising everyone's suggestions as I receive them.

Anyone else?

- I second the tip about taking notes. If you want to make sure you don't miss anything, record the lectures on a smartphone or other audio recording device, and review them later (you might need to ask the teacher for permission first, but they're usually pretty understanding).

- You might want to have an idea of what you would like to improve before you even walk through the door, and then try to steer the class towards covering those areas a little, if given a chance (say, if there's time for questions, or the teacher asks for feedback on what to cover), if not, you might be able to ask for feedback on how to improve your Japanese after class.

- If you need to pair up with someone to do activities, and have a say on who your partner is, stay away from the people with the thickest gaijin accents. They may be nice people, but parts of their accent may rub off on you. This may not be as much as a problem, since you're in Japan.

I recommend calling up the school and being up front about why your reservations about the class, and saying why you haven't like classes in the past.

It's possible that no matter what you won't like it, but I think that a lot of teachers want their students to have a good experience. They might be eager to structure the classes in such a way that you have a great time.

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