Hello,

I am trying to learn Japanese and am slowly making my way through RTK. I have been a fan of the RTK site and forum for several months now (though I'm mostly a silent reader), and I was hoping for some feedback on a situation regarding a Japanese tutor I've been meeting with for lessons for about a year now.

To help stay on track and provide some structure and discipline in my Japanese studies, I decided last year to begin meeting with a tutor (a native Japanese speaker who tutors several other people) once a week. Long story short, though my tutor is a great guy, friendly, and easygoing, I feel that our lessons are severely lacking in structure. Initially our sessions started off as I would expect -- he suggested we use Genki as our starting point and he would lead the session, explaining the grammar points, taking me through the practice exercises, etc.

At some point, the routine changed. One day I showed up and he said, "What are we going to study today?"; I was kind of taken aback (as my assumption would be that if anything he would tell me what we should be studying) but suggested that we go over Genki, per usual. From then on, it's become a pattern -- each lesson he asks what I want to go over. Translation: I end up having to decide what I want us to go over prior to our lesson. I literally type out a mini-lesson plan for myself... 1) Ask him about xyz; 2) Ask him to read ABC and have you repeat; 3) Go over Genki lesson 11, etc.

If I *don't* do this, then we sit around trying to figure out how to fill the 90 minutes. Better yet, I usually say, "Let's go over Genki", and still I get, "What do you want to know?" and then I have to ask him, step-by-step, to run me through things. "Can you read the dialogue and have me repeat after you? Can you test me on the vocabulary? Can we look at the practice exercises?" When I ask him to take me through the grammar points, he'll usually say, "Oh, this is simple -- you could read this at home on your own," and hands me the book so that I can read the explanation for myself.

I think some people might actually like his style -- provided you bring the necessary materials, you're free to discuss whatever you want -- lyrics from an Utada song, dialogue from Death Note, some grammar point you don't understand, slang, etc. But for me, it's not working.

Sure, I could study Genki on my own, and you could argue that my time with a native Japanese speaker could be spent more wisely on something besides him running me through a textbook. Problem is, he has no alternative suggestions on what we should be doing with our time (besides prompting me to talk to him in Japanese. Unfortunately, I don't have the vocab, grammar, etc., to hold a full-on conversation). So when I haven't had the time to prep our lesson, going through Genki is our most viable option.

I just feel like all of the onus is put on me to provide structure, and I've always thought of that as being the tutor's job. So, I'm just curious: for those of you who are working with a tutor, have tutored, etc. -- what do you reasonably expect from a tutor? Am I crazy to think that he should be prepping beforehand or at least coming up with something for us to go over during the lesson? Do some of you enjoy a tutor who lets you dictate the flow of the sessions?

I'm seriously considering looking elsewhere for a tutor, though the prospect of having to think up a way to end our lessons isn't something I'm looking forward to; I'm a wimp when it comes to those kinds of things.

Quote:What are we going to study today?

You already said it - a song you like, or a clip from a Japanese show you like is good "study" material with your instructor. When I had a tutor, I would want to study such things from time to time. You will review vocab and any unknown grammar patterns. For the easy lines in the song, you'll demonstrate to the instructor what you know.

If the instructor is always asking what you know, he isn't tracking your progress very well...you should get a new instructor.

If all you want to do is study Genki, then you should make it clear to your instructor.

I'm not sure how useful the workbook that comes with most language courses is. If you have nothing better to write though (like a forum post or lang-8 post), I would recommend doing it. Often it costs extra to have your work graded by your instructor. I don't think this service is useful - check your work yourself, or don't check it at all. If you had trouble with a particular exercise, ask to do it together with your instructor.

The other thing regular courses come with that tutors don't is exams. I'm not sure how useful exams are, but quizzes are very useful. You should ask your instructor to quiz you, especially on vocab. For me, vocab is the hardest part of Japanese. Preparing for and doing well on quizzes will help you with vocab. Themed lists like you find in your textbook are very useful for learning new vocab. Learning does not end with memorization, but it starts there for sure.

Long time lurker here, but I feel like I have something to contribute as a university tutor. Back to the topic, it's completely normal for a tutor to give you control over the structure after the first few sessions. Research has proven that tutees are more cooperative and motivated when they decide what they'd like to work on.

Tutors are warned from day one that tutees will expect the tutors to provide them with all the answers, but they are advised not to give in to tutees' desires. The goal of tutoring is to enable tutees to become as self-sufficient as possible and to not use the tutor as a crutch.

Nevertheless, your tutor should provide you with suggestions if you request. For example, if you ask him to help you with your vocabulary weaknesses, he should be ready and able to help you in that respect.

However, you should be careful to make your requests as specific as possible. Think about it. If someone vaguely asked you to help them improve their grades, you wouldn't know where to begin. But if they asked to help them improve their time management, you'd be able to help far more precisely and quickly.

If you're able to formulate specific requests like that and your tutor is clueless as to what to do, then it's time to search for another.

Thank you jcdietz03 and vileru for your responses. I think what I see in both of your posts is the idea that you shouldn't necessarily expect your tutor to take care of everything for you -- he is there to assist, but the work still lies with you as the student. There's also the idea that he's not a mind reader -- if you want things done a certain way, it needs to be requested. I agree with both of those points.

Really, I don't want him to provide me with all (or any of) the answers, nor do I have a particular need for us to base all our lessons on Genki or any one resource. However, I would like his guidance on how to proceed with the lessons, and I would like him to take initiative in leading the lessons and keeping them moving forward when I find myself at a loss as to what to tackle next. In other words, I'd like him to come to our lessons with a game plan, even if it's as simple as "We went over adjectives last week, but you seem to still be struggling with that, so let's review them again today." Besides my one-on-one lessons with him, I'm studying Japanese on my own; I'm not taking formal classes, so I don't have ready-made material that we can go over (besides Genki), and I don't feel that I should have to prepare my own material. I think that's my main issue.

Going over lyrics, anime scripts, etc., is great... it's just that if I happen not to have the time to bring anything like that to the lesson on a particular day, we're pretty much twittling our thumbs. I would hope that he would have some ideas of his own on how best to use our time.

Anyway, I think I've been going on the assumption that most language tutors prep for and lead the lessons (when tutoring a total newbie like me who isn't taking classes), but I'm seeing that maybe that's not always the case. I think my tutor sees himself more as a resource -- I lead, I decide how I'm going to study, and he's there to help me if I need it. Either that or he's just lazy and can't be bothered to do prep work for our lessons. :-p

Either way I think we're not a good match, and in the future when I seek out lessons, I need to clarify what I'm looking for from the tutor and what role I would like him/her to play. Tough for me to do though, as again, I'm a wimp when it comes to those things.

He knows your level, so ask him to recommend some manga or books for you. Then read through it with his help. Or pick one yourself if you want.
Why do you want to learn Japanese in the first place? LLook at what your goal is, and then just DO THAT with your tutor. If you want to read manga, read manga, if you want to watch dramas or movies, then do that. If you just want to be able to converse with people, practice that with him.

Regarding the original question: I think it's a tutor vs. teacher problem, if that makes any sense.

If all you want is someone to have a conversion with, to ask usage questions, go over texts, etc., then just hiring a native speaker and planning the lessons yourself should do the trick.

However, if you want someone who's able to plan lessons and a complete curriculum for you, you need someone who teaches Japanese for a living (like a teacher or professor), and preferably even someone's who is good at that -- i.e. who can do more than running down a textbook. (I'm assuming that this is quite a bit more expensive in practice -- if anyone has numbers, please post!) I take from your original post that the person who is tutoring you is not a professional teacher, so I think you may have to go back to the hiring stage...

jcdietz03 Wrote:If all you want to do is study Genki, then you should make it clear to your instructor.

I definitely agree with this. Have you tried telling your tutor that you'd like a more structured approach? From what vileru said, it sounds like he is following a pretty standard approach to tutoring, and might not realize that you'd prefer if he planned out your sessions in advance. Try talking to him and figuring out what both of you expect in terms of advance preparation and session content.

mgbp7 Wrote:When I ask him to take me through the grammar points, he'll usually say, "Oh, this is simple -- you could read this at home on your own," and hands me the book so that I can read the explanation for myself.

One of the great things about having a one-on-one tutor is that you get a lot of say in what you cover, but the tutor really has to listen to their students for things to work well. Asking to go over grammar with your tutor is a completely reasonable request and your tutor shouldn't dismiss it. Again, have you tried talking to him about this? Especially since he's asking you what you'd like to cover, when you suggest something, it's his job to go over it. If he says you should read your text at home, maybe try explaining why you're more comfortable going over it with him.

I agree with the above said: a tutor meets you differently than a teacher.

it would make me feel uncomfortable.
like going to a massage: I don't want the masseur to ask me "what do you want today" but he should know best what works for me.
thats why I am in a class besides kanji-koohi. :-)

vileru Wrote:Long time lurker here, but I feel like I have something to contribute as a university tutor. Back to the topic, it's completely normal for a tutor to give you control over the structure after the first few sessions. Research has proven that tutees are more cooperative and motivated when they decide what they'd like to work on.

Tutors are warned from day one that tutees will expect the tutors to provide them with all the answers, but they are advised not to give in to tutees' desires. The goal of tutoring is to enable tutees to become as self-sufficient as possible and to not use the tutor as a crutch.

Nevertheless, your tutor should provide you with suggestions if you request. For example, if you ask him to help you with your vocabulary weaknesses, he should be ready and able to help you in that respect.

However, you should be careful to make your requests as specific as possible. Think about it. If someone vaguely asked you to help them improve their grades, you wouldn't know where to begin. But if they asked to help them improve their time management, you'd be able to help far more precisely and quickly.

If you're able to formulate specific requests like that and your tutor is clueless as to what to do, then it's time to search for another.

I agree 100%.
A tutor`s job is not to pave the road for the student. After the first sessions, it is expected that the student would spend his free time studying on his own, and then the tutor is there to help polish the edges, provide background information, to consolidate things. But the student has to take the initiative. Not just for Japanese language studies, but for any kind of academic research, this is the norm.

So if you want to have someone who can, as you say, "pave the road for you":

How would you go about hiring a professional teacher for one-on-one instruction?

I'd perhaps ask at the Japanese department of a university if there's any professor teaching Japanese (i.e. the language, not literature) who's willing to give lessons, or ask them to forward my email address to recent lay-offs (professors can be terribly busy, but a lay-off still looking for a job might be able to fit me in). Or if there's a high-school that offers Japanese, same thing there perhaps. Though high-school classes might go considerably slower than what you're looking for in one-on-one instruction, so I'm guessing a professor is better suited.

Hm. Ideas welcome.

[Edit: This strategy obviously will cost you $50/h upwards, more like $100, for your lessons (if you're in the U.S.) -- professors are not cheap. But if you have the money to spare, I think education is definitely a good thing to spend it on...]

If I'm paying someone to teach me Japanese, whether they are named 'teacher' or 'tutor', they need to provide the structure.

You know why I'm not in Japanese classes right now? Because I can teach myself for free. If I have to provide my own structure, I'll do it for free. If I have to pay, I expect them to bring things to the table that I wouldn't think of.

It sounds like he started on this track, but then switched... Maybe he's doing it 'for your good', or maybe he got lazy, I don't know.

I'd follow Shirokuro's advice and ask your tutor to provide more structure. If he refuses and says it's for your own good, you should seriously reconsider whether he's worth the money you are paying. If you are in an area that doesn't have many Japanese speakers, he probably -is- worth the money to have a captive and responsive audience. If you live in Japan, you should probably just make some friends.

(Sadly, I live in Orlando, which seems to be the worst city I've found yet for Japanese presence. We recently had a little festival put on by the local language and taiko schools and it's the only time I've seen Japanese books that didn't come through my mail box.)

Well, that's the problem with the tutor/student model. The student must be the demanding one or it won't work.

If I were in you position, I'd ask for the tutor to read something for me. For instance, a book I was interested, news articles, etc, and explain them to me, in Japanese. I'd just ask a lot of questions about the text.

Personally I didn't find having a private Japanese tutor very useful. Usually we'd just go over the textbook, but it was soon clear that I could go over it more effectively by myself at home. Her English wasn't great so she found it hard to explain things; I soon found it easier to look up grammar questions I had on the net.

Speaking practise was useful, BUT I was a real beginner so output was minimal on my part, and listening can't be trained with 30 minutes practise a week; better just to use some native audio and an Ipod.

The major benefit was having someone to ask questions to about Japanese language/life/culture etc, but I soon realised I could this for free via a language swap partner, so I quit my lessons. If you don't have Japanese people in your area, find someone via the internet via a site like sharedtalk.com.

Thanks so much everyone for your input. This is my first time working with a tutor, and I've always had this specific model in my mind of what being a tutor means. A lot of your posts are challenging my assumptions though, so it's really giving me something to think about.

Incidentally I am currently tutoring someone in French. I wasn't offering tutoring services but was approached by someone who overheard me speaking French with someone at a cafe. I haven't had formal experience as a tutor/teacher and charge what I believe to be the standard rate for tutoring. I do plot and plan out each lesson for my student, create my own vocabulary lists and exercises for him, etc., (which definitely takes a lot of time and thought). It doesn't mean he just sits there and doesn't have to think. I try to make our lessons very interactive. But I do come prepared with an outline of what we are going to go over that day and the material necessary to help that run smoothly.

I welcome my student's input on what he'd like to do, and he does sometimes come with his own material and questions, but I always assumed from the start that it was my responsibility as the tutor to direct our lessons and make sure we were making good use of our time. I wouldn't dream of showing up not having prepared anything and going, "What do you want to study today?" So I think I'm just coming from this preconceived notion of what a tutor is. As many have suggested, I will try to talk with my tutor and see what he has to say before seeking other alternatives. I'm in the US but I do live in a big city, so luckily I have options if things don't work out.

Just to clarify, I do usually come up with a detailed lesson plan for my sessions with my Japanese tutor -- I ask him to read text for me out loud, to look over Japanese text I've brought in and help me translate it, to test me on kanji, to look over something that I've tried to write in Japanese, to critique my pronunciation, etc., but lately I've been getting tired of having to plot out my own lesson plan from A-Z for my tutor.

I also have my own plan as to what I should be doing during the week between our lessons that is independent of my weekly sessions with my tutor. I know that if I don't study on my own during the week, I won't get too far. I'm fine with that.

It just really surprised me how much I have to nudge and prod and lead him to get some actual meat into our lessons, and I definitely felt what wccrawford expressed above -- if I have to do all this work, perhaps I could just go it alone. Having weekly lessons does help keep me motivated to continue studying the language however so hopefully we can work something out.

I'm surprised you guys seem to be talking about weekly tutoring. I'm thinking about continuing Japanese after college by hiring someone for tutoring, and I'm planning to have lessons at least three times a week (90 minutes each) or even every day Mon-Fri (60 minutes each).

That's sort-of what the courses at my college are like -- and if you go much slower, I'd be worried that it might start to be less effective. And it's also not very motivating if you spend like four or five years in total and you're still not fluent, right?

mgbp7 Wrote:Just to clarify, I do usually come up with a detailed lesson plan for my sessions with my Japanese tutor -- I ask him to read text for me out loud, to look over Japanese text I've brought in and help me translate it, to test me on kanji, to look over something that I've tried to write in Japanese, to critique my pronunciation, etc., but lately I've been getting tired of having to plot out my own lesson plan from A-Z for my tutor.

Try discussing this with your tutor. You can probably come to some agreement, such as telling him what you'd like to work on next time at the end of each session, which will give him plenty of time to prepare material for the following meeting. As long as the tutor has some specific area you'd like to work on and enough time to gather material to help you in that area, I don't see why such a request should be a problem.

Sort of in a different vain from what people are talking about, what I would do is try to move as quickly as possible towards doing the sessions entirely in Japanese. Actually, if you have a teacher who knows what they're doing this can be done from lesson one (such as how Tanaka Lecturers are taught to teach, as in the Falcon Program at Cornell). But, it's not so easy for a tutor or teacher who hasn't been trained very much in restricting themselves to speaking only in very very simply Japanese, not to mention that they don't know strategies for getting the students to understand the situation in non-verbal ways. However, you could explain to your teacher a plan to make the lessons entirely in Japanese and work together to make the plan work.

My suggestion would be to talk with him about it and prepare a set of requestions/commands/questions that he could teach you. These will be what he will use to instruct you, and you will use if you need help from him.

Some of the commands might include things like
もう一度言ってください。 (Mou ichido itte kudasai; please say it one more time)
もう一度ゆっくりいってください。 (Mou ichido yukkuri itte kudasai; please say it one more time slowly)
答えてください。　(Kotaete kudasai; please answer)
分かりません。　(Wakarimasen; I don't understand)

With a fairly long list of example sentences like this you could get a lot done without needing to communicate in English. If you didn't understand you could tell him. If he wants you to answer something, he can tell you to do so. If you want him to say something more slowly, you can tell him. The initial list should be about 30 sentences (I learned 24 of these before my very first Japanese class). At first learn the pronunciation together with him.

One you get these down, explain to him (still in English at this point) that you then want to progress through Genki, but you want the lessons to be done in Japanese. Tell him that you will just progress in a straight line through the text, but that he should prepare some activity for what you are working on that can be done entirely in Japanese.

I would suggest something like this for a while. For the first 10 minutes of the session you are allowed to speak English in order to ask him things that you just can't handle in Japanese. You can also ask him to teach you more phrases that would be useful for doing the lessons entirely in Japanese, such as the ones above. Any other explanations can be done in this time. After that the lesson should be done ENTIRELY in Japanese. Do not speak English under any circumstances, no matter how lost you get. You need to learn how not to rely on English. Even if it means ridiculous gestures instead of Japanese, do that instead. Do no use English hesitation noises like 'Uh' or 'Umm.' Tell him to correct you with
英語で話さないでください (Eigo de hanasanaide kudasai; Please don't speak English)
if you say even a single word in English during that time.

The only exception would be the last 2 minutes of the lesson, where you can discuss what you want him to help prepare for the next session.

I'm not a fan of doing the "only Japanese" policy dogmatically -- for example, grammatical explanations or translations for vocabulary usually go faster and better in English -- but the "switching your brain to Japanese" thing is super-important I think.

So I guess I'd try to have most of the lesson (as much as you can, like 80%) in Japanese. I think that in particular, as Tzadeck mentioned, little things like switching out the hesitation noises (e.g. えっと, あの〜, なんか instead of uh, um, like) help your brain realize it's speaking a different language so it'll pick up fluency.

epsilondelta Wrote:So I guess I'd try to have most of the lesson (as much as you can, like 80%) in Japanese.

This is pretty much how I was thinking of it (when I wrote ten minutes at the beginning I was imagining a 60 minute lesson, but I think the OP said 90 so it can be a bit more than ten). I just think it's really important that you can't 'give up' and switch back to English, even if you're only doing half the lesson in Japanese. A really open approach where you simply 'try to speak Japanese as much as possible' won't cut it in that way.

epsilondelta Wrote:I'm not a fan of doing the "only Japanese" policy dogmatically -- for example, grammatical explanations or translations for vocabulary usually go faster and better in English

Just about all my class time learning Japanese has been Japanese-language only. In about the third or fourth lesson it took a surprisingly long time to communicate the meaning of 種類 (the first abstract word we'd got to). On the other hand I've never forgotten it since :-)

I particularly like it if you're learning the language outside Japan, simply because it's quite possible that the 90 minutes or whatever a week are the only time the student spends talking with a native speaker. You can always look up explanations in English yourself later...

mgbp7 Wrote:Having weekly lessons does help keep me motivated to continue studying the language however

This too :-) (especially if you get 'homework' that you have to do by the next lesson...)

Wow, thanks again everyone for the feedback and suggestions. Very thoughtful and helpful. Prior to reading the responses here, I was going to end my lessons with my current tutor and look elsewhere. After reading your posts I decided to discuss my concerns with my tutor first and see if things get better... I let him know yesterday that I'd like us to come up with a more structured lesson plan for our sessions so that we know what to expect lesson to lesson and he seemed open to that; we will be discussing that at our next lesson. Thanks again!

epsilondelta - you're right; I'm looking more for a "teacher" and he's a "tutor", but hopefully we can find a compromise. As for only meeting once a week, this actually works well for me. Meeting several times a week (having to drive out after work, etc.) would probably be a bit too much for me at this time because I'd like to have some evenings open to do other things. I'm also being an idiot and am going to begin taking Korean lessons as well, which limits my time. :->

However, I do study on my own throughout the week, so it's not really like I'm only studying Japanese 90 minutes per week. I think how fast I progress will be based on how diligent I am in my self study. Also, I am giving myself a wide berth as far as how many years I think it will take to be fully functional in Japanese. I see it as an ongoing, long-term (*really* long-term) goal. But I can definitely see where meeting with a tutor more often could be helpful.

Tzadeck - I like your idea very much, because I am definitely speaking too much English at our sessions... I try to speak Japanese, but the minute I don't know how to say something I panic and switch to English. Having set Japanese phrases to fall back on when I flounder would be very helpful. Thank you for breaking the method down; I plan to suggest we do things that way.

In preparation for my next meeting with my tutor, I am going to try to come up with a plan for what I'd like us to be consistently doing each lesson. I'm also going to come up with a list of phrases I'd like to learn that I can use to keep things in Japanese when I'm tempted to switch to English. Hopefully he will have some feedback as well. vileru - I will also take your suggestion and discuss with him at the end of each lesson what our next lesson will focus on so that we both can prepare accordingly.

Thanks again everyone.

mgbp7 Wrote:I try to speak Japanese, but the minute I don't know how to say something I panic and switch to English.

Ah! The one most important survival phrase my professor taught us (we were even allowed to use it in oral exams!) was "「なになに」は、日本語で何と言いますか？" Basically whenever I'm talking to my professor or drill instructor in Japanese and I don't know how to say stuff, I just ask them how to say it in Japanese and then repeat it after them. Don't feel silly doing that -- it totally helps build a repertoire of day-to-day phrases.

The only time I'll actually switch the conversation to English is when I need to discuss something that I feel is completely beyond my level.

Also, when I ask complicated grammar questions, I find it helpful to speak English, so that it's easier distinguish what I am saying (English) and what the example sentences I'm talking about (Japanese) are.

Hope everything works out with your tutoring!