Our schooling is stupid, I admit.
You see, the college I am at . . . well, I started attending here because I initially was going for Graphic design. It's a small, state school, and they don't have funding for most languages, so they get funding from the government and call them "Critical Languages."
But I had always loved taking Japanese (I'd taken it before), and the only reason I was going for Graphic design is that I had some experience in it (I worked a few years at a newspaper)
The more I took graphic design classes, the more I hated it. The more Japanese I took, the more I was convinced I had to do it for a living! (or more accurately, I had to LIVE Japanese with Kanji in my veins or something melodramatic. ^_^)
However, since it's a shitty school (to be quite frank) the Japanese instructors were NOT professors. They were graduate students there from Japan, getting their Doctorates in ESL. One was somewhat abysmal, probably due to age (around 25-yo) the other is much better but still trying to learn English herself (around 45 or so, I'm guessing)
But while the older teacher *loved* Minna-no-Nihongo, she wasn't the first graduate student they picked. So the younger one got to choose the textbooks, and she chose badly.
So instead of teaching out of the bad textbook (Nakama) she used Tae Kim's site (not that we knew. we thought she was typing it all out, working her buns off every weekend! Not so!)
So now, the elder teacher is finally teaching the Japanese 5 class. (We had to work our butts off to even get this class, and if we have less than 6 students registered, they're canning it. Period, no other option.)
Right now we have 5 students registered, and 2 others working to test in. So if ONE of them makes it, we'll have a class. >.> (I'm hoping they'll both make it.)
But yeah, we're going to START with Minna no Nihongo 2.
(takes deep breath.) So that's why I'm tutoring. Because I really want this class! *whimpers*
