Teaching Foreign Languages in Japan

Getting Japanese Students to Speak Up

What you'll learn
- Get Japanese students to speak during class
- Understand the cultural dynamics at work
- Create a good class dynamic without fail
- Minimize your effort to keep your energy for what counts

Requirements
- No teaching experience needed. You will learn everything you need to know.

Description
Many years ago, when I went from teaching at language schools in Japan to my first university classes, I experienced a huge shock. The dynamics were completely different. Students seemed reluctant to speak, classes were not lively, I was failing. Fortunately, a colleague taught me the cultural secret to unlocking energy in the classroom. It changed everything. He showed me how to get Japanese students to speak - in class - every time. I was so impressed that I spent the next 25 years explaining this to fellow teachers  in workshops, articles, and books.

What you are getting in this course is the condensed version of those 25 years. I'm going to show you how to overcome that inertia in your classes, whatever your students' initial motivation and whatever the size of the group. Japanese culture directly affects the dynamics in your class, so you just have to take it into account. In Japan, there is group pressure and there is what is called  uncertainty avoidance, which make it not so easy to conduct foreign language classes, especially speaking classes. But fear not, those cultural features can be managed! In this course, I'll show you a practical class procedure in each video, and you’ll get downloadable cheat sheets and templates.

This course is designed for beginner teachers, but over the years, many veteran educators have told me that the ideas presented here have inspired and refreshed their own teaching practice.

Who this course is for:
- Foreign language teachers who teach at a high school or university in Japan
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