No responses yet for my tutoring services despite the ultra-low rate I set (on purpose). According to google analytics, I’ve only had about 50 visitors from Seattle in total to my website after the announcement so this is hardly surprising. Searching google for “seattle japanese private lessons” showed my site at #19 which means it might as well not even be there. You either want to be within the first 3 or #10 which is first on the second page.
So I can either be patient or expand my audience. As I briefly mentioned, I really prefer live meetings over online for a variety of reasons. And by “live” I don’t mean some kind of lame marketing term (*cough* Microsoft *cough*) but the technology platform often referred to in layman terms as “real life”.
Learning language is an interactive process. Personally, I think there’s a huge problem if the speaking ratio between the teacher and student is not near 50%. Unfortunately, almost all language classes consist of the teacher speaking 80%+ percent of the time depending on the class size which is partly the reason why they are so ineffective. So in order to interact with the student, I need a medium where communication can easily flow both ways.
Let’s see if modern technology can work out something for me. I prefer meeting face-to-face because seeing a person’s face and body language is important in language and communication. This is especially important for teaching languages for obvious reasons and is very important to the learning process in conversation practice.
Well, while I haven’t tried it yet, I’ve got a webcam on my monitor so I guess that’s a potentially reasonable solution. I look crazy when I see myself via the webcam but maybe that’s just how I always look. (A scary thought.) So I’ve significantly increased my audience to anybody in the world with a fast internet connection and a webcam of reasonable quality.
Another advantage of real life is that it’s trivially easy to show and share information. All you need is a pen and paper and you could easily write things out, point at them as you explain, and have the other person interact with it in kind. You can even bring your laptop and easily share websites and all sorts of stuff with virtually no hassle.
While I would prefer we write things by hand for kanji and kana writing exercise, I’m willing to compromise with the keyboard if I can share my computer screen somehow with the other person. I know Skype has built-in chat but I really need something where I can point to other stuff to show what I’m talking about and have the other person do the same while adding their own input. While I prefer my hands, I guess a mouse cursor can work. I don’t mind installing an app but would prefer the other person not have to do the same. Hopefully something integrated with the browser.
If I can find such a solution, I’m willing to open up my services to anybody with a webcam and fast internet connection. I might have to beef up my internet connection as well. And I suppose I’ll need to figure something out with Paypal, Google Checkout, or some service of that nature.
Best of luck to you with finding students. I’m not sure what the market would be like in the States. I never considered getting a tutor when I was learning Japanese in Cali. It’s quite a different environment to Japan, where you get hit up for private English lessons while you rent videos, or buy coffee, or just walk down the street.
Well, actually – Maybe that’s skewed since I’m a yellow ball in a pool of blue ones. You tended to blend into the crowd a little better here.
Another problem I think I’m facing is the perceived value of private tutors. I think people generally fall into two camps when learning a language.
1) Attend class
2) Self study
Classes for language learning have severe problems and limitations. Self-study, even with language partners, has problems of it’s own.
What neither of these approaches offer is a mentor that knows exactly what you know and gives a 1-on-1 interaction that is needed in order to properly practice conversation at the proper level.
In other words, I think the reason why so few people succeed in Japanese is because the conventional methods are ineffective.
I plan to write another blog post about this soon.
$20 is a low rate and I’m sure it wouldn’t be worth your time to go lower than that, but it’s still $20 more than language partners, audio material word lists etc. on the internet, and more than language classes if you’re taking them as part of a university course. Also when you consider that you’d probably want to meet the tutor once a week, you’re looking at $80 a month, which doesn’t seem such a small amount.
I love your guide and I’m sure you’d be a great tutor! But it will take a bit more convincing for people to hand over their cash I reckon…perhaps you could set up some kind of exchange for something you’re interested in studying or need instead?
Yeah, there’s a misconception that somehow classes are a better value when in most cases, you’re just throwing your money away. Most language partners also cost money in terms of the time you have to reciprocate. They also have no experience in learning the language and you don’t get much guidance since you mostly end up having to figure everything out yourself anyway. I speak from experience as I’m a HORRIBLE English language partner.
And of course, there’s all sorts of different types of tutors as well. 99% involves reading out of the textbook and doing the exercises together. I wouldn’t pay any money for that myself.
I think what I’m trying to do is almost never done but you’re right, it’s hard to explain it without actually seeing it for yourself. Let me just say that if the student desires, I can give him/her enough stuff to do by themselves for a month in just an hour.
> Yeah, there’s a misconception that somehow
> classes are a better value when in most cases,
> you’re just throwing your money away.
I don’t know that I’d be as harsh as all that (“throwing money away”) with language classes. I place significant value on the two semesters of Greek that I took in college. Granted, dead languages are a little different from conversational living ones.
However, I would say that classes are typically a worse value than a private tutor, at least in terms of the student’s time. (Whether it’s also a worse value in terms of money depends on how much each costs, I suppose, and I’m sure both classes and tutors run a wide gamut of pricing.)
FWIW, you’ve now made it onto the first page of the search results for that query now. If you keep talking about the issue, you may move up a bit, though breaking into the top four or five is probably unlikely. Then again, your site in general probably garners a lot of third-party references for “Japanese Language”, which may help.
I actually maintain a site that is consistently always has pages at #1, #2, *and* #3 for our primary target two-word search, and often several more on the first page of results as well, but one of the search terms in question is “Galion”, which, I suspect, is a rather a lot less competitive as a search term than “Seattle”. I didn’t do any special SEO tricks to make it happen, we just kept putting relevant information on the site that we thought would be useful to the public. (I *did* make sure that the site was indexable, by using clean markup and alternative text for images where appropriate and that sort of thing. But that’s the only SEO I did.)
Oh, I meant to also say…
> So I’ve significantly increased my audience to
> anybody in the world with a fast internet
> connection and a webcam of reasonable quality.
I might potentially be interested. I would have to obtain a webcam, but it’s not like I’ve never bought anything from newegg before. Also, I’m not entirely sure what “fast” means to you; I’m using Road Runner service. However…
> Another advantage of real life is that it’s
> trivially easy to show and share information…
> I’m willing to compromise with the keyboard if
> I can share my computer screen somehow with the
> other person.
Indeed, that’s something that would definitely have to be figured out if you’re going to make the online thing work, and I’m afraid I don’t really know of a good general solution that’s freely available (or cheap) and cross-platform. As for me, I’d be willing to install anything that’s available for Debian stable, but I still don’t know of anything specifically to meet the need in question, and I think you’ll find a lot of less-technical users are leary of installing software that doesn’t come with the computer from the factory. So yeah, something Javascript-based that only requires a standard browser would be ideal, and I don’t know of such a package.
Even with something really good (maybe a package that gives each user a different color of mouse pointer on a shared desktop, maybe via rdp or somesuch), it’s still not going to be nearly as convenient or practical as meeting IRL.
If you’re serious about finding local Seattle prospects, I would recommend running something in the local print-newspaper classifieds.
My internet is not that fast either. I haven’t tried video chat in a while but I would guess the connection would need to be at least fast enough to watch youtube videos.
Given your obvious level of expertise, $20 sounds like a steal for learners. If no one takes you up on this, I think it’s only because the word’s still getting out there. You’re hit #1 for “Japanese grammar”, so I think it’s just a matter of time.
I’m currently working on a book about language learning (Street-Smart Language Learning – the blog accompanies the book) and I seem to find that you and I agree on most aspects of language learning. One of the first rules in my book is “Don’t take a class!” for many of the reasons you cite (especially those in your “worst video game ever” post – again, great post!).
Regarding in-person tutoring, there’s more to it than just convenience. The more links any single piece of knowledge in your brain has to it, the more likely you are to remember it. (I suppose in that sense it works a bit like Google’s ranking, doesn’t it?) Reading a book only gives you one: seeing it on the page. Listening to a Pimsleur-style recording only has one: hearing it. But in-person tutoring has multiple impressions: you could write it out, you’ll surely hear it and see it said by your tutor, including body language, you can practice speaking it yourself with feedback from the tutor, etc. These multiple connections help get it in your head better than most other methods.
That said, I think you can make a pretty good approximation of in-person tutoring via video chat. Maybe you won’t be able to do the bisou (little cheek kisses) that French speakers do when they greet each other, but as there’s nothing like that in Japanese you should be safe.
I also wanted to point out that if you have a Mac and iChat, and your student does as well, it’s trivially easy to share the computer and get around the issue of not being able to easily show things. A short explanation is on Apple’s iChat page at http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/ichat.html, and a quick Google search will get you a lot more. Unfortunately, that surely won’t solve any problems if you don’t have a Mac, and even if you do it won’t solve all of them because surely many students don’t, but it’s one option that’s out there.
Good idea, I’ll certainly give iChat a try if the other party has a Mac. It’s too bad windows doesn’t come with something like that. They make billions of dollars and they can’t even ship a decent chatting app. Sad.
Nice site, I added it to my feed.
Hi,
Just found this site – and I’m in a bit of a hurry to leave (christmas dinner). If you are still looking for a student – I have an untraditional one. My daughter is 10 years old, but an excellent student. She has been asking for Japanese lessons since she was five. I know she is young, but I believe she can do it if it is structured so that it is conversational as opposed to learning tables of verbs etc. Besides, I’ve read that it’s best to learn a second language before the age of 11 so that the pronunciation is correct. We are in Colorado and I am willing to do it via Skype if you are interested.
Thanks 🙂
Interesting… Teaching a younger child presents all sorts of challenges I haven’t considered yet. I’m open to it but I don’t think I’m confident enough at this point to do it remotely. Why did your daughter become interested in Japanese from such a young age?
Tae K, here’s what you need to do. Go to all the local Seattle universities and find where the japanese classes are held. Sneak into the buildings when class is out and plaster paper ads everywhere. Here at OSU, the university frowns on this, but the local gaggle of private math tutors do it anyway, and it’s hard to find a classroom without one of their ads. Thing is, if the universities frown on it, you will need to keep putting the ads back up. Here at OSU, the math tutors have organized together so they take turns and every weekend one of them is out putting up paper ads. Of course, in this way you won’t be targeting self-learners, but you’ll be targeting college students taking Japanese who want extra help. I dunno how effective it would be, it seems like most students who would go to a private tutor, would just take Spanish or French instead. But it’s something to consider…
By the way, I notice this post was actually posted on the 10th of Dec. I just saw it in my reader today (Jan 4). Not sure whether you’re aware of any kind of feed trouble, but just thought I’d let you know.
have you thought of tutoring on edufire? You can use webcams to see each other and microphones to communicate.
Good luck finding students : )
And like Glowing Face Man said I only got this is my feed today (11th January) for some reason so I hope you don’t mind me commenting now.
First time visitor here.
I kinda want to defend Japanese classes a little. Sometimes it is good to go to class and be swept along with several other learners who are around the same level as you. I really believe that a significant part of speaking Japanese well is learning to listen well, so that we can speak appropriately. If it’s 80% listening, 20% talking, so long as most of the 80% listening is to other students talking then I don’t think it’s so bad. I got to 2kyuu from absolutely nothing this way!
Also, being in class with friends has the advantage of constantly giving fresh ideas on the Japanese you want to be able to use. If I want to talk about the economy with my friend… well, that week I start talking about it and learn words connected to the economy along the way. Just my 2¢!
As for screen sharing, I’m pretty sure that the new beta of Skype (for Mac) has a screen sharing function, so maybe the Windows app does too? It might be worth a try. Alternatively, why not try voice only whilst using an online whiteboard app together. I think that Imagination Cubed from General Electric might be what you’re looking for. Send an invitation to your collaborator by email and they can work on the same whiteboard as you in real time (or so I have been led to believe.) If you have one of those pen/mouse things then that might work quite well.
And I want to thank you for writing the Guide to Japanese, it’s a really great resource.
Japanese classes do serve a very important role which is effective dissemination of information to a larger group. This is basically the only option you have when with only one teacher and a large # of students. However, it is terrible for actual real-life practice.
Classmates can be an aid or a detriment depending on their attitude. Unfortunately, in college most of my classmates were mostly worried about what was on the test and how to get good grades. Not the best attitude for practicing and language expansion.
It’s a shame about your experience of classes and I can easily understand the frustration associated with them given, at best, ambivalent students.
Perhaps I should have been clearer. Real-life practice is a feature of my everyday life because I am living in Japan. My classes are more like a teacher-guided forum in which American, Korean and Chinese students have a chance to practice and learn at their own level, as opposed to – you make the point aptly in another post – floundering in a sea of language that they can’t understand. You are probably right that one-to-one is generally preferable if one doesn’t have opportunity for real-life practice (but one size doesn’t fit all.)
Anyway, I think we’re all singing from basically the same hymn sheet! Good luck finding students in Seattle.
Thanks, I did find a couple students in Seattle but I have so many online students, it’s already almost more than I can handle!