Please introduce yourself briefly

Hello! I'm aya.
I am a native Japanese speaker and stay-at-home mom living in Sapporo, Japan with my husband and two daughters who are middle school age.
I sing professionally in a jazz big band. I can speak English and a little German.

What are the characteristics of your lessons?

"Informal tutoring", "Describing a picture" and " Reading an NHK news article" are very popular in my class.
Generally, I focus on correcting students' mistakes and providing more natural sounding expressions in Japanese by using the Skype chat box during the class while students are talking.

What do you value in your lessons?

I think the most important thing is to provide topics that students want to talk about as much as possible, and to build trust.
Most of the time I try to have a conversation with them to break the ice and create a more relaxed atmosphere before classes.
I aim for the class where students can say "It was fun! I want to talk more!" after the lesson.

What do you think is the key to improving Japanese?

To learn, at least one, grammar expression, a new word, and a phrase every day and output them in a daily conversation with native speakers is super effective as you can’t improve unless you talk. Also, I think it would be effective to speak about your current activity in Japanese by yourself when there is nobody to talk to.

What's your favorite thing to do?

In my free time, I love singing and learning English. I sing in a jazz big band called Mercer Hassy Orchestra. We will release a CD album this year and it will be aired on an FM radio station in the U. S.
About learning English, I learn English online several times a week.

What makes you happy in your lessons?

My students always make me happy. For example, I can hear stories about various topics from my students. I can say that I learn many things from them. I'm happy to see my students' satisfaction when they learn something new in my lesson.
I have many regular students who always book my class, and they always tell me about what's new in their lives, which is really fun. It's my pleasure when I receive a good report from them, such as they passed the JLPT or their job interviews, since we sometimes work on practicing for job interviews and the JLPT together.

What would you like to say to the students of JapaTalk?

No efforts No results
There is nothing useless in learning a language. You might not notice it, but I'm sure you are improving as you learn.
To continue getting better try to study every day, even just a little bit can help.
Also, please do not feel discouraged whenever you make mistakes. You must not be afraid to make mistakes. When we make mistakes, we need to learn from them. That’s how we become better. I hope that this will give you encouragement.

To end, a big thank you to all my students who always take my class. It has been so much fun and I'm always very happy to talk to you. It makes me feel very happy whenever I see my students improving their Japanese. Continue to practice every day. Thank you and I hope to see you in one of my classes soon!

aya-sensei's page