Written by a female client, who took "general course" for both daily life and business
When I first came to Japan, like many other foreigner students, I took a full-time course at a Japanese language institute. At the beginning, my Japanese improved very fast. However, when reviewing those lessons, I could not have that many opportunities to sit down with school teachers to resolve each of my questions. Instead, I chose to skip those questions that seemed not important and moved on with other classmates' pace. Finally, those little questions became a very big problem to my Japanese study. Because of a weak foundation, I could not make a sentence easily. Sometimes, I was disappointed that I could only express myself by very limited vocabularies.
At that time, I realized that to a foreigner who wants to stay in Japan for a longer period of time, having a solid language foundation is very important. Unfortunately, many of the Japanese language institute teachers only focus on helping students to pass the JLPT or to enter college. They are often hurrying up to feed students those grammar formula or vocabulary that may show in the exam question sheets. To me, I prefer a down to the earth way of teaching, so that I can improve the quality of my life here in Japan.
Through a British friend who has been teaching English in Japan for 7 years, I met Mr. Miyagawa. According to my observation, he has lots of experience in teaching Japanese. Moreover, he has passion to prepare different types of teaching materials for individual student. Because Mr. Miyagawa is also in charge of training the junior Japanese teacher to teach foreigners Japanese, he can make foreigners not so afraid of Japanese.
Thanks to Mr. Miyagawa, with his gentle way of teaching, my Japanese improves rapidly. Therefore, I can be part of the Japanese society. As for daily life in Japan, Mr. Miyagawa is not only my good teacher but also friend. He gives students a hand when he is in need. Through oral practice, he broadens my eyes to the history, custom, and social value of Japan. I am very lucky to have a chance to become his student.
If you also plan to stay in Japan for quite a while, please try to take some lesson from Mr. Miyagawa. I believe that you will enjoy your journey in studying Japanese with him.
Hi! My name is Hachiro Hiratsuka Jr., and I am originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil. I lived in Osaka in the year of 2008,
when I had the opportunity to have classes with Miyagawa Sensei.
Talking a little bit about myself, I have an undergraduate degree in Business Administration and a Master in Arts of Global Leadership.I study Japanese since the age of 4 when my parents enrolled me in a Japanese kindergarten in Brazil. I have been in Japan for almost 7 years in total, but most of this time I did not have the opportunity to interact as much as I wanted with the native and practice the conversation, due to the nature of my job.
Since I came back to Japan this time in 2007, I have worked as an English-Japanese translator in a Japanese company where I was the only person that was not originally from Japan. At that time I figured out I still had a lot to learn in the Japanese language.
Then, I started taking classes with Mr. Miyagawa.
In most of the classes, I prepared the classes contents that would consist mainly in words and expressions that I was not
familiar. Mr. Miyagawa would always find an explanation that would be very clear and I would be able not only to understand,but also to memorize the words. During this 1 year study, he kept track of my progress and always gave some reading suggestions,and would always teach different expressions which he believed would be helpful in my daily life.
An interesting fact is that his explanations are very broad, and I would be able to include these words as part of my vocabulary and I would not forget as time passes by. In other words, I believe that I had a satisfactory study period and a solid progress. Not to say that Miyagawa Sensei has a good sense of humor.
PS: A very important thing I haven't mentioned, since he has an extensive knowledge of the English Language, in some cases the explanation would become even easier to understand.