Since I started running my Japanese conversation group in 2014, people have been asking me how I originally got into the Japanese language and what took me to Japan in the first place.
Well, I was studying English Literature and Education at university and I was working in the summer holidays for English language camps. I knew that as soon as I graduated I would spend at a least a year abroad teaching English as a foreign language. In order to set myself up for that I signed up for an introductory TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course at my university.
The TEFL course teacher told us at the first class that she would spend the first 30 minutes teaching us in a language we didn’t understand. So we started the lesson in Japanese…By the end of the 30 minutes I could introduce myself and I could count to 10 in Japanese. I had also fallen in love with a language that I had never even considered before!
After that lesson I started to notice that my university had a lot of Japanese students and I saw signs for Japanese language lessons on notice-boards around campus. I was studying full time and working around lectures but still found Japanese lessons that ran in the evenings that I was available. Soon after starting my Japanese language course, a Japanese student, Tomomi, moved into the apartment next door to mine and we became friends. She was excited to help me with my homework, seeming surprised that someone would want to learn her language!
I started to look for Japanese language books in the library. I was a busy time with many of my degree course essays due. However, whenever I would take a break from my essays, I would pick up a book about Japanese culture. For example, this one. Before long I was picking up language books too and started learning hiragana and katakana using one of the very few library books that I could find on the subject. This was what I used right in the beginning.
It was a few months after that I found out about a careers presentation for the JET Programme (Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme). The JET Programme gives degree graduates the chance to work in Japan for a minimum of one year, up to a maximum of five years. With my interest in TEFL, I appeared to have found the perfect job for me!
The JET Programme offers two positions ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) and CIR (Coordinator for International Relations). I discovered that ALTs do not need any Japanese language ability and unlike CIRs, (who need to have a high level to enable them to do translation and interpretation work). Now I knew I could go to Japan and so I became even more driven to learn Japanese!
Next time I will tell you how learning Japanese changed the way I live my life!
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