How to start a Japanese Conversation Club

by | Nov 13, 2017 | Immersion, Strategy

You can also start your own Japanese Conversation Club!

I have had a few people ask me how my Japanese Conversation Club began. In this video, I explain the steps to take to start a group for yourself.

  1. Find a few friends of a similar Japanese level who also want to increase their Japanese fluency.
  2. Find a suitable time and location (cafe’s work well or a casual restaurant would enable you to eat dinner if meeting in the early evening).
  3. Be strict about speaking only in Japanese when together.
  4. Invite a Japanese friend along and ask everyone to contribute some money to pay for their drinks (and food if at a restaurant) as a thank you for their time (this also keeps you in Japanese language mode – you want to avoid a “language exchange” situation as that will end up with you cheating and using more English than Japanese).
  5. Play games as well as chatting in Japanese. Having a conversation can put a lot of pressure on you and your volunteer in the beginning. Play a few easy games using pictures, numbers, repetition, anything to make the language use flow more easily.
  6. Publicise your group! If you tell people, they will come! Look for established groups and suggest the event to them. Check out Meetup, local Facebook groups.
  7. Create an event on Eventbrite, make a Facebook event.
  8. If you are new to the area, sign up for Japanese lessons and meet other learners. Tell your teacher what you want to do and ask them if they might be available. (Even ask them if they have a Japanese friend who might like to join you).
  9. Once you have a few people in your group you can set up a Facebook group or Meetup group of your own and develop things from there…
  10. Taking the conversation club online? That is a whole other story for another blog post 😉

Let me know how you get on with starting your group.

Jessica Brown

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