Hello! How are you? Yes, you! I would like to get to know you!

Where are you from? What hobbies do you have? What is your favourite flavour of ice cream? 😉

What is your challenge with Japanese? What are your struggles? Your frustration?

How can I help?

I have been trying something that I hope will assist you. I have been running an Online Conversation Club for a couple of months and we have had as many as 7 people attending. I have been organising these sessions at different times of the day to try and help people gain access to Japanese speaking practice in all the different time zones.

You may be wondering why I chose the times that I have. Well, this is my hobby and I work in an office full-time. So, I need to fit the conversation club calls around my job. Here is what I have managed so far:

Organising these online conversation clubs to start at 8 am (UTC +1 = my time), allows me to get up early, shower and eat before I meet online. It is before work which starts at 9:30am. I believe that this helps people ahead of my time zone, and people in Japan, Israel and the Philippines have joined these calls.

Organising conversation club at 1:15 pm (my time) allows me to meet online during my hour-long lunch break. Today was one example and I spoke with two native Japanese teachers. One of my Instagram followers from Vietnam tried to join but had issues with slow internet, but they promised to try again next time :-). This time also appears to help friends in Indonesia and Japan.

Meeting up at 6pm (my time) means I get home from work and log on to chat with everyone. This time has worked well for friends in the UK and Europe. I also have Japanese friends based in the UK coming to this one.

Organising calls at 8pm (my time) is the evening chill out time and I catch a lot of my UK friends who want to practice their Japanese as well as some friends in the US.

So which time works best for you?

I usually have a Japanese teacher online with me (it was two native speakers today) so you have opportunities to speak with a native speaker, not just me 😉

I will also be recording the calls so that attendees have the chance to listen again and pick up the vocabulary that they missed.

This is a short blog post today, but it is also a question. When will you join me online?

Here is the Nihongo Connection Page where I post the Conversation Club information.