Hello, my name is Makiko Obata and I'm an experienced native Japanese language tutor currently living in Japan. I have been teaching Japanese online since 2014. I am currently offering a discounted initial trial lesson at 70% off my normal lesson price for new students.
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Latest Reviews
08 Sep 2020
melaniegrace91
Makiko sensei is always patient and kind, she is really helping me improve the amount I can speak by focusing on creating verbs, then making sentences with those verbs, and building up my grammar. We have decided to up the amount of lessons I have per week to increase my general input and output! She is an excellent teacher!
31 Aug 2020
melaniegrace91
Makiko sensei took me through my homework and helped me with my mistakes and explained why if I messed up a grammar point. We then worked on new verbs and sentence structures to build upon previous knowledge. We also started working on some new grammatical structures.
25 Aug 2020
RD L
Learning new grammer at a good pace. Along with lots of vocab.
25 Aug 2020
melaniegrace91
Makiko Sensei plans a really detailed lesson to help me build on the vocabulary and grammar that I already know while also helping me to learn new vocabulary and grammar. We are focusing on verbs these days which are so important for being able to speak fluently. She's really helping me to see where my weaknesses are and is helping me to improve my fluency.
17 Aug 2020
melaniegrace91
Makiko sensei's lessons are really fun and exciting! She does a lot to help me learn the verbs as well as continue working the grammatical structures I am already familiar with. She helps me to expand my knowledge by using what know as a jumpstart. It's a great and helpful lesson!
10 Aug 2020
melaniegrace91
Makiko Sensei was great! She asked me a lot of questions and got to know my level of speaking really well. I take lessons with another teacher, so she assessed how she could best help me and fill in the gaps. Her lesson was really informative and fun! She also gave me some documents to help me study efficiently and she assigned simple homework. She was very kind and thoughtful during the lesson and helped me when I couldn't make a sentence. She didn't beat around the bush when I made a mistake, either, she was very direct and told me when and why I was incorrect and how to make the sentence correct. I really like that she asked me "why?" whenever I made a sentence correction, so that I could better understand the grammar.
My name is Makiko who is a friendly native Japanese speaker. I was born and raised in Nagoya, Japan. I also have lived in Hokkaido for 4 years and currently I live in Canada.
If I describe myself in three words, I would like to say I am a friendly, patient, passionate person. My students gave me feedback as I am very patient and friendly. I described myself as a passionate person because I always do my best in work and private life. I am passionate about teaching too!
I like to learn about different cultures and share Japanese culture with my students.
In my free time I like to snowshoeing, kayaking. I also enjoy cooking and baking too.
Qualifications & Experience
I have been involved in teaching and education for almost 12 years. I studied Japanese language teaching “how to teach Japanese language to non-Japanese native speakers“ for 2 years in Japan.
Since then I have been teaching Japanese language for more than 9 years. I have wide experience teaching ages from school age kids to retire people.
Teaching Approach
My lessons for adult students range from those who have never studied Japanese before, to those who are intermediate level students. I am offering lessons in Hiragana, Kanji and also Romanized characters, depending on the interest and level of students.
As with any effective language learning program, I use some basic, positive learning principles: I focus on real conversations, and encourage high student talking time, which is conducive to speech development and increased confidence.
I am aiming to make an atmosphere where students can talk easily and freely in lessons, and I have received favorable comment from my students about it.
In my lessons, I teach polite Japanese as well as street Japanese.
General conversation / Listening and Speaking / Reading / Writing / Grammar / Travel Japanese / Exam Preparation Skill
Examples of textbook that I have been using are
Genki I & II / Japanese for busy people I & II & III / Minna no nihongo I & II / Intermediate Japanese / Nihogo Break through / Nihongo through newspaper articles / Nihongo koredake and more
*I usually use textbooks that I recommend or that students request. Depending on students' levels and goals I use some materials from websites, books et cetera. which suit their levels along side a textbook. Also, with some students I use only materials from websites, books et cetera. If you have requests, please let me know in your trail lesson.
Support
1. Homework
If students have time to study extra Japanese I give them homework each week. They can hand in it before the next scheduled lesson and I do correction and return it to them. Of course, I will give an explanation if there is a mistake.Homework supports the quicker improvement of my student's Japanese learning.
2. Flash cards
Studying takes time and needs effort, and every students is trying their best to achieve their goal. I hope all my students study Japanese language efficiently and reach their goal. I support my student sharing flash cards and quiz of new vocabulary that they studied in the lesson.
08 Sep 2020