Hello! Kon'nichi-wa!

Hello! Kon'nichi-wa!

My name is Hisami. I'm a native Japanese speaker and am teaching Japanese in Amsterdam.

Since I was a little girl, I've been interested in foreign cultures and always wanted to communicate with people living in different countries.

I was 25 years old when I started teaching English to Japanese children, and since then I've been working in the fields of teaching languages and cross-cultural understanding.

I passed the Japanese-Language Teaching Competency Test in 1992, and started my career as a Japanese language teacher at ECC in Umeda, Osaka.

Since I left Japan in 2004, I've lived and worked in several different countries, including the UK, the USA, Russia, Mexico, and Greece.

With this experience, over several years, I've developed a deep understanding and insight into Japanese culture, society, and people as a native Japanese.

At the beginning of 2015, I started my own small business of “Japanese Language and Culture Coaching/Consulting”. I offer people and organisations presentations, coaching, and consultation on how to do business with Japanese people, how to handle misunderstandings with Japanese people, as well as giving Japanese language courses.

Teaching language is a challenging job. I found myself lucky to have these students who have a sincere and strong desire to keep studying Japanese. With such students, the teacher's role is not “teaching”, but more showing the right direction of their study and correcting it when their course is wrong. All I need to do is support and encourage their motivation.

Qualification:

- Japanese-Language Teaching Competency Test (passed in 1992)

- Bachelor of Arts, International Relations, Ritusmeikan University, Kyoto, Japan

- Associate's Degree, English Language & Literature, Division of English and American Studies, Kanasai Gaidar College, Kansai Gaidar University, Osaka, Japan

Experience:

- Teaching Japanese for almost 20 years (8 years in Japan, 5 years in the Netherlands, 5 years in USA, 1 year in UK)

- Coaching Cross-cultural understanding

- Teaching English (to adults and children)

- Translating (JP/EN)

Recent Work/Projects:

July, 2016

Presentation on Japanese Society and Culture

Location: A Dutch beer company

June, 2016

Workshop on Japanese Culture and Language - The Two Faces of Japan

Location: Twente University in the Netherlands

September 2016 - Present

Japanese 2nd Year Class and 4th Year Class in Amsterdam Volksuniversiteit

January 2015 - Present

Japanese Language & Culture Coaching

Gateway Japanese Language & Cultural Consultancy

September 2015

Japanese 3rd Year Class in Amsterdam Volksuniversiteit

I usually introduce myself as a Japanese language (and culture) coach/consultant, not a teacher.

Because I think I cannot really “teach” language (or/and culture).

People can learn language with books. Nowadays many good self-study tools are available online.

They don’t need “teachers”.

However, they still need an adviser or coach who can tell them how to study, what their weaknesses are, and whether their studies are going to the right direction.

Please think about how you learn how to swim or how to play tennis or golf.

You can read a book on how to swim, but the book doesn’t make you swim.

You have to jump into the water and try. If you would like to swim better or faster, you need someone to tell you if you are doing rt

the right thing. Nevertheless, it is you who jumps into the water and swims. It is you who makes efforts to swim better and faster. And everything depends on whether you would like to do it or not.

Learning languages or culture is the same.

Even if you learn all the grammar with textbooks. It doesn’t make you speak or write Japanese very well.

More and more language teachers have started having the realisation that we should teach the students with the textbooks, instead of teaching the textbooks to the students.

Yours is the leading role of the lesson. I am the one who supports your study and encourages you so that you can keep going on.

I would like to offer the place to practice Japanese individually and to get feedback on your Japanese from me. I usually suggest my students that they should have their own goals or aims. As each of you have a different goal, it is absolutely fine that each of you learn with your own pace. There are no achievements tests or evaluation tests.

Please let me know what your goal is - what YOU would like to achieve.

Please share with me if you have something I should know about you in relation to your goal.

We will create the lesson together.