how to teach a language (Japanese)

**Tony Pham** · Dec 11th, 2011, 11:07 PM

I've tutored people. I've had a well established language school contact me (for minimum wage...) Both of these have incredibly low speed limits; one of the major reasons is just how locked to my time I would be. I'm currently working on a lesson plan that will not only give immediate ability in the language but also give the tools and encouragement needed to learn what I can't teach myself. My only problem is how to market that lesson plan. Do I write a book? Do I make a website? How do I present my product without me actually being there? What do you guys think?

My reasoning for this idea in the first place:
If you go to your local retailer, you should be able to see entire sections dedicated to Japanese animation, comics and other related items. I don't doubt that there is strong potential for Fastlane success somewhere in that market. I've seen and met a lot of people that say

"Japanese is too difficult to learn."
"There aren't good books out there."
"Rosetta Stone doesn't help."
"I wish I had a good teacher."
"I've only learned to memorize set phrases."

I've found that there are only 3 types of people who can become fluent: they live in Japan, are overachieving or are very highly motivated.

I was very motivated to learn Japanese, but I also had a good teacher to start me off. Afterwards, I had to find books that had the information I wanted. However, the presentation would not have taught me had I not already know what I was doing. I've never seen any method that is the quintessential guide to Japanese. After all, I don't think it was difficult at all.

The problem is in the methods and accessibility. Native speakers are the WORST to learn from. The content of the currently two established textbook lines are confusing and disorganized. Books in the stores regularly get rotated off the shelf because they are just as bad. Rosetta Stone introduced an innovatively bad way of teaching languages. Finally, the gurus themselves, as a function of being able to learn and speak Japanese, they are unable to present a coherent way to teach the language or encourage further self-learning.

**FionaS** · Dec 12th, 2011, 12:37 AM

There are lots of ways you could go with this. In language learning, online is becoming more and more popular. I like online, because a) dynamic, b) incorporates all learning styles (chat with a 'coach', write to native speakers, read, worksheets, etc), and c) immersible (you can easily immerse yourself with online literature for virtually nothing).

Native speakers are good for learning pronunciation, that's it, unless they've had specific language education. So, what I did (on my now defunct site) is have native speakers read out loud and record it, or just have general conversations with learners online. If you pay them, you'll have control over the quality, chose who you want and since you learned yourself, you can look at them from a learners point of view.

A great example of this is linq.com, it'd be beneficial for you to look at that site, they'd be popular competition.

**Tony Pham** · Dec 12th, 2011, 01:26 AM

Thanks for replying, Fiona! A website would provide indeed provide very broad sensory input for a learner. Unfortunately, I'm not very savvy as to how that would translate to a business profit. That alone is stopping me from committing to teaching myself programming (for which I don't know where to start either). I was thinking that I could use the site as an area to also advertise my book. Otherwise, I don't want to be dependent on ads as I feel that would take away from the atmosphere and be an unreliable source of income.

Also, about having native speakers provide their voices, would there be a royalty per (some form of profit) or is it a one-off? Or is that negotiable?

By the way, typing in linq.com leads a textiles website. Perhaps they've gone down since you last saw them?

**FionaS** · Dec 12th, 2011, 09:46 AM

Sorry, typo: Learning Languages Online : Learn French Online : Learn Japanese Online : Linguist Institute, Inc..

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/ is another example of monetizing a language site, this time through his products and programs.

You can look at several different ways to make an income off of the websites - obviously, if you want to use it to sell your book, that's one method. There's also the monthly membership idea - a 'premium' membership, for example, for which people get further features.

As far as native speakers go, that's totally negotiable. Probably depends on the individual - many would probably be happy with a one-off fee, others would want a royalty.

Either way, you definitely need to do your research to figure out if this could translate into a viable business for you. Lots of different things factor into that.