Why Learn Japanese?

Student: Can, i wanna study under you and pass JLPT. A lot of my friends say you teach very well and guarantee pass in JLPT.

My answer to him:
In my class, of course i teach you how to pass JLPT, because my mindset is the same as the examiners who set the questions.But ask yourself, what was your first purpose of studying Japanese? To pass JLPT? To understand the language? To know the meaning of the song that your favorite artist sings? What i feel is most important is to be able to speak. To be able to speak, you need a lot of courage. I hope through my lessons, i would be able to help you develop a passion for Japanese, not just understanding the language, but also through the language, understand more about the people, why are they like that.　I think most people would not think like me. (^_^)

When i was about to quit my 4k job as a Japanese IT helpdesk engineer, I asked myself would i be able to command such a high salary given a Diploma (i was given quite a high salary due to my speaking skills, i joined the company with no JLPT 2 certificate, the interviewer who was one of the senior directors in Japan was impressed that i could speak Keigo/ultra polite language of Japanese (usually even JLPT N1 cert holders have difficulty in Keigo) )? True, i do not now. But i feel to be able to share with my students about Japan and Japanese makes me happy and i am glad that i have made the choice. I guess for now, i will not go back into IT line but i hope i can be more of someone who is there to help Japanese learners and learn along with them. =)

Like what my student said about me…

Instill Passion instead of just transferring knowledge
Can believes in instilling passion for the language instead of purely teaching the technical aspects of the language. He introduces interesting areas and cultures of Japan which he saw and experienced on his trips there. He also introduces the Japanese songs and trends to instill the passion in the language.