What? A free ticket to Japan? Think again.

Something that a lot of my readers don’t know is that, all students in all my classes have a chance to vie for the best result in JLPT, which will award them a return ticket to Japan and a free haircut at the salon which i always go to in Kobe. To tell you all the truth, i don’t earn much from teaching. On top on that, i feel there’s a need to reward the person who has put in effort to study Japanese. That’s why i rather fork out the money to pay for the person.

How many chances do we get to go to Japan? Maybe 1 or 2?

When i teach Japanese, although sometimes i may feel tired, most of the time, i enjoy teaching Japanese rather than doing my previous job.
Once your job becomes something that you like, it’s never a job nor a chore. =)

What purpose is there if a teacher teaches for money? Yes, i may need the money to survive, but at the same time, i don’t want my students to feel that i am taking their money for nothing. When the passion is there and students feel my passion that i really want to help them to improve, they never complain even if the fees go up.

I remember when i first started teaching as a volunteer in one of the polytechnics, i was teaching for free, as i wanted to help those that really want to learn, but didn’t have the financial capabilities to learn. But youngsters nowadays, as you all might know, are always youngsters. Free stuff are always taken for granted. There was an incident about 5 years back, where one of my students told me that he was down with fever and then i saw him and his girlfriend shopping on the same day. When i confronted him, he told me something like “Since the lesson is free, i don’t have any obligation to attend it if i don’t want to.”. 1 week later, he withdrew from the class.

That incident really struck me. Since that i started to charge, cos i felt that my precious efforts were taken for granted. Since then, slowly i increased from $0 to $5,  then to $10, then to $15, then $20-$25. That was also when i began to value more of the lessons that i took with my private teachers from Japan. Even though i am sick, i will take effort to attend.

Today, I got shocked when one of my students told me that people are searching for me on popular forums like Hardwarezone and Flowerpod.

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“anyone knows of this teacher teaching japanese on weekends at wilkie edge～, and quite a number of students learnt from him. anyone knows how to contact him and how’s the charges like? thanks.”
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My student replied the forumer with:
“Yes. I took the jap class frm him. He very good. Even go thru the extra mile to ensure I catch up with my classmate cos I’m consider the weakest student in my group. He arrange to give me every Thur extra 2hrs lesson in the morn near his Plc without paying extra.

U can pm me if u interested to have his number.  His understanding for Japanese is good. Plus he able to explain in english when we dun understand some of the grammar.

Been to Ikoma but did miss a lesson or two then completed lost. His sch fees are quite reasonable as compare to Ikoma. ”
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If you join my class just for the purpose of wanting to get that free air ticket, think again. Because before you pass that JLPT, i will humbly ask you to withdraw from the class.