English

Early June to mid August 2020 (approximately 10 weeks, 2 hour classes, 3 days a week)

A few weeks after my Japanese Language School in Sapporo suspended classes due to the bug that's going around, I searched on line for a private teacher who I could actually go and have classes with. I did not fancy on line classes.

The first meeting was a free trial lesson in which we settled on using the same book that I had been using at the school. Sakashita-san appeared to have all the best-known and commonly used series of textbooks in his bookcase,  so he would have been able to adapt to whichever course I chose.  

Second time around and with one-to-one tutoring,  I quickly grasped many of the points that had been something of a blur in my small group classes.  

Sakashita-san knew how to negotiate his way through my Minna-no-nihongo textbook, as he took me through vocab, grammar structures and exercises in a logical and effective order that I wouldn't have been able to do on my own. I got plenty of speaking and listening practice during the lessons, as well as reading and writing practice from my homework. 

The accompanying Translation & Grammar Notes book, which was referred to but whose existence was barely pointed out to me in my group classes, proved to be essential for me to understand the material presented. The moment I acquired this book, on Sakashita-san's advice, from a local bookshop, I began to understand a lot more. 

Sakashita-san was always very kind and accommodating and his goal was always to get me, the student, to understand the material at hand, which he generally did. 

I would recommend Sakashita-san to anyone wanting to learn or improve their Japanese, whatever their level. 

He holds his classes, at extremely favourable rates, in his small study in his apartment, no more than 5 mins walk from the North Exit of Sapporo Train Station. 

He wanted me to include any negative points, but for me there are none. 

Observations:

His small study will not realistically accommodate more than 2 students at a time. I found it perfect for one-to-one. He does not do lots of preparation for classes (in my view, he does not need to as he knows the various coursebook methodologies very well, and is good at coming up with examples and explanations spontaneously). He didn't actively give me lots of homework .. I asked him for it and he obliged.

These are of course not negative points, but he wanted me to try and include some. The fact that this is the closest I can come up with is a testament to how satisfied I was with the quality of his classes. 

Thank you, Sakashita-san.