Learning a new language can be a thrilling adventure, and for those diving into the captivating world of Japanese, mastering the scripts of Hiragana and Katakana is a crucial first step. We have help many of our beginner students to conquer these essential Japanese writing systems effectively. Before we delve into the teaching methodology, let’s emphasize the significance of Hiragana and Katakana. These two syllabaries are the building blocks of written Japanese. Hiragana is used for native Japanese words, verb conjugations, and grammatical elements, while Katakana is primarily used for foreign words, names, and borrowed terms. Mastering these scripts is crucial for effective communication, reading, and writing in Japanese.
Our Winning Approach
We have years of teaching experience and have built a reputation for our personalized and effective language teaching methods, especially when it comes to helping beginners grasp the complexities of Japanese scripts. Let see how our well-designed curriculum and unique teaching method can help you effectively learn Japanese.
We have three Japanese courses at the Beginner level, totalling 30 lessons (45 course hours plus 45 homework hours). Our students will be using a practical and well-designed coursebook called “Japanese for Busy People 1”. We based our curriculum on this book to design our training witha strong focus on fluency skills, as we often find students coming to us looking for Japanese speaking course, not just reading and writing. Our in-house materials, including grammar notes, activity handouts, digital flashcards, and online assessments, are designed to help our beginner learners, and are available for free.
As our Japanese Beginner graduate, you should be able to read and write Hiragana and Katakana well and speak Japanese with natural pronunciation. You should also acquire conversational skills to talk about basic daily life affairs, such as personal preferences, travel plans, shopping, and ordering in restaurants, among others.
We teach our Japanese beginner students to learn Hiragana and Katakana using a systematic and engaging approach which proved to be successful. The curriculum has been designed especially for beginner by our Japanese native linguistic experts and professional teachers. Let’s take a look on our well-designed curriculum to learn basic Japanese.
For our complete beginner level 1 course, you will learn to read 46 Hiragana smoothly, practise natural pronunciation in each lesson. Our topics in this course include greetings, introduction, numbers, shopping, travel plans and whereabouts.
After that, you will have a good Hiragana foundation and learn around 150 vocabularies. You can advance to Japanese Beginner 2 course. In this course, students will continue to practise Hiragana reading and writing, we will introduce 46 Katakana too. In each lesson, students will practise natural pronunciation and conversations about daily activities, going to restaurants, visiting local Japanese places, gifting and offering help etc.
After finishing beginner 2, you will have Hiragana and Katakana foundation and learn 300+ words vocabularies. You can progress to Japanese Beginner 3, you will continue to practise Hiragana and Katakana. Kanji will also be introduced. In each lesson, you will practise natural pronunciation and conversations about personal schedules, preference, desire, permission and a confident two minutes self introduction.
A successful formula and methodology
We have developed a unique and effective teaching method combines with engaging classroom activates and well-designed materials based on years of experiences in teaching Asian language.
We build vocabulary around learned characters, demonstrating their usage in context in each lesson. Gradually introduce reading exercises with short passages featuring Hiragana and Katakana. Employ spaced repetition to review characters regularly for retention.
To help to memorize, we make use of interactive tools like flashcards, matching games, and digital apps for engaging repetition. Incorporate writing practice with guided stroke order, progressing from tracing to independent writing.
We encourage the use of real-life materials, such as newspaper, TV news, online articles, drama and movies for your learning. Real like applications like reading signs and labels, connecting their use to practical situations.
It is good to incorporate different kind of activities in each class, catering to various learning styles through speaking, listening, writing, and reading exercises. After Japanese Beginner 1, Katakana will be introduced once students are comfortable with Hiragana, focusing on its role in foreign words and names.
At Dear Asia London, our school culture is to encourage a supportive environment, our students will be invited to join a group chat with their follow classmates and teacher where they can submit their homework, ask questions or just share some personal story. After the course, students will receive a graduation certificate to acknowledge your achievement and effort. We also love surprising our students with gifts! Teacher and students will usually go out to celebrate this milestone and progress, keeping our students motivated and share laughter like as a family.
