Hello. Konnichiwa. Thank you for visiting my profile.

I am Ikuko. I'm a native Japanese speaker and a certified Japanese teacher. I speak Japanese with a standard Japanese accent.

When I was child, I lived in Thailand for 3 years. And when I was a high school student, I enjoyed homestay in the U.S.A.

Thanks to these experiences, I could have many happy opportunities to meet from various countries. They provided motivation for me to be a Japanese teacher.

I have a wide range of interests including cooking (especially Japanese dishes), watching sports (especially Sumo), reading (historical, non-fiction etc.), music (oldies, film music, classical music), travel and learning every culture around the world.

I am friendly, patient, encouraging and helpful.

Qualifications

・After graduation from university I have completed the Japanese Teacher Training course,420 hours (including a Japanese teaching course with English cross-cultural component in UK).

・Japanese Language Teaching Competency Test (passed in 2001).

Experience

I started to work as a certified Japanese language teacher in 1999.

First I've taught people who want to apply for entrance to university in Japan for more than 8 years.

And then I've taught various nationalities and experts, for example businessmen, engineers, lawyers, teachers, bank clerks, students, housewives. I have taught them on one-to-one basis and in groups and in classes. I also have taught intensive Japanese language courses.

I've taught Japanese to people who have various levels of Japanese knowledge and various learning aims.

I'm so glad that a lot of my students continue to take my lessons for a long time, for 3 years, 7 years, more than 10 years.

And many of my students have passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), and one of my students who started studying with no Japanese passed JLPT N1 (the top level), of course, he mostly must be praised for his effort. These increased my self-confidence in teaching Japanese.

Firstly I ask your aims. For example: to pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, to enter universities, to work in Japan, to talk fluently.

For learners who want to pass JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) from level N1 to N5, I make the worksheets which are suitable for them. I am very glad to have passers every time

For learners who want to master Japanese completely, I make lesson plans in detail and create useful lessons.

For learners who want to practicing conversation, I make a plan based on your desired topic.

For learners who want to check reports in Japanese, after having lessons, I ask them to send me their reports. I check them and explain the mistakes or introduce various expressions.

I have more than 50 textbooks (for example, minna no nihongo, genki, Japanese for busy people, nihongo namachuukei, 200 essential Japanese expressions, 500 essential Japanese expressions, nihongo sou matome, kanzen masutaa, Japanese language proficiency test(level 1 ～5) exercise etc... ) and various worksheets I made.

I also can explain Japanese grammars and vocabularies in English, if you want.

I use picture cards and character cards for learners who prefer to not have explanations in English.

After each lesson, I'll send you homework as a review if you want.

I'm always ready to help you with a fresh mind, a positive attitude and a smile.

Thank you so much for reading.