Personal Description:

I am a student-researcher-educator currently in my 2nd year of a MA program in Curriculum Studies with a educational technology focus at University of Toronto (Canada) and am going to become a 1st year PhD student in the same program from September this year. I study second language education, inquiry-based learning, and online learning and also do educational software design. For my undergraduate studies, I earned a Honours BA in Psychology in a Canadian university.

I was born and raised in Japan until I left for Canada right after I finished high school; I am a native speaker of Japanese who had learned English from scratch. I know how hard it is to start a new language and continuously put a great amount of effort into it to achieve a professional level of fluency.

I am halfway through a 420 hours Japanese Language Education certificate course and plan to finish it up by the end of this summer. One of the reasons I offer online Japanese classes is that I believe from education literature and past studies that we best learn through authentic, hands-on learning--to me teaching Japanese to students here--and this is also how I approach to tutoring/teaching students who learn Japanese.

Tutoring Experience:

Prior to going to Canada (high school): Tutored two middle school students Japanese (as a national language) and English for 9 months

Undergrads: Part-time Japanese tutor in the Language Studies department of my university for 5 years; casual tutoring for three adult learners

After graduating from a BA: Employed as a full-time instructor of English and Japanese (as a national language) for grade 3-10 Japanese students living in Canada (1.5 years)

Now: Running online language learning communities using evidence-based pedagogy I study

Tutoring Approach:

I am against didactic teaching (i.e. teacher lecturing grammar and expressions based on textbooks, asking students to answer questions etc.); I rather follow student-centered, inquiry-based, community-based practices driven by students' natural curiosity towards what they try to learn (my theoretical position is in social constructivism). I believe that no single curriculum and assessments fit all language learners; therefore, teaching and learning need to be personalized. This could never be achieved by teachers pre-determining everything before students come to a classroom. Studies have shown that students who took inquiry-based learning approaches had better outcomes for literacy/language learning, and these approaches are currently best supported by education researchers.

My students and I share these mindsets:
--All ideas are improvable
--No ideas are finals
--We contribute to advancing our knowledge together as one community
--It's okay to make mistakes when you put your thoughts out; just remember to reflect on them (and discuss with the class) after you did it
--Anyone can contribute in their own ways
--Students take a lead when deciding what to learn, how to learn, and whether they learned

I tutor students individually ($52CAD/hour) and also teach a group class ($29CAD/hour; please contact for this option). The first session (for tutoring; 60 mins) and class (90 mins) are free. For Elementary Japanese course, oral discussions will be in English and written discussions will be in Japanese; for Intermediate Japanese course, all communication, reading, and writing will be in Japanese. Students may use a translator whenever necessary. Oral skill development is heavily focused for both courses but students will read and write extensively in Japanese.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
I am looking forward to hearing from you :)