Hi, everyone! I'm in a bit of a pickle here.
I'm teaching Japanese to a friend. I've taught languages before and am pretty fluent in Japanese, but I'm neither a native speaker, nor a Japanese teacher. He's my best friend, so I didn't mind trying it out. We've worked through the entirety of Genki I, but here's the problem: my student doesn't study.
He's a working adult with other responsibilities, and one of those kids that "just gets stuff quickly," so he was never the type to actually sit down and study. Which is fine for stuff he understands better, but what it means for Japanese is that he only really learns during the one hour a week lesson. His vocabulary is bad, and his kanji knowledge is, like, 5 kanji.
We've hit the point where we're doing the JLPT practice tests as a means to revise and revisit old grammar and vocabulary, but they're really demotivating him. He solves the grammar issues fine, but it's like he can't make heads nor tails of the texts in the reading, and his vocab is awful. It's really demotivating him, and he wants me to find him a way to improve before he gives up.
I already know he's not going to sit down and study out of class. That would be the best thing for him, but he won't do it. Does anyone have some good memorisation tools that he could use on his phone/ we could do in class? I don't want him to give up, but I know this isn't something he can get out of without SOME effort. Anyone got games/ websites/ apps they like to use to make studying less like school?
I'm trying my best, but I was the type to study hard, and I'm not good enough as a teacher to know what to do here.
by Kari-kateora
