Are there any non-native japanese teachers here?

7 comments

1. I would argue that a skilled non native speaker is better then a native speaker for teaching others. Just a thought of mine.

2. I’m non-native, a US English native. I’ve tutored people (as a volunteer and paid tutor) since 2012. In my early days (when online tutoring platforms like iTalki were not around/so commonplace), I tutored lower level students at my uni and local middle/high schools.

   I think as a non-native tutor, I had a better grasp on what students struggled with and how to overcome it. I also knew of a lot of resources that native tutors did not.

   As the years have gone by, trained native tutors have become more accessible, and I’ve become more aware of my deficits. I still feel comfortable tutoring people on how to pass the JLPT (got n1 back in 2015) or work through specific textbooks (Genki, MnN, Tobira, Kanzen Master), but my confidence in tutoring in general (and speaking more specifically) has definitely dropped as I’ve learned more.

   With how common and cheap native tutors are, it’s hard for me to feel like it’s worth me marketing myself. I’m also a certified ESL teacher (Celta, taught in Japan as an ALT and in the US as a literacy tutor for a year each, plus have volunteered as an online ESL teacher for a while), and although I agree that some non-native teachers are “up to snuff,” I actually strongly disagree with the general consensus that non-natives are equivalent to natives and deserve equal pay. So me marketing myself as a Japanese tutor feels a bit deceitful.
   Idk I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so my experience will probably be different from most tutors, but I think I’m not near-native, why bother working with me when you could learn from someone who knows/uses the language more intuitively/skillfully?

   As an American, my students really struggled with SOV, mora, not stressing syllables/phrases like they do in English, the concept of dropping subjects, and causative/passive.

   ETA: I’ve worked and tested along a lot of non-native JP teachers who couldn’t even pass N2, much less N1, despite being high school level teachers with years of experience. My experience was that N1 was almost like the beginning of Japanese opening up to me. I personally don’t see how you could feel qualified to teach Japanese to people at the secondary level without attaining at least N1 — compared to real proficiency in the language, it’s a drop in the bucket.

   I’ve also tutored and worked/studied beside students who learned Japanese from non-native teachers, and in general, they had a lot of fossilized bad habits. So I don’t want to pass along those sorts of things. Imo it’s so sad for someone to study a foreign language for 4-6+ years and still be basically a beginner due to their bad teachers, so I don’t want to contribute to that.

3. I’m a non-native tutor and teacher. I tutor up to JLPT N3 and I teach high school. Our school teaches to around the JLPT N4 (AP exam). I also teach at a private language school.

   My struggle is that sometimes I don’t know all the answers.

   My high school students have developed bad habits from the textbook (using あなた and unnaturally stilted speech 私は生徒ではありません), which I try to correct in my level (Japanese 2).

   Some also get stuck up on something, like 何 being “what” but 何台(etc) being “how many.

4. I’m not a teacher but I’ve come across non-natives on Italki. I think in some cases they can actually be better than natives, but it depends.

5. I don’t have too much experience on either side of this, but the number of “Community Tutors” teaching English on iTalki who have elementary grammatical errors in their bios makes me suspicious.

6. I am a non-native teacher (professor) of Japanese at the college level. I have taught everything from first-semester all the way up to advanced classes for people coming back from study abroad.

   Obviously the biggest disadvantage of having me as a teacher is that I do not have native-level pronunciation, and I can’t guarantee that 100% of everything I say is completely natural (in fact, I can pretty much guarantee that it’s not).

   On the other hand, I have a lot of teaching experience, which gives me advantages over native speakers with little or no training. Native speaker “tutors” can model pronunciation and will be natural in what they say, but they sometimes can’t provide much help beyond that, particularly if asked to explain grammar or explain “what is the difference between these words”.

7. Non-native here, teaching in a Japan preparatory program in SEA. I started with the basics, N5-N3/N2, and recently got assigned to teach an advanced level N1 class.

   It’s been tough, no kidding—especially when diving into grammar rarely encountered outside Japanese academic research papers.

   Pronunciation has posed its own challenges. That’s why I grabbed an NHK Accent Dictionary and depend on Japanese native materials for listening.

   But on the plus side, it’s easier to explain grammartical points, particles, proverbs etc as I can relate and compare it to either Malay/English.

   Many of my students struggle with grammar. Kanji is by far the easiest and for vocabulary, memorisation is key. Those who struggle with memorisation would have a very hard time not just in Japanese, but other subjects like Chemistry and Physics.