Hi! I am Sayoko. I am a native Japanese and a qualified Japanese teacher. I was born in Tokyo, so I can teach Japanese with a standard accent. I had lived in London, Boston and Sydney for almost 6 years so I can teach Japanese using English!! After the graduation of my university, I worked at one of the British banks for 6 years, then became a freelance translator. I had translated English children’s books into Japanese for almost 20 years. It was fun and I was glad my two daughters loved my books. While doing it, I started teaching Japanese to foreigners at home. Gradually, I came to like teaching Japanese much better than translating. I had always thought translating was a lonely job and I guess my outgoing personality matches teaching job. The best point of teaching Japanese is that I can learn the culture and value around the world from you students!!

I have BA in Japanese history. While I was at university, I took a middle and high school teaching license in Japanese language through teaching-training course. After graduation I have also completed all requirements of Japanese Teacher training course of 420 hours.

Offline teaching experience: 6

Online teaching experience: 4

I have been teaching Japanese privately at home since I firstly taught Japanese to my German friend in 2015. Since then I have taught Japanese from kids to adults, from a beginner level to an advanced level. I am a passionate and friendly teacher and always have built a good relationship with students. I love to interact with students and see their process of learning. All students say that they feel confident and encouraged to speak freely after my lessons. The purpose of learning Japanese differs from one person to another. Some people study it in order to pass JLPT to work in Japan, but some people want to learn it just for fun. Recently so many people want to learn Japanese because they like Japanese pop culture, for example, Manga, Anime, J pop and Karaoke. Some of these people are strongly motivated to learn Japanese characters (hiragana, katakana, kanji).　I have encouraged them to learn these characters by using flashcards, charts and PDF. They say they enjoyed studying them by my method! I would ask you a lot of questions before starting a lesson because everyone has a different goal and motivation. I would customize the lesson for you as best as possible !