Junkoneko Tutor Interview

Junkoneko (inactive) Tutor Interview

Q. Hello Junko Sensei! Please introduce yourself.: A. Nice to meet you, I’m Junko Ukai. I love cats and kimonos. I used to have my own website, but now I focus mainly on social networking platforms.I teach Japanese 2 to 3 times a week at a training center and a regular classroom setting. When I’m not doing that, I’m teaching on Cafetalk.
Q. We heard that you’ve been teaching Japanese for over 20 years! What inspired you to start?: A. Once my children were grown, I decided to start learning English, and as I was purchasing the NHK Radio Course’s textbook, I noticed an advertisement for a distance learning course for Japanese teachers-in-training. I had always loved language arts, so it was very fun and interesting for me to teach non-native Japanese speakers and help people who couldn’t speak it at all gradually learn how to communicate. Wanting to go further than just teaching, I ended up going to graduate school to do research in Japanese linguistics.
Q. Please tell us about your hobbies. What do you do on your days off?: A. I love kimonos, so on my days off I like to put on a kimono and watch plays or travel. Of course I go to Nagoya often since it is nearby, but I also go to Kyoto/Osaka and Tokyo/Yokohama often. Several years ago, I practiced Noh dancing, but I don’t do it anymore now that I am under nursing care, though I still watch video lessons to keep from forgetting it. When I’m at home, I like to read books, play games, and play with my cat.
Q. What are your Japanese lessons like? Please tell us what makes them special.: A. I mainly teach beginner-intermediate level classes in which we learn sentence patterns and do grammar exercises with a textbook, but I also show videos to make different situations easy to understand. I also have lessons where we use videos from Youtube or other web sources so that students can study words and phrases that don’t appear in textbooks. I also provide song and puzzle lessons since i personally like songs and puzzles a lot. Recently, I started a new lesson for Japanese instructors seeking advice.
Q. What study methods do you recommend for Japanese learners?: A. The first thing would be thinking of an objective, any objective. For example, “I want to watch anime” or “I want to climb Mt. Fuji,” etc. The second thing is studying every day. It is especially important to study intensively when you’re just starting out. The third thing is keeping at it without giving up partway. There are many ways to study. You could simply memorize sentence patterns from a textbook, try your best to speak as much as you can with Japanese people, watch a lot of dramas, etc. However, what works for some people may not work for others, so it’s important to find the study methods that work for you as soon as possible. Last year I had a very passionate student whose objective was to “get married to a Japanese person!” I hope they work hard.
Q. In conclusion, is there anything you’d like to share with our students?: A. Cafetalk is not just a place for learning languages: it truly has a wide variety of talented teachers. It is just wonderful that you can learn things like languages, piano, and yoga from home. This way, you won’t have to worry about travel time or location, so all that’s left to do is to gather the determination to keep working hard and study what you haven’t gotten to yet. I too hope to stay and teach on Cafetalk for many years to come.