Voytec Tutor Interview

Q. Hi Voytec! Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. May we ask you to briefly introduce yourself?: A. Well, I grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and when I was around 26 I fell in love with the Japanese language, and then became rather obsessed with Japan, haha. 3 years later I moved to Japan, living first in Kyoto and then spending 9 years in Sapporo.
Q. Please tell us more about your hometown and the area where you currently reside.: A. I grew up on Vancouver’s North Shore, with the mountains and forests behind me and with the sea before me. I had a lot of exposure to nature growing up, and also to other cultures, as Vancouver is a very multicultural city. I currently reside in Saitama prefecture, which, due to its flatness, results in me often getting lost when I drive as everywhere looks rather the same, haha.
Q. What motivated you to become a tutor on Cafetalk?: A. At the time I was planning to take a break from Japan and try living in Spain for a while, but I wanted to continue teaching Japanese students. Doing that online with Cafetalk was a perfect match.
Q. What are you usually up to when you're not teaching on Cafetalk? What are your hobbies and interests?: A. I'm a member of a hip-hop duo with my friend up in Sapporo. The songs are in English with me doing most of the Japanese rapping. Since I don’t live there anymore we have to write our songs a bit more slowly online. Also, I'm an avid runner and have been for the past 10 years. I'm currently in training for an upcoming half-marathon and my goal is to finish it in under 90 minutes.
Q. A lot of students are probably curious about the atmosphere in your lessons. What can a student imagine a lesson with you to be like? What’s your teaching style?: A. My lessons have a no-pressure, friendly and relaxed atmosphere. I create most of my own teaching materials and emphasize lessons which engage the student’s imagination while presenting them with challenges appropriate to their level. And there is always some laughter in my lessons, because learning should be fun, whether you succeed or make a mistake.
Q. Which lessons would you recommend to your students?: A. Video games are now an everyday part of our lives, and if used properly, can be geared towards language learning. There is a lot of functional language in a video game in which you have to get the hero from one place to another while accomplishing various tasks. For this reason, I recommend my English Arcade lesson for kids. For adults I highly recommend studying idioms, as they add a lot of character to your speech and help you understand movies and TV shows better. That “idiom education” can be found in my “Idioms!” lesson.
Q. Finally, would you like to leave a message for your current and future students?: A. I would like all students to trust the learning process, especially in terms of perseverance. In other words, use it or lose it. Also, expose yourself to English outside of the lesson as much as you can, as well, by reading or watching TV shows, YouTube videos, etc. And I would also like to thank my students, from the bottom of my heart, for choosing me for their English lessons.