The Japan Times reports that London magazine Monocle named Fukuoka as the best city in the world for shopping! Reasons include the compactness of the central shopping district, the big selection of brand names, and the closeness to Asia.
Fukuoka was also chosen as the city with the 17th highest quality of life in the world – and only the second city in Japan, after Tokyo! Cities were ranked on a variety of factors, including friendliness, safeness, cleanliness, transport and more. Fukuoka is on this list for the first time, perhaps showing how much its profile has grown in recent years. As if you needed another reason to come here!
The original article is for Monocle subscribers only, unfortunately, but if you happen to be one of those, click here to read Fukuoka’s entry!
Alternatively, the article seems to be available as a PDF here, although perhaps not for long...
A couple of choice quotes:
“Friendly, cosmopolitan Fukuoka is tiny in comparison to Tokyo, but it beats the Japanese capital hands down with its cuisine and shopping.”
“these days it’s all about Fukuoka”
It's nice to hear that everyone else is finally catching up with what we knew years ago!
Fukuoka was also chosen as the city with the 17th highest quality of life in the world – and only the second city in Japan, after Tokyo! Cities were ranked on a variety of factors, including friendliness, safeness, cleanliness, transport and more. Fukuoka is on this list for the first time, perhaps showing how much its profile has grown in recent years. As if you needed another reason to come here!
The original article is for Monocle subscribers only, unfortunately, but if you happen to be one of those, click here to read Fukuoka’s entry!
Alternatively, the article seems to be available as a PDF here, although perhaps not for long...
A couple of choice quotes:
“Friendly, cosmopolitan Fukuoka is tiny in comparison to Tokyo, but it beats the Japanese capital hands down with its cuisine and shopping.”
“these days it’s all about Fukuoka”
It's nice to hear that everyone else is finally catching up with what we knew years ago!
The busy summer season means that this blog doesn't get updated nearly as often as we would like, but much has changed in the last month or so that we would like tell you about. For today, though, we wanted to mention one recent thing that we are very proud of.
We receive students from several agencies, including Languagecourse.net, which is based in Barcelona. They ask returning students to provide feedback on the school they studied at. Throughout the last year, GenkiJACS received an average customer satisfaction rating of 4.7 out of 5!
In Languagecourse.net’s own words:
"Only the very best schools receive the Excellence Award ... to certify that superior customer satisfaction has been acknowledged by LanguageCourse.Net. The feedback of your clients showed that your school did excellent work in providing satisfied customers throughout the last year. Overall rating: 4.7 (out of 5.0)"
Here's the actual document:
We receive students from several agencies, including Languagecourse.net, which is based in Barcelona. They ask returning students to provide feedback on the school they studied at. Throughout the last year, GenkiJACS received an average customer satisfaction rating of 4.7 out of 5!
In Languagecourse.net’s own words:
"Only the very best schools receive the Excellence Award ... to certify that superior customer satisfaction has been acknowledged by LanguageCourse.Net. The feedback of your clients showed that your school did excellent work in providing satisfied customers throughout the last year. Overall rating: 4.7 (out of 5.0)"
Here's the actual document:
21/05: New website chat feature!
If you visit our main site, you may notice a little black bar in the bottom-left-hand corner. This is a chat box, and if it says "Click to talk to GenkiJACS rep!", you're just one click away from us! We can't promise to be online 24 hours a day, but when we are, we're happy to answer your questions straight away. And you're almost completely anonymous - no login is required, and the only identifying information sent to us is your IP address.
The service is provided by Hab.la, and is theoretically platform-independent. However, if you have any problems using it, please do drop us a line!
Unfortunately, at first only sales and marketing reps will be available to talk to you - no Japanese teachers on hand to answer your grammar questions instantaneously just yet, I'm afraid...
In our never-ending quest to improve our students' Japanese, we've linked up with Japan Online School (J-OS), a Japanese school offering webcam lessons over the Internet, to offer a special discount to GenkiJACS students who sign up with them.
First, the problem:
Many students tell us that they don’t have a chance to practice their Japanese after returning to their home countries. Without practice, you WILL forget what you studied, but if there is no Japanese community in your home area, keeping up your conversation practice can be very difficult.
This is where an online school like J-OS can come in very useful. Trained teachers and private lessons ensure that you don’t forget the Japanese you learned at GenkiJACS!
After considering all of the major online schools, we chose J-OS because of the good structure of their lessons, the quality of their teachers, and the simplicity of their system.
Now, the package:
Standard private lessons are roughly 1,900 yen for 50 minutes. However, GenkiJACS and J-OS have teamed up to offer a special deal for graduating GenkiJACS students:
1) Free trial lesson (normally 980-1280 yen)
2) 1 extra lesson free when you first buy lessons (so, for example, 5 lessons for the price of 4)
There is no extra cost to students for this - GenkiJACS pays for your trial lesson by cutting costs elsewhere. We took this step because we don't want students forgetting the Japanese they spent time and money learning, and the only way to keep it up is regular practice!
This deal is only open to graduating GenkiJACS students. If you are a GenkiJACS student who graduated between January 1st, 2008 and now, you are also eligible. Contact us for details!
12/02: Student Safety Policies
In general, Japan is a very safe country. However, it’s still important to use common sense and take safety measures, especially for female students traveling alone. Recently, a GenkiJACS student was touched inappropriately while walking home alone in the evening. As a result, we have brought in a few new policies:
- All female students are provided with a free personal alarm, that emits a loud noise when its button is pressed. Students are asked to carry this at all times.
- The cost of cellphone rentals has been cut from 1000 yen per week to 500 yen per week. This is to make it easier for all students to rent a cellphone, so that they have an emergency contact method.
- Host families are being instructed on ways to keep their students safe, such as picking them up from the station in the evening, and teaching them the best roads to walk.
- We talk to students at orientation on the first day, to provide some tips on staying safe in Japan.
Hopefully these will help to make sure Japan's crime rate continues to be among the lowest in the world!
- All female students are provided with a free personal alarm, that emits a loud noise when its button is pressed. Students are asked to carry this at all times.
- The cost of cellphone rentals has been cut from 1000 yen per week to 500 yen per week. This is to make it easier for all students to rent a cellphone, so that they have an emergency contact method.
- Host families are being instructed on ways to keep their students safe, such as picking them up from the station in the evening, and teaching them the best roads to walk.
- We talk to students at orientation on the first day, to provide some tips on staying safe in Japan.
Hopefully these will help to make sure Japan's crime rate continues to be among the lowest in the world!
03/02: Spanish language website!
Today we added a few pages about the Japanese school in Spanish, to make it a little easier for Spanish-speakers to find information about study with us. Former student Paula, thank you so much for the help!
Access them here!
Access them here!
There are some big changes planned for GenkiJACS Japanese language courses in the coming months, but the first step has been put into operation. Effective immediately, our Japanese for Exams course has been demoted from a full course down to a weekly option, that is taken in addition to another standard course. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough students year-round to justify keeping it as a full course.
The Japanese for Exams course is now available each year only between October and November, i.e. the two months before the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
The new Exam Skills option is offered year-round, as follows:
Every week, your teacher gives you homework, including past papers from the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). Each Friday, you meet with the teacher for an hour to discuss any problems with the homework, and how to improve your weak points. The teacher acts as a “tutor”, guiding your studies. Classes are available corresponding to JLPT levels 2, 3 and 4.
Course Outline
Friday (for new students, Monday): Receive that week’s homework
Wednesday: Receive the homework answer paper
Thursday: Hand in your corrected homework, for your teacher to evaluate
Friday (around 3pm): Exam Skills class!
Cost
2,100 yen per week
You can sign up when applying to the school, or after arrival by talking to our office staff. The new option will give you a lot of practice in the skills you need to pass Japanese exams, while complementing your studies in other classes. It’s obviously recommended for anyone thinking of taking the JLPT or other exams. However, we also recommend it for any students who want to increase the amount of kanji and vocabulary they study each week.
The Japanese for Exams course is now available each year only between October and November, i.e. the two months before the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
The new Exam Skills option is offered year-round, as follows:
Every week, your teacher gives you homework, including past papers from the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). Each Friday, you meet with the teacher for an hour to discuss any problems with the homework, and how to improve your weak points. The teacher acts as a “tutor”, guiding your studies. Classes are available corresponding to JLPT levels 2, 3 and 4.
Course Outline
Friday (for new students, Monday): Receive that week’s homework
Wednesday: Receive the homework answer paper
Thursday: Hand in your corrected homework, for your teacher to evaluate
Friday (around 3pm): Exam Skills class!
Cost
2,100 yen per week
You can sign up when applying to the school, or after arrival by talking to our office staff. The new option will give you a lot of practice in the skills you need to pass Japanese exams, while complementing your studies in other classes. It’s obviously recommended for anyone thinking of taking the JLPT or other exams. However, we also recommend it for any students who want to increase the amount of kanji and vocabulary they study each week.
06/11: New teachers!
Summer is long gone, but we finally got round to updating our teacher information page, taking off the teachers who unfortunately left us, and putting on all the new people we have been fortunate enough to find.
First, the leavers:
Akiko-sensei was accepted to a position with JICA, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, to teach Japanese in high school in Tonga for two years! If you have a message for her, we'll be happy to pass it along!
Etsuko-sensei moved to Tokyo for work, and to take care of her parents.
Next, the new arrivals:
Natsuko-san is our highly capable office assistant, and also a fully-qualified Japanese teacher to boot! She's in charge of student events, and arranging private apartment accommodation.
Yuuji-sensei was the first male teacher we hired, and is still the youngest, but after seeing a few of his classes, most of the other teachers have stopped bullying him now!
Tetsuya-sensei speaks great Korean, and has a lot of experience from teaching at other schools, as well as a quick wit, so he's quickly built up a tough reputation.
Chihomi-sensei is new to the school, but has already become like a mother to a lot of us - she has a great ear for listening, and a barrelful of ideas in the classroom too!
Junko-sensei put in the most class hours of all teachers this summer, but never once even looked tired, despite also spicing up Friday night parties almost every week!
Takako-sensei is surprisingly small, but makes up for it by working twice as hard.
Machiko-sensei has taught Japanese both within Japan and overseas, as well as training teachers, so has a wealth of experience. In addition, she's like a walking grammar dictionary!
Click here to visit the Teacher Intro page!
First, the leavers:
Akiko-sensei was accepted to a position with JICA, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, to teach Japanese in high school in Tonga for two years! If you have a message for her, we'll be happy to pass it along!
Etsuko-sensei moved to Tokyo for work, and to take care of her parents.
Next, the new arrivals:
Natsuko-san is our highly capable office assistant, and also a fully-qualified Japanese teacher to boot! She's in charge of student events, and arranging private apartment accommodation.
Yuuji-sensei was the first male teacher we hired, and is still the youngest, but after seeing a few of his classes, most of the other teachers have stopped bullying him now!
Tetsuya-sensei speaks great Korean, and has a lot of experience from teaching at other schools, as well as a quick wit, so he's quickly built up a tough reputation.
Chihomi-sensei is new to the school, but has already become like a mother to a lot of us - she has a great ear for listening, and a barrelful of ideas in the classroom too!
Junko-sensei put in the most class hours of all teachers this summer, but never once even looked tired, despite also spicing up Friday night parties almost every week!
Takako-sensei is surprisingly small, but makes up for it by working twice as hard.
Machiko-sensei has taught Japanese both within Japan and overseas, as well as training teachers, so has a wealth of experience. In addition, she's like a walking grammar dictionary!
Click here to visit the Teacher Intro page!
We are proud to announce that as of September 3, 2007, Genki Japanese and Culture School is a registered Non-Profit Organization (NPO)! This has been a goal of ours for some time now, so we are very excited to finally have realized that goal.
There won't be too many big changes in the programs we provide, or the way we provide them. However, becoming an NPO will enable us to put all the revenue generated by the school back into improving and expanding our programs. It also allows you the customer to be a little more certain that we're not just some money-grubbing fly-by-night school out to do a runner with your hard-earned cash (sorry, non-NPO Japanese schools!), but rather an institution focused on education, not profit.
Being an NPO will also enable us to expand our ties with local and national government, which helps us to provide more opportunities and better services for our students. We can expand the range and number of our homestay families, offer a wider variety of employment opportunities to students after they finish their study with us, and use some government facilities for large meetings, events, etc.
In addition, we plan to increase and formalize a program of volunteer and charity work, involving students as well as the local community. We have always given a portion of our profits to UNICEF, but our NPO status makes it easier for us to take direct action too. (We will of course continue to donate money to charity.) For example, students will be able to join beach and town clean-ups, collect money for charities (a great chance to use your Japanese skills for a good cause!), and more.
We'd like to thank our accountant, Mr. Haraguchi, who made what is normally a very onerous application process go very smoothly indeed. And we'd also like to thank the Fukuoka Prefecture NPO Center for their help in processing the application quickly. Our information will most likely be added to their site very shortly. For now, the only way we can seem to access it is by going to this page, then clicking the first checkbox (認証済, ninshouzumi, "certification complete"), entering "GenkiJACS" into the first text field, and clicking the button at the bottom of the page.
UPDATE: Comments on the site seem to have gone squiffy, but a visitor tried to leave a comment asking for our NPO registration number. It is: 2900-05-004532.
23/05: No more summer applications!
Short-term study abroad is a very seasonal business: the majority of our students tend to come in summer, when their universities and schools are on vacation. Unfortunately, this year we have reached our capacity for part of the summer, and have to restrict new applications. The restrictions are as follows:
July 9th to July 20th: no new applications being accepted. Unfortunately, we cannot even accept people wishing to start their study before this date and finish after (for example, July 2nd till 27th), as the school is completely full for these two weeks.
June to August 17th: no more homestays available. Students must choose a different accommodation option (shared apartment, private apartment or dormitory). Students under 18 (who are required to stay with a host family) can contact us directly to confirm, but in most cases we will not be able to accept you.
Please note that these restrictions only apply to new applications! If you have already been accepted by us, and received a final tuition invoice, your place is secure.
We really don't like to turn away students, especially those who had their hearts set on studying with us, but unfortunately we just don't have the capacity to deal with the rush of students this summer. Next year, we recommend applying early to guarantee yourself a place! In addition, applying for study outside of the summer months (e.g., in June or from the end of August) generally means you will have smaller classes and more attention from the teacher.
We are currently evaluating our options, and intend to expand the size of the school (both classrooms and teachers) before summer next year, so we will be able to accept a larger number of students then.
Finally, if requested, we will be happy to recommend other Japanese language schools for you to apply to, that may be able to accept you even at a late date.
July 9th to July 20th: no new applications being accepted. Unfortunately, we cannot even accept people wishing to start their study before this date and finish after (for example, July 2nd till 27th), as the school is completely full for these two weeks.
June to August 17th: no more homestays available. Students must choose a different accommodation option (shared apartment, private apartment or dormitory). Students under 18 (who are required to stay with a host family) can contact us directly to confirm, but in most cases we will not be able to accept you.
Please note that these restrictions only apply to new applications! If you have already been accepted by us, and received a final tuition invoice, your place is secure.
We really don't like to turn away students, especially those who had their hearts set on studying with us, but unfortunately we just don't have the capacity to deal with the rush of students this summer. Next year, we recommend applying early to guarantee yourself a place! In addition, applying for study outside of the summer months (e.g., in June or from the end of August) generally means you will have smaller classes and more attention from the teacher.
We are currently evaluating our options, and intend to expand the size of the school (both classrooms and teachers) before summer next year, so we will be able to accept a larger number of students then.
Finally, if requested, we will be happy to recommend other Japanese language schools for you to apply to, that may be able to accept you even at a late date.
