After a lot of discussion, we made the decision to reduce prices at the Tokyo branch of our Japanese language school to match those at our Fukuoka branch. Accommodation and living expenses in Tokyo are already a little higher than those in Fukuoka, so there's no need to burden students with even more expense! So, from today, all new estimates for Tokyo will use the new (old) prices. And we will of course be contacting everyone who booked for Tokyo already to recalculate the costs of your study.
Part of the reason we decided to do this is because so many people want to study at both our Tokyo and Fukuoka schools, splitting their time between both. Having the same price at both locations makes it much easier to calculate, and hopefully easier to decide to study with us!

Our Fukuoka Japanese language school is almost fully booked for July already, so if you're planning to come, we recommend booking early, as we will have to start restricting admissions soon!
There are of course still places left at our new Tokyo school, so why not give it a try! It's a great opportunity to experience very small group classes in an amazing environment. We hope we'll see you there!

A great article in the English language teaching industry newspaper EL Gazette about what IALC membership actually means for a school's quality.
You can read the whole article here (PDF link).

Genki Japanese Language School has been a member of IALC, the International Association of Language Centres, for the last four years. IALC accredits the top schools worldwide, and is a mark of quality. We feel IALC membership has greatly helped us to improve as a school, by giving us specific quality guidelines to apply, and goals for continuous improvement. It's also made us part of an international community of schools from whom we can receive all kinds of ideas and support. So it's great to see mathematical proof that IALC member schools are above average!

The article compared IALC membership to the grades given to schools in the UK by the British Council, an inspection authority, and English UK.
Here are a couple of the important quotes from the article:
half of the top 2 per cent of schools belong to Ialc and member schools are four times more likely to be Centres of Excellence than the average English UK member. Overall Ialc schools achieved 3.6 points of excellence in their reports, over twice the average 1.6 points achieved by UK-accredited schools.

Ialc schools outperformed 80 per cent of language school chains and posted similar results to those of language centres at world-ranking universities.

These are incredible results, and we're happy to be a part of the IALC family!

A couple of days ago Mastercard issued an alert that non-Asian Maestro-branded chip-and-pin debit cards can't be used in Japan currently, until the ATM network here finishes being upgraded. It's a very specific subset of cards, but if you have one of these cards and are coming to Japan in the near future, don't rely on that as your only source of money. There are two good choices:
1) Bring another source of money, such as a credit card.
2) You can send money to GenkiJACS' Unipay account, and we will give it to you as cash at school.

From Mastercard's page giving info about the alert:

To: Cardholders of Maestro-branded EMV Cards issued outside of the Asia/Pacific Region
Re: Temporary Suspension of Maestro ATM Acceptance in Japan

Thank you very much for patronage with MasterCard. As of April 19, 2013, all Maestro-branded EMV cards issued outside of the Asia/Pacific region will be temporarily unable to withdraw currency at domestic ATMs, while the regional ATM network is upgraded.

Maestro-branded EMV cards issued within the Asia/Pacific Region, Maestro-branded cards without EMV chip, MasterCard-branded cards, and Cirrus-branded cards are not affected by this temporary suspension of service. Cardholders can continue to be able to use these other MasterCard products at ATMs and merchants across Japan.

MasterCard is working with these customer financial institutions to enable full acceptance of all cards as soon as possible.

Please accept our deep apology for the inconvenience caused.

It's very lively in our student lounge.

Students talk and laugh and the sound of games and music.....

He must be really tired....




E-san, how can you sleep???

We are proud to announce that Genki Japanese Language School has received an Excellence Award from online agency Languagecourse.net for 2013 too! As Languagecourse.net says,

"Every year LanguageCourse.Net requests evaluations from more than a thousand language course students worldwide in order to honour language schools which provide outstanding services to their clients. As a result of these evaluations LanguageCourse.Net presents an annual Excellence Award to those language schools, which receive the highest customer satisfaction ratings worldwide. We are glad to award Genki Japanese and Culture School Fukuoka with the 2013 Excellence Award, as your students rated your overall service as excellent."

We finally confirmed the location of our new Japanese language school branch in Tokyo! From June 2013, GenkiJACS' Tokyo school will open in the wonderful Hanazono building, overlooking the famous 花園神社 (Hanazono Shrine)! We are incredibly excited about this location, because it's perfect for us:
- The most conveniently located Japanese school in the world. Just minutes from Shinjuku Station, in the heart of Tokyo.
- The perfect place to study. Set back from the main road, and with only a quiet shrine beside, students will be able to focus on learning the language without distraction.
- The perfect place to truly experience Japanese culture. Shinjuku has the best of Japan's pop culture available 24 hours a day, while Hanazono Shrine will give students a unique chance to experience traditional rites.



We've added an album of photos to our gallery.
Construction on the school will begin soon, and we'll be welcoming students from June 3rd. We look forward to seeing you in Tokyo!

Here's a great video just released to promote Fukuoka City as a tourist destination, to celebrate the start of direct flights between Fukuoka and Europe. It really gives you a feel for what living in Fukuoka is like, as well as all the things you can do here. Well worth 11 minutes of your time!



Congrats to Nick at Fukuoka Now for doing such a good job as guide!

We love 14th March.

We love chocolates.

A lot.






Looking GOOD!!!


W-san and E-san !!! Arigato gozaimasu!!!!

On February 10th, at 7:32 in the evening, our office staff Yuki Yamazaki gave birth to a healthy baby boy!


Soushirou was 3,900 grams at birth, but now weighs over 5000grams! Yuki-san expects to be back at school from next February. We went to visit Yuki-san and Sou-chan in February. They were doing very well. Yuki-san is planning to come to school with Sou-chan this Friday! We can not wait to see her baby boy!!! Of course, we will update the pictures!


Mai-san is holding Soushirou-kun!


Machiko-sensei looks so happy to meet Soushirou-kun.


Aiko-sensei wants to give him loads of kisses!!!