Experience of Japanese GCSE/advice please

[Japanese987]

Anyone's DC recently successfully taken GCSE in Japanese as I am really struggling to support it in lockdown and looking for advice or recommendations for online help. For other subjects DC is using Seneca successfully but no idea what to do for Japanese. Thank you

I gather that for the less commonly taken languages, a massively high proportion of GCSE entrants are native speakers so it is very tricky for a non native speaker to get a good grade.

Thanks, not too worried about a top grade but would like a reasonable pass. GCSEs are next year as currently year 10. DC is struggling to progress it at home hence the request for help. Has anyone used any good online resources for GCSE Japanese? Am happy to pay if there is nothing like Seneca available

A native Japanese tutor? Try Lingoci.

Rosetta Stone were doing a free 3 month trial at start of lockdown and my DD signed up for Japanese for fun as she is obsessed with Japan. Don’t know if that would be any help in gcse situation. I would try and get hold of the syllabus ( they are available online usually- not sure how a language syllabus works but might be helpful) and maybe ask on Facebook for any japanese speakers who might want to tutor or look for national tutoring online?

Thank you I have studied the gcse syllabus in detail and it gives all the vocab required and a lot more detail than it used to so I can compare that to Rosetta. Ideally I was hoping to find an online course designed to GCSE level so it covered the course to the correct standard.

Not sure I can afford a tutor. Where would I ask on facebook? I would consider a student who had done GCSE well and would help on adhoc basis cant sign up to weekly tutoring at presumably £50 + a time.

Has she done Duolingo? Is basic but free and good fun (not done the Japanese one though)

If you have any local Facebook community groups definitely worthwhile seeing if anyone out there who can help online. A uni student would be ideal. There must be somewhere where you can advertise “jobs” for uni students- would be ideal for them in lockdown I imagine.

Hi op - how proficient is your dc already in Japanese? NHK World do a great in-depth selection of Japanese lessons - in terms of the listening portion of the Japanese exam, it's helpful to watch and listen to these lessons as they have all the typical questions etc and conversations in Japanese by native speakers that your dc would need to know. www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/

Another (free) platform to help with the conversation aspect is Conversation Exchange - www.conversationexchange.com/s_map/learn.php?language=japanese.

There are various resources on the Edexcel website, along with their GCSE Japanese specification etc.

You can ask a Japanese tutor online to help with GCSE if you send them the syllabus. My DD is learning like that (different language) and is doing very well. On Lingoci. Costs about £16 for 55 minutes.

Thanks Auntlouisa - that sounds very reasonable price. I will look into that. Is there a set frequency of lessons to book? Would it be a native speaker? I would prefer not as DC is struggling with the teacher when at school as their English is not great and expectations/learning style is more Japanese.

Native speakers. Personally, I'd be very reluctant to learn with a non native speaker.

I am sure native speaker is best for good grade and for most students but at this point I am just looking at a reasonable pass and DC has not got on with a teacher with poor English and very different style and expectations to all other teachers at school. I thought it might give a fresh start if the tutor had perfect English as school lessons have been such a negative experience.

I understand. You could just try Lingoci - you get a free trial lesson. There's no magic to it - each teacher teaches the way they want, using their own materials and methods. You can watch their videos before trying a lesson. If you use a tutor like this, it's in their interests to use the teaching style that suits your child - but you need to explain what that is. You could have a chat with the teacher over Skype before calling your DC in to meet them, or could even talk to them on your own for the trial lesson. We asked the teacher to buy the revision book for the exam, and to teach from that. It has worked out very well so far.

Definitely sounds worth a try. Why is it so unbelievably cheap for tutoring?

Tutoring in your own language pays very badly.

From my own memories of learning Japanese op I definitely wish at the time I had had better access to Japanese listening materials, to get my understanding proficiency up there that I didn't have to belatedly translate the conversation/questions in my head (we just didn't have the same resourced then that we do now), so for the free side of things I would definitely recommend her putting the time in to listening to basic conversations over and over as much as possible. You can also rote learn the basic replies and conversational lines needed to respond to the topics they have for the exams - family questions, daily life etc. All of that is on the NHK site and is an absolute goldmine so I would recommend her studying all those to get an excellent base layer of knowledge before starting up the online tutoring because at least then there'll be less of the paid time wasted trying to understand what They're saying iykwim.

I will send you a PM Japanese987 as have experience of this a few years ago my DC now studying at degree level (we have no links with Japan).

DD has signed up as a tutor with a free service set up by an OxfordUniversity student - CTI, I think. I don't know what languages they have tutors for (apart from, DD has signed up for French), but it might be worth asking if they have anyone signed up for Japanese? The sessions are delivered through Bramble.