Kumon: my thoughts

I am currently studying Japanese at Kumon.

I looked into a lot of different Japanese schools around Kanagawa and Tokyo. However, all of them seemed rather expensive, or were for much longer courses than I wanted to take. Also, I'm slightly ambivalent about taking a group class, where I can't control how fast or slow I progress.

I wanted a school where I could study at my own pace, where I could miss a class without it being a big problem, and where I could study for a short time. I didn't want anything too expensive, and ideally I wanted to study kanji in a more structured way.

(I have been studying kanji with a textbook and flashcards, but it's been slow going; I haven't been remembering them terribly well, and I can write almost none of them. I don't think I am a very 'visual' person.)

So I joined Kumon. Now, Kumon is actually like a cram school for Japanese kids. The branch I go to is a very homey and functional kind of place; basic and cluttered up with lots of books and pigeonholes and blackboards, with rather dated equipment, and loads of educational posters on the walls, and classroom desks with little stools. In short, it looks like a place where real study is done. When I go there, there are young children of various ages studying maths and English and Japanese.

Kumon's style is that you pay a monthly fee; this allows you to get worksheets and a CD, and you work through the worksheets at your own pace. I go in twice a week to the school itself, where I do some worksheets by myself and sometimes practice 'ondoku' (reading aloud) to the teacher. Then I do some more worksheets at home.

Basically, you will be responsible for yourself; it's not interactive. You will share your teacher with lots of other students; the teacher does not really 'teach' you, but is there to correct your sheets, point out your mistakes, and hear your reading.

The style is quite repetitious; each series of worksheets have a lot of the same sentences and words you will read and write over and over again. The worksheets come in batches of 10, each one taking about 30-40 minutes (for me, at the moment), which I think is a good thing; I like having a set, clearly defined piece of work to tackle. Having my teacher check off my progress booklet by booklet is more motivating for me than just having a textbook to slowly work through.

The level I am doing is rather low for me in terms of grammar, but my main intention is to practice reading and writing, to gain some new vocabulary, and to reinforce and strengthen my basic grammar. As a result, the worksheets are currently not difficult for me in terms of content, but they take a while to plug through. To be honest, I'm not sure if I could totally 'get' the grammar if it were introduced at a level I didn't already understand. My mind doesn't work well in terms of subjects and topics and predicates and whatnot.

In addition, I'm not sure if I would want to continue this style of study for a long time; I might get bored with it after a while. And I am supplementing the Kumon lessons with language exchange and private lessons, so I can get more advanced grammar and conversation practice.

I'm finding this study is a very good thing for me right now. The problem with my previous kanji study was that I wasn't reading or writing enough of it to properly remember them. Also, my reading and writing has been a lot slower than it should be; I can already feel myself improving as I concentrate on it. I can write a number of kanji now.

Lately I've been proud of myself for being able to go to karaoke and read the Japanese lyrics fast enough to sing the songs. Before, if I wanted to sing a Japanese song, I would have to memorise the whole song before going in. Now, if the song is not fast, I can sing it. Hopefully after a little more Kumon training, I will be able to sing the fast ones too. ^_-

[Edit, after finishing at Kumon: Okay, so I completed my month. How was it?

The first three weeks were good and I finished a lot of worksheets. I found that as I got closer to the end - and therefore knew I wouldn't be continuing it - my motivation dropped off a lot and I just couldn't make myself do those booklets. I think I enjoyed them a lot at first, because I had a lot of free time and I really wanted to progress as much as possible. But after a while, the repetitious style got a bit wearisome.

I think if I had continued doing them, it would have been ideal kanji practice. I'd continue reading and writing the same kanji again and again throughout my studies, thus securing them more and more firmly in my own mind. And several months later, I can still remember how to write some kanji that I couldn't write before Kumon. I can imagine that if I'd studied Kumon for several months*, I would have quite a solid foundation of a decent number of kanji.

*(Mind you, if I were studying over several months, it would probably be much more part-time and less concentrated. And if I was only doing, say, one or two worksheets a week, it would be harder to remember words and kanji between times, I think.)