CLAIR Jet Programme Japanese language course

[Luthien]

I hate the romaji with the passion of a thousand burning sounds, possibly only slightly more than their habit in the tests of splitting the word which is the focus of the sentence...so you get the first part in the sentence and the rest in the multiple choice part.........

[AVN]

I hate the romaji with the passion of a thousand burning sounds, possibly only slightly more than their habit in the tests of splitting the word which is the focus of the sentence...so you get the first part in the sentence and the rest in the multiple choice part.........

I hate romaji in almost any language beyond the first few lessons to teach you to read the alphabet in question.

[positivity]

It's funny to me that when my JTEs look at my book and try to read it, it's like watching a 5 year old try to sound out a children's book. Wa...ta...shi..., oh... 私. It seems like such a waste of time to spend an entire year on a course, and for them to entirely neglect reading and writing. Especially reading -- I mean, it's not like we are living in the country whose language we are studying. It's not like we are surrounded my the script every day. It's not like it would be REALLY USEFUL to get some practice in.

I supplement those books with studying the script of course, but I just feel like I'm missing out on a massive opportunity for reading practice.

Lame.

[Siyris]

It's funny to me that when my JTEs look at my book and try to read it, it's like watching a 5 year old try to sound out a children's book. Wa...ta...shi..., oh... 私. It seems like such a waste of time to spend an entire year on a course, and for them to entirely neglect reading and writing. Especially reading -- I mean, it's not like we are living in the country whose language we are studying. It's not like we are surrounded my the script every day. It's not like it would be REALLY USEFUL to get some practice in.

I supplement those books with studying the script of course, but I just feel like I'm missing out on a massive opportunity for reading practice.

Lame.

Don't get your hopes up.... if the advanced book is anything to go off of, the courses don't get any better... advanced has furigana for all the kanji in it... and the reading practice pages have super simple paragraphs to read. I gout myself a different text book as well as just started reading my JHS students classroom journals once they are finished being graded... it makes learning much faster.

[Staticnz]

I was doing the course but I quit it.

Personally I think it is a poorly designed course, because all the examples are so dry and boring. Where's the fun? Also it is a huge problem to not use hiragana and katakana at all in the beginner's books. That was a bad idea.

Every ALT I've ever talked to around these parts agrees. Nobody actually wants to do this thing.

I'm still studying every day but I must rely on the Genki books and other resources it seems.

[positivity]

Thing is, I actually really like the pacing of the grammar points on the course -- but that positive is overshadowed by the romaji and increasingly the example questions where you either have no idea WHAT they are looking for, or there are a number of answers you can give which are different to the "right" answer. Plus from the dialogues I was expecting Jim and Aya to be boning by now, what happened? That would of made an interesting lesson.

[Liz Okinawa PA]

Personally I think it is a poorly designed course

Bingo. The advanced textbook--I can't speak for the others--is a disaster.

Once I was asking my co-worker about one question I absolutely could not figure out.

Me: Both "a" and "c" look like they could both be correct.

A-san: They are both correct, but the answer is "c."

Me: ? If the answers are both correct, why is it c?

A-san: C sounds more natural. A native speaker of Japanese can hear the difference, like in English how you COULD say "I'm going for a drive in my vehicle," but it sounds weird and you wouldn't say it. You'd say, "I'm going for a drive in my car."

Me: But...but...the book never explains that. And even if it did, how would I know? I'm not a native speaker.

The book expects you to keep up with things you simply can't, gives no explanations for anything, and sometimes gives examples with different verb forms or several possible meanings without explaining what's different about them. I suggest not taking it, or taking it only if you have a tutor/teacher to explain things to you.

[BookMuse]

I agree, the Advanced Course is terrible. It's poorly written and I agree with Liz Okinawa PA- the wording of questions and answer choices is absurd. I wish I didn't waste my time signing up for this and for the postage. I've been using my JLPT books to study and learn from, and I've been getting a lot more out of that.

You can't beat having a boyfriend who doesn't speak a lot of English either.

[irishjoe]

You are required to have done the advanced course to be considered for the translation and interpretation course, right?

Would it matter if you sent in the tests late, as long as they all got sent in before the last date, and you got the certificate?

I let it slip for a while as I was busy studying other things, and speaking a lot more than studying (which was really good too). Now I have finished the first two tests but haven't sent them in yet. I need to read the notes about how to send them in if you are sending them in late.

[Siyris]

You are required to have done the advanced course to be considered for the translation and interpretation course, right?

Would it matter if you sent in the tests late, as long as they all got sent in before the last date, and you got the certificate?

I let it slip for a while as I was busy studying other things, and speaking a lot more than studying (which was really good too). Now I have finished the first two tests but haven't sent them in yet. I need to read the notes about how to send them in if you are sending them in late.

I believe so long as you get the certificate of completion then you are fine to get into the higher courses.... but you have to check with your supervisor before you make plans to take the course because for both the translation and pedagogy courses, the BoE must pay for it.... you are not permitted to pay for it yourself... you also will be required to be given a week's worth of nenkyuu to go to the seminar during days where there are classes.
I asked my supervisor about it and he told me in very clear terms that the BoE would not pay for me to take that course next year.

[darlo]

Given the general consensus toward the lanaguage course, I'm not holding out much hope in the interpreter course being much better. Can anyone settle those worries?

[Lianwen]

Personally I think it is a poorly designed course

Bingo. The advanced textbook--I can't speak for the others--is a disaster.

The book expects you to keep up with things you simply can't, gives no explanations for anything, and sometimes gives examples with different verb forms or several possible meanings without explaining what's different about them. I suggest not taking it, or taking it only if you have a tutor/teacher to explain things to you.

This. I stopped doing the advanced textbook because of all this. And even asking for help was tricky, because I would ask different people and I would get different answers and even my JTE was getting tripped up.

The pace of the grammar points was great, but their explanations and example sentences were seriously lacking/way to long. Bare bones repetitive example sentences would have been better instead of having to read a story.

Using JLPT books to study now.

[Nausicaablue]

I'm afraid I'm at the point of dropping out too. I'm kind of a mixed level but decided to take the Beginner course to brush up on the foundation. At first it wasn't too bad, but as it moves on the language use is getting weirder and, as others have said, there's not enough explanation of grammar points, the vocabulary definitions are often misleading/wrong and the exercise/test questions are too ambigous to know what answer they are looking for. I've asked other teachers to look at the book and they tell me the language use is strange to them in many cases. The lack of kana is also ridiculous - sure it's hard to read at first but we'll never improve just using romaji!

I don't like to drop out but really it just seems like a waste of time at this point.

[duelingmonkey]

I hope to God that whoever wrote the books are reading this....

[bittersweet]

I'm finishing the course. I wanted to give up when I saw book 4, but I put the effort in to really understand it (using lots of other resources) since the book alone isn't enough. The book suggests you ask people around you (like your JTE) for help, but I don't see how that is possible when everyone is so busy and CLAIR frowns upon studying at school anyway.
On a side note, I don't like how they put ' after "n." For example: kyou no ban' gohan'
What is the point of that?