Dr Mariko Fukasaka

• Certified, professional Japanese teacher
• Completed 420 Hours Training Course for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language
• Eight years of teaching experience
• PhD in public international law from UCL, London
• MA and BA in public international law from Sophia University, Tokyo
• Languages: native Japanese, fluent in English and intermediate in German; intermediate in French (reading) and beginner in Russian and Italian; learning Vietnamese and Greek
• Helped many PhD students and academics

Read my students’ reviews on Superprof

I absolutely love teaching Japanese.  It is my passion to seek out the most meaningful and helpful curriculum and methods for each of my students, while making classes as motivating as possible. To achieve this, I not only endeavour to improve the essential skills to convey grammatical points and cultural connotations, but also to understand your personality and preferences as much as possible.  For my part, I learn a lot from my students – everyone is different and there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ method. I find the process of determining the best curriculum for you challenging, yet very rewarding.

Learning languages has always been my passion.  For me, this is a life-long project. I know how hard it is! I have spent literally half of my life learning English, and I still endeavour to improve.  I also learned French and German as a part of my academic training (and for fun) and one of my on-going hobbies is to learn Vietnamese. Even after having lived in the UK for over a decade, expressing myself in perfectly idiomatic English in every situation can still feel like a towering undertaking. This was especially the case in my former field of speciality – public international law – in which I am academically trained. Law is one subject that is heavily orientated towards parsing nuances of words and terms.  Indeed, it was precisely this linguistic element that fascinated me and led me towards studying the law.

I also know how learning languages can – and should – be fun.  For this reason, I use authentic materials from the real world, instead of contrived, artificial textbook sentences. I especially try to use materials that students can connect with and have a special interest in.  For instance, if you are a passionate Manga reader, we’d read an excerpt from a Manga, ideally from the ones you like.  If you like theatre, we’d read blog posts on latest shows in Tokyo. If you are planning to move to Japan, we’d read labels on food packages, signs on shop fronts, shopping websites, and so on.

Here is my thinking behind this: language is profoundly cultural and multifaceted, and it is something that evolves over time. Language is also deeply personal. The way I speak Japanese is wildly different from my neighbour who lived right next me in an apartment building in Tokyo. It’s fascinating to see, as a language teacher, how each student approaches the language differently.  I believe there is no definitive ‘perfect’ Japanese, and every Japanese speaker has their own version of the language.  I endeavour to convey this versatility and the language’s diverse cultural connotations.  One of the best ways to experience such living Japanese in classes is via raw, authentic materials from the real world, whether Instagram comments, literature, lyrics, news articles or Manga.  I’m constantly on the hunt for materials that my students find particularly interesting, to make lessons as effective, interesting and motivating as possible. I look forward to starting the journey of learning Japanese with you!