Japanese Language School in Toronto, Ontario

QLS Japanese Language Gym:
Our warm and friendly Japanese GYM school is based in Toronto, Canada. We believe that learning languages is like learning a sport. Practice makes perfect. We also are convinced that you have be able to practise in the real world in order to really master the language.

What makes QLS Japanese class unique?

1. Maximum 8 students in each class
The relationship between our instructors and students will be more like the one between a doctor and a patient in QLS Japanese Language GYM. That’s why our Japanese class is provided only in a small group setting (maximum 8 students, average 4 to 6).

2. No 'direct method'
We strongly believe if the majority of the class shares a common language, naturally, the common language should be employed as needed in order to make their learning process more efficient. Therefore, our class is taught in Japanese and English. Students can understand more clearly each grammar explanation than 'only Japanese class.'

3. Student-centered class
One of our policies is to give every student as many opportunities as possible to practice speaking Japanese. Our communicative approach provides students with a learning environment where our instructors become facilitators to give every student in our class as many opportunities as possible to practice speaking Japanese. This is totally different from one-way lecture style in a big class.

4. Various course options
Our students have different reasons and different objectives for learning Japanese. Therefore, we offer various class options depending on students’ needs. Our school accommodates different needs as much as possible. We will continue to design new courses in accordance with the students’ demand. We are happy to create tailor-made class per students’ request.

1. Teach most effectively in English and Japanese
Although ‘direct method’ is one of the standard methods of teaching Japanese in Japan, this method is not employed in our school. We strongly believe that the direct method can be effective only for teaching Japanese to a group of students with different linguistic backgrounds (or people who prefer to learn Japanese playing a ‘guessing game’). In fact, on the contrary, this direct method could make the learning process extremely time-consuming and frustrating, especially for learning such complicated Japanese grammar. Therefore, if the majority shares a common language, naturally, the common language should be employed as needed in order to make their learning process more efficient. This also helps students understand more clearly certain conceptual differences that are often quite difficult to grasp, and ones that Japanese-English dictionaries can't explain (e.g. 'come and go'). However, we also believe that only Japanese should be employed once students have reached the practice stage.

2. Communicative Approach - Totally Student-Centered
Our Japanese Language GYM employs a communicative approach. Our instructor becomes a facilitator to help students practice speaking. At the practice stage, our instructor will provide various roleplaying situations. Therefore, every student gets to speak constantly while our gym instructor step back and observe, acting more like a referee. Our intesive exercise oriented class will make the students gain confidence in using Japanese language in no time.

3. Use Authentic Material
Students can learn formal Japanese by a textbook, however, as they learn, they often realize that native Japanese speakers’ spoken language is totally different from what they learned in a textbook. Between man and women, formal and informal situation and even generations people speak differently. This is one of the most difficult but interesting parts in learning Japanese. Our school uses authentic material like movies, or TV dramas even in 'complete beginner class' so that people get used to various speech pattern in the early stage.

Complete and Standard Beginner Japanese Courses; Japanese Courses with Focus on Speaking.

I wanted to learn Japanese so much because I love to watch Japanese dramas. Also, Japan is my favorite place for vacation. However, I was not able to communicate with anyone over there as Japanese know so little English in general. I take the course at QLS because of the small class size. At the beginning, I found it very difficult to memorize the hiragana & katakana. But later found out that it helps a lot when going up to the next level.

The teacher is really good in terms of explaining grammar and use of vocabulary. Also, he is fluent in both English and Japanese and helps us a lot in understanding the grammar difference between English & Japanese. In addition, we are able to work on a lot of role plays in a small class size.　

This helps us to practice speaking in Japanese. In addition, the teacher would also use DVDs to explain differences between the use of Japanese in textbook and real life. He also put a lot of effort to make learning materials for the class. This further enhances our listening and reading skill beside the ones from the textbook. I had been learning Japanese at QLS for 6 months and this has been such a tremendous experience. Learning Japanese is so much fun at QLS!