#80 Mistakes New Japanese Teachers Make and What They’re Afraid Of Part1

I’ve been teaching Japanese for quite a few years now.

These days, I also host a podcast with a colleague I can rely on to have proper discussions about Japanese language education. It is mainly for people who want to become Japanese teachers, as well as new teachers who still feel that there is so much they do not know. We share our own mistakes and experiences, and talk about how teachers can gradually improve their knowledge and teaching skills 🎓

One thing we often talk about on the podcast is the slightly embarrassing things that new Japanese teachers sometimes do. And, of course, many of the examples come from mistakes that my colleague and I have made ourselves! 😄haha

On this blog, I usually write for Japanese learners and share learning tips or interesting things about the Japanese language.
But this time, I thought I would change things up a little and share some behind-the-scenes stories from the teacher’s side.

The “teachers” who teach you Japanese were not good at everything from the very beginning. We have struggled, made mistakes, and sometimes looked back later and thought, “That was a little embarrassing…”🫣

So this time, I would like to share one of those behind-the-scenes sides of Japanese teachers with you.

When a Simple Student Question Puts the Teacher on the Spot

Imagine you are studying Japanese in class and ask your teacher:

“Sensē, what is the difference between ～tara (たら) and ～ba (ば)?”

From a learner’s point of view, this is a perfectly natural question. If you learn two grammar patterns that can both express “if”, of course you want to know how they are different.

But questions like this can be surprisingly difficult for new Japanese teachers.😅

At the beginning of Japanese study, many grammar points are relatively easy to explain. For example:

• ～te kudasai (〜て ください) is used to make a request.

• ～koto ga dekimasu (〜ことが できます) is used to talk about what you can do.

• ～koto ga arimasu (〜ことが あります) is used to talk about experience.

Their functions are quite different, so teachers can usually explain them without too much trouble.

As you progress, however, you start meeting more and more expressions with similar meanings.

～to (と), ～ba (ば) and ～tara (たら) are good examples.

Or take these two sentences:
Mō tabemashita. もう食べました。
Mō tabete shimaimashita. もう食べてしまいました。
Both can be translated as something like: “I have already eaten lunch.”

Now imagine you are learning ～ba and ask: “Sensē, can I use ～tara here too?”🙋
The teacher says, “Yes, that’s fine.”😃

Naturally, your next question is: “Then what is the difference between ～ba and ～tara”❓
And that is when a little alarm starts going off inside the teacher’s head.🚨

Being able to speak Japanese naturally and being able to explain why a particular expression is used are two very different skills‼️
On top of that, once you become a teacher, you tend to feel that you should have a proper answer whenever a student asks a question.

Saying, “I’m not really sure,” can be difficult. Teachers have their pride too!
Even saying, “It’s actually quite complicated and difficult to explain in one sentence,” can somehow feel a little… unteacher-like.💦

So what do many inexperienced teachers do?
They try very hard to come up with a clear, simple answer.

And this is where things start to get a little embarrassing.
This is where the gates of hell open👿 hahaha

The Birth of “Magical Grammar”🪄

So, once the teacher has opened the gates of hell, what happens next?

A student asks, “What is the difference between ～ba and ～tara?” But the teacher cannot explain it very well.

At that point, the teacher starts searching through every example they can remember and making full use of their native-speaker intuition, desperately trying to find some kind of difference.

In a very short time, they search through the database of their own experience and try to break everything down into a simple pattern.💦

“Hmm… maybe ～ba is more objective, while ～tara is more subjective?”😳🌀
There is nothing wrong with using your own intuition to form a hypothesis. In fact, that can be an important first step in thinking more deeply about Japanese.

The problem comes when the teacher does not properly check that hypothesis and then tells the student:
“～ba is objective. ～tara is subjective.”‼️😤

Suddenly, a personal hypothesis has become an official-looking grammar rule.
Whether the explanation is actually correct or not, the teacher has at least drawn a clear line between the two. And because it is coming from the teacher, students will often think, “Oh, I see!” at that moment.

The teacher also feels relieved. The student has not asked another question, so it feels like the explanation worked.

But Japanese — or really, any natural language — is often much messier than that. Things do not always fit neatly into two separate boxes.

On our podcast, we jokingly call this “Magical Grammar”: using a little linguistic magic to create a beautiful, clear boundary where the reality is actually much more complicated.😂

And I do not think this always happens because the teacher is careless or does not care about their students.

If I try hard to look at it in a positive way, it may come from thoughts like:
“I want to answer my student’s question properly.”
“I’m the teacher, so I should be able to explain this clearly.”
“It would be a little embarrassing if they realised I didn’t know.”

Sometimes, it is exactly because teachers feel this pressure that they force themselves to create an answer.

Looking back, I also sometimes wonder, “Why on earth was I explaining that with so much confidence?” 😂

I am genuinely grateful to the many students who studied with me during those years. They were intelligent and mature enough to think for themselves, and I suspect they often filled in the gaps in my poor explanations and somehow made sense of them on their own.

So, does being a good Japanese teacher mean being able to give a clear answer to every student question immediately?

Next time, I would like to look a little more closely at that question from the teacher’s side.

Thank you for reading!
I regularly post Japanese-related content, including idioms and expressions, so if you’re interested, I’d be very happy if you followed me on Instagram.👍