My experience as a language learner.

When I first considered a job teaching English in Japan I had a vague idea of what learning a foreign language might be like. My experience of learning a language at school in Australia was disjointed at best, and was centred around standardised classroom texts and didactic teaching methods. Subsequently I didn't learn much of the Japanese, Italian, French, German, Latin or Ancient Greek I was taught.

Growth

I was fortunate however to have been educated in a school where most of the students spoke a second language at home, so I knew even then that bilingualism was a reality for many people. When I made the commitment to go to Japan, I also committed myself to learning the language, and studying martial arts over a two to five year period. My best chance of learning the language centred around being immersed in the culture, and using it to accomplish tasks of an everyday nature.

When I arrived in Japan, I enrolled in survival Japanese courses offered at the local international centre and took my notes home and practised phrases every day. I also mastered hiragana and katakana early on because I wanted to be able to read. Towards the end of my first year I moved to a rural town, from a prefectural capital, and my opportunities for engagement with the locals grew. I was beginning to feel more confident in my language ability.

Being a language learner gave me a much greater appreciation of what my students needed in the classroom. Everyone learns differently, and made sense for me to approach language acquisition from a learners perspective. I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in my second year, and sat it each year following. Studying for the test helped me understand the different modalities of language learning. Doing the past exams helped me to understand my weaknesses and better prepared me for what was ahead. I was constantly on the lookout for different learning techniques. Language learning itself, became my hobby.

Communication

When I met my then future wife in 2004 all of our communication was in Japanese. As we grew together as a couple my language needs changed, I was now required to understand things with a degree of subtlety that I hadn't had before. Speech was infused with nuance, and although the potential for miscommunication was high, I credit my wife's patience and understanding with my current language ability. We now have two children, a boy and girl aged 2 years old and 3 months respectively. They will be joining me in Australia in June.

I have come to the realisation that language learning is not separate from cultural experience. Language learning doesn't happen in a vacuum, it must be connected with and through people to what you want to achieve as an individual. Just as the motivation for learning a language must come from within, so too should the approach. Language learners are individuals first, and approaches to language learning should be centred around individuals.