SNG Japanese school — Local services in Tokyo

I spent 3 months here and had fun I talked to a lot of students even now so I will leave my own review I think the school is at a 4,6 stars honestly so they are doing really good.

Pros: The staff is honest and very nice they did not force you to wait and either told you to come the next day or to give them a few minuts for other students but they asked all students for what their issue is and then depening told them what to do (they did it as normal 1st come 1st serve but in the mean time another staff member asked all other studends who where not helped for their issues and see if it might be better for them to come next time). But you had a choice and if you waited (which I did) they came and applogised for the wait I did not wait long in the end and all issues where resolved (15min or 20 nothing much).

The school has its own course they have and a special text books and teacheing method if you love alternative stuff and a really good way of studying in a non traditional way too much its really nice if you want to study mina no nihongo go else where other schools offer that. They also have apps and stuff you do your things on its more moderen also teaching is more focused on speaking.

They take you / you have an option to go on nice field trips if you do not go you just write a homework about that place (maybe they changed it) but it's quite nice. And the trips will cost about 50% less if you go with school then if you went alone.

Most teachers I meet (2) cared a lot they had their unique teaching styles but if you gave them a chance they really where nice. I talked to a friend who met more and said the others are defenitly also nice just more normal or traditional japnese with still unique styles.

The princle of the school is a legend he will talk to students and bow etc if he can notice you he is bussy but we had him on our tour bus and he was really good he told me off good places to buy food on the trip and what things are nice to buy. Most of the higher ups are nice.

Building 1 is nice it's close hope your in building 1 if you do not like walking hahaha.

The school will offer a lot of options to meet students from other Japanese school we had a lot of options to go to bukatsu and students out of waseda university its mostly for people of lower lvl so until N2 then N2 and N1 do not have this option as their japanese is higher but there still might be some stuff I have no friends in those classes but N5-N3 level your fine. Limited ammount of space (30-40 students ) so just apply fast

CONS:

Building 3 and 2 are a bit far /like some say might not have wifi on them but you really do not need them I think personaly this is the only con.

There might be a bad teacher but I had 0 nor did my friends ( so not a con but could be if you do not like their style of teaching more personal I think then acctual fact)

If you do not like bowing and saying Konnichiwa and Sayonara sensei you might not like that but I personaly liked it and just felt like I was in Japan felt normal.

ADVANCED class might be a con I went to NORMAL speed so I was fine. But I talked to students and quite a few in ADVANCED and seems like if your not willing to spend 3-4 h hours after class studying do not go. There is little reviewing so basicly only 10 min. Also more Kanji a lot more tests and its hard to keep up. It's good if your good at kanji (or chinese / korean) or are good at languages or Japanese but still will be fast the school warns you and did tell me that I will need 3-4h hours after school studying to keep up. Personaliy I liked NORMAL speed as you can do most of your stuff in about 20-30 min max 1h and then its up to you if you want to review. I just went outside and talked irl and practiced that way. There might be a con most Europens where on the edge of being to hard. But could be good if you want to go fast and just learn Japanese whitout going out much around tokyo.

That is...

Enrolling in a 1 year course, not having a great time. TLDR - The school uses their own books which are not very good, the buildings are old and very far from the station, the chair-desks are small and uncomfortable, the lessons are lacking.

The lessons are bad because the books are bad.

This school uses their own book and curriculum. The books are all in Japanese. In the beginning of a new unit there will be a vocabulary page consists of 60+ new words all in Japanese, you have to look all of them up on your own.

The grammar points are badly explained and comes with bad 2-3 example sentences. In the lessons, the teachers attempt to teach what's in the book, which again are not very good, a lot of my classmate have to use ChatGPT to basically learn everything because the learning material are simply not good.

The learning environment

The buildings the classes take place in are very far to extremely far from the station. You can look them up on Google maps. Building 1 ( usually intermediate classes ) is 450m from the station, you're lucky if you get this one. Building 2 is 700m from the station Building 3 ( usually Beginner classes ) is 800m from the station, you have to cough up 180 yen bus fee to not be late to class.

All of them are old, the toilets are all very small, if you get put into the underground class in the 3rd building you will have no mobile data which make an already impossible to understand lessons even harder. They're also very strict on attendance but good luck trying to be on time when the classes are that far.

This school uses School Chair-desk, all of them are small and uncomfortable to sit in. There are no desk space and you need to lower your back down to write. A lot of teachers turn the lights off for the projector making the learning environment even more miserable.

Overall have been having a miserable experience studying here, I recommend you go to some other school with newer buildings, a real chair and desk and also check first how far is it from the station, I wouldn't have a problem is the lessons are at least good, but they're not. I do not recommend...

I was in an online class earlier this year.

Pros: ・The teacher was friendly, and when interactions became more organic among class members, she encouraged it. She was willing to break from Japanese to explain a particular grammar point in English when it was needed, which was extremely helpful. ・Recordings of most lessons were posted online to review or view if a member had been absent. ・When there was confusion about payment methods (see Cons below), I was offered to use the discount I was trying to apply with for a course later in the year.

Cons: ・The website for applying for courses is blatantly misleading. Several payment methods are advertised, but at the payment window, only credit cards are accepted. Several times are offered for the same level, but only after paying for the class was I told that there are different sublevels and that according to my placement test, I couldn't choose the time that worked with my schedule. ・Online sessions are done via Google Classroom (again, NOT shown before applying or paying), and as I don't feel comfortable sharing video information with Alphabet, I couldn't participate visually in the class. Also, because of Google Classroom's structure (or as much as SNG uses it), there was no opportunity for students to mingle before or after class; the one area of the platform on which students can post does not lend itself well to social interaction or sharing information, which is something I have found most encouraging and enlightening in other classroom environments and sorely missed with SNG online. ・The teacher would sometimes forget to post the day's recording, or posted it moments before the next lesson started.

I enjoyed my teacher and classmates and would consider attending again if and only if they move to a less invasive video platform. The website needs a serious update with clearer information...