About me - Kazuo Udagawa

I took a teacher-training course in Tokyo in 1987 before coming to England.
The emphasis on this training course was on Japanese verbs - ie to make sure that students had a very good understanding of verb conjugation, especially transitive verbs which can have 64 different patterns.


From 1989 to 1999, I was Head teacher at MOA Foundation in London and from 1991 to 1999 Head of MOA's language schools in Europe.
At MOA I taught classes at all levels; organized several summer intensive courses in Japan, ran teacher-training courses in London, Brussels, Paris, Lisbon, and Los Angeles; supervised about 10 teachers in London; produced exams/teaching materials; gave advice to students, etc.



While I was at MOA,the Japan Foundation donated teaching materials to the value of £1,000 based on their assessment of the quality of the teaching. Unfortunately this office closed in 1999 due to the economic downturn in Japan.
Since then I have been self-employed.


The majority of my students are business people from financial institutions, law firms, marketing firms, etc. My youngest student is a 9-year French girl who studies with me once a week.


I also teach Japanese GCSE, AS and A2 in a sixth-form college in Earls Court.
One of these students was a girl who suffered from dyslexia, but she was amazed to find she could pronounce the 107 sounds during the very first lesson and was able to read/write Japanese letters within several months.
She participated in the Japan Foundation speech contest in 2004.


I also taught a girl who had learnt Spanish and French and wanted to learn an Asian language. She was very committed and learnt hiragana/katanaka and some kanji progressively.


A number of my students have one Japanese and one non-Japanese parent - they decided to learn because they realized they regretted not doing so when they were younger.


What I have learned over these years is how important it is to plan each lesson in a coherent/logical manner so that students learn each component step by step, with the appropriate level of academic pressure and so that they have a sense of achievement.


In 2005, I helped to organize a 6-day homestay in Osaka for 14 students from Greenland. These students from WWEP (Window to the World Exchange Programme) were auditioned and selected to introduce Greenlandic culture to Japanese people and they performed a half-hour cultural show in one of the schools in the city .


I am a Foreign and Commonwealth Office examiner in Japanese.

I have a BSc Hons (Social sciences) and a Diploma in English from the Open University.


Kazuo Udagawa