Language Travel Magazine has finally published their write-up of the 2009 LTM Star Awards, including a shout-out to Genki Japanese School as one of the shortlisted schools in the LTM Star "Other" Language Provider category. Click here for a nifty online version of the magazine.

We are always looking for ways to motivate our students to study before you come, and keep studying after you leave. So from today we're offering all current, future and former students two free online Japanese lessons! That's right, even if you studied with us 5 years ago, you're still eligible for two free lessons! Use them to catch up with teachers, to review material you might otherwise forget, to get advice on self-study goals, or anything else!
Students who have booked with us but haven't yet started your study are still eligible, as soon as we receive payment of your school fees. You can use these lessons to discuss what you should study before you arrive, get a better idea of what your classes will focus on, or work out some difficult topics. The choice is yours!

More information about the classes themselves, as well as the application form, is here. Looking forward to hearing from you!

As GenkiJACS has become a full member of IALC, Swedish students can now receive financial assistance from the Swedish government to study with us! This is part of the CSN (Centrala studiestödsnämnden) program to provide aid for students studying a language in another country. You must plan to study with us for 13 weeks or more to be eligible for aid. If you meet this requirement, you can apply directly to the CSN. It seems that this would provide for a 671 kronor per week grant, plus loans if required. This of course makes the cost of studying with us significantly cheaper!
For further details, contact CSN directly!

One of the big problems we’ve always struggled with is that students can’t stay in Japan for more than six months out of a year on a tourist visa or visa waiver. This means the maximum length of study we could offer most students was six months, even if the student wanted to study for longer. Our other alternative was to apply for Ministry of Education accreditation, so that we could offer student visas ourselves. However, the barriers to this accreditation are incredibly high. At a MinEd information session we attended recently, they said new schools would need to both own the school’s building (renters not allowed), and have at least one billion yen in assets! We quickly gave up on that option, so instead, we’ve done the next best thing: partnered with a local school that offers visas, to run a combined course.
There are more details about this course on our website proper, but basically, you would study with us for 2-6 months, during which time we apply for your student visa. Then, in April, you switch to our partner school to study for a year or so with them.

Our partner school is one that we’ve worked with in different capacities for some time now. They’re also a relatively new school, and should be a good fit for our students. They mostly handle Asian students currently, but are interested in increasing the number of Western students they teach to. They’re also in the central area of Fukuoka, so pretty convenient.

The big advantages of this plan are of course the student visa (which also lets you work part-time), and that our partner school’s low costs make the whole trip more affordable.
If you’re interested, fill out or short form now for a no-obligation estimate!

One more university offers credits for study with Genki Japanese School. Now students of University of Delaware can receive credit for study with us. Confirm with your program coordinator before you come, though!
For the current full list of colleges and universities, click here.

GenkiJACS has (finally!) started online lessons. Former students have been asking for this for the last couple of years – sorry it took so long! Currently we support the four major software choices, including of course Skype, but we’re willing to use other services too, if there’s demand.
Pricing is two-tiered: 3000 yen per class for new applicants, or 2000 yen per class for anyone who has studied at our school before or is registered to do so. Everybody gets one free trial lesson too, so you might as well give it a try!
Detailed info is here.

The major sticking point, of course, is the time difference. If you’re in the UK, for instance, we’re only online for you between 1:30am and 11am, so it might be tough to schedule a lesson. We’re looking at adding classes on the weekend or later in the evening for us, so if you’d like us to do that, drop us a line and we’ll see what we can do for you!

GenkiJACS has signed a deal with acclaimed Japanese study website JapanesePod101, to offer our graduating students a whopping 25% off any subscription!
JapanesePod101 is a podcast based Japanese study website. Every day they release a new podcast, with a host of related study materials, aimed at a certain ability level. Levels offered are Survival, Newbie, Beginner, Lower Intermediate, Intermediate and Upper Intermediate, so they’ve got pretty much everyone covered! Depending on your subscription level, you can also access all previous content, which means hundreds of podcasts at each level!
Each podcast comes with the audio, lesson notes/transcription, and kanji closeup. Premium subscribers also get extra reviews, and access to a learning center.
The podcasts themselves are very polished and well thought out from both an educational and content standpoint, and we don’t hesitate to recommend this site to our graduating students, as an affordable way to continue their studies after they finish with us. And as the podcast information is mailed to you along with study tips each day, it provides a great motivator to keep up!
We give information to all graduating students on how to access this GenkiJACS discount. If you studied with us previously, and would like to take advantage of this deal, mail us and we’ll be happy to pass the info on to you!

We were presented with our Star Award certificate from Language Travel Magazine today!


It's a lot shinier in real life!

The text of the certificate is below:
Language Travel Magazine Star Awards
Shortlisted
LTM Star “Other” Language Provider 2009
Genki Japanese and Culture School, Japan
The annual industry awards are voted for by our readers – study abroad professionals – and reflect professional judgment as to which companies deserve to be known as an LTM Star company. Education agencies nominate their preferred school partners and international education institutions nominate their choice of professional agency overseas as best partner. Reasons given are personal to each voter and reflect a high commitment to service and quality. Those companies gathering the most votes from industry partners in each category duly receive the LTM Star Award.

At a meeting of members of the NPO that runs Genki Japanese and Culture School last week, we took a vote to shut down the NPO, and switch the running of the school to the company Genki Global instead, effective immediately. This change will not affect students at all, as the day to day operations of the school will continue uninterrupted. However, the new, simpler organization should enable us to focus our efforts more on improving the services that we provide at school. We have also renewed our commitment to charity – despite the difficult economic times worldwide, we plan to use the savings we will realize from the reorganization to increase the amount we donate to UNICEF this year.
Genki Global operates or is in the process of setting up several other businesses in Fukuoka, and we see a lot of potential for links between those businesses and GenkiJACS. We’ll give more details in future posts, so watch this space!

Every year, the study abroad trade publication Language Travel Magazine presents the Star Awards, for the best language schools and agencies worldwide. Thousands of votes are cast to determine which schools offer the best performance. Categories for language schools include English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and “Other”, for all other languages. This year, GenkiJACS is proud to have received enough votes to be shortlisted as one of only five nominees in the “Other” category! This means that GenkiJACS is ranked in the top five language schools worldwide (excluding the five languages above)!
Being in business since 2004, we are a relatively new school, which makes this an even greater honor for us. (Last year, the nominees in the same category had been running for between 16 and 33 years, compared to our five.) We have always worked extremely hard to make sure we provide the best possible service to students, and it is great to see that our partners and former students feel that we do a good job.
The full details of all nominees will be published in August, and the names of the final winners will be released in September. To be honest, we think the chances of us actually winning are slim, but this year we’re ecstatic just to have been nominated!