Sendagaya Japanese Institute

I like the Sendagaya Language Institute very much. Location and the facilities are very good. The staff was very helpful to me.
Housing is excellent, meals were very well prepared. I would like to go again and study there for one year ore more.

The teachers a very nice and friendly. Most of them have a good, well though up system to teach Japanese. I must say that the average level of this school is very high. I felt like I was back at University. Most students in my group had the same complain. For example: the teachers spend a lot of time on grammar and nuances before the student can properly introduce himself and knows the basic greetings etc. Therefore I would not indicate this course as "daily Japanese".

Nevertheless I had a good and fun experience studying at Setagaya. I learned a lot!

The housing is very good, it's just 15 minutes walking from the train station. Also is very clean and inside the building there is the laundry, which is very useful for long stays. To get to school it takes no more than 40 minute, and it's set in the center of Tokyo. The main building is just outside the train station. To reach the school you use the train, the best facilitie in Japan. Classes covers every aspects of learning a language, from writing to speaking and grammar. Teachers are very kind and qualified. Questions are always welcome. The classes are very confortable and there is the right number of students in each.

Housing, teachers , classes all were excellent
but there was no activies proposed
I liked the school and the students participating to the programs
Location Tokyo was great , i could go every where with the Subway and the train

Prior to my trip I was aware of the fact that the course was located in Shinjuku, a very busy city in which I have previously been. So I was expecting crowded streets and classes of at least 10 students. However to my big surprise it was located in a peaceful part of Shinjuku, near the Takadanobaba station.

The class I was given was very low in number which made my course a very pleasant one as I was able to improve my Japanese skills rapidly, especially with the help of trained Japanese teachers that were always here to listen to my questions.

Overall I was extremely happy with how my course in Tokyo turned out and will be coming back soon.

Overall I would say that Sendagaya Japanese Institute is a good school and I mostly enjoyed my time studying there. It helped me cover the necessary topics for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test N1 (passed), as I think if I were to have just studied independently my study range would have been insufficient.

The teachers responsible for my everyday lessons were very friendly, and it was obvious they were always trying to provide the best experience possible for other students and myself. Whenever I had a question, they would always give good quality and sincere answers, which made a big difference for me. However, this is not the case for all teachers. In some of my secondary lessons, the teachers were a joke: solely teaching from a textbook with no deviations (very dull), not taking students' queries seriously at all, sometimes being very condescending and generally not showing any interest in actual student progress. I attended the school for just under six months and came across several teachers attributed with this attitude, which was a shame, and at times very frustrating, however, the vast majority of staff were very nice and helpful.

The facilities were sufficient for teaching a language. Honestly, you really don't need much to adequately teach; being an English teacher myself I know that most essentially as long as there is a certain level of enthusiasm from both teacher and student, learning will inevitably happen. One small complaint if I had to say would be the uncomfortableness of some of the chairs and desks. I'm not especially tall and certainly don't have a heavy build, however, some of the desks were so low that I couldn't tuck myself in properly, which, as you can imagine can be a real hamper on concentration.

The school is located in a place called Takadanobaba, which is a really great place for several reasons. Firstly, it's very central being just a stone's throw away from major places like Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Tokyo. Takadanobaba itself is also a great place, especially for reasonably priced restaurants mainly aimed at students. You're spoiled for choice there and certainly won't have many boring lunches whilst attending school there.

It sounds like I had a lot of negative things to say, but, at the end of the day, I was able to obtain a really useful qualification (JLPTN1) partly with thanks to this school. Just remember that when learning a language, you get out what you put in. Therefore, don't expect just because you go to school (any school) that you'll make great progress and pass exams etc. They show you what to do and support you along the way, but you actually have to make the push and put in the effort for yourself.