Last week I asked my Japanese teacher to explain the meaning of どーせ to me. After 15 minutes, the only thing I could grasp was that it is a word you use when you feel negative or pessimistic. I had already understood that after the first minute of the explanation; the remaining 14 minutes did not bring me any more knowledge. It was frustrating for both my teacher and me.

Later I asked ChatGPT. It explained that どーせ is equivalent to "anyway" (in English) or "de toute façon" (in French), used to express a sense of resignation or inevitability. Getting this explanation only took me 30 seconds and it was crystal clear.

Teacher don't need to explain Japanese anymore

With the rise of the internet and especially technology like ChatGPT, I have started to get the impression that teachers don't need to explain Japanese anymore.

In the past, dictionaries and textbooks were used to replace teacher explanations. But they often failed to convey nuances, context, and culture. You needed someone to give you further adapted explanations; otherwise, you had to practice the new knowledge a lot to "naturally get it" after some unpredictable time.

Today you can use ChatGPT to get detailed and customized explanations. Especially when you reach a certain level, where your questions become very precise and technical, it becomes challenging for the teacher to give a satisfying explanation.

Indeed, your Japanese teacher is likely Japanese and native in Japanese. It is hard for native speakers to explain detailed points of the language because it just feels natural to them. Even if it can be explained, your Japanese is maybe not enough to understand the explanation with precision. Those questions are easier to answer by comparing them to a language you already know, but this requires your teacher to be equally proficient in that language, which is often not the case.

ChatGPT does not have this problem. It can speak any language; it can explain the nuances between words and generate the same example in any language so you can make comparisons yourself.

Why would a teacher bother spending time on explanations when they can simply forward it to ChatGPT?

Make no mistake, I am not saying teachers can be replaced by ChatGPT. I am saying the value of teachers should no longer be in technical explanations.

I wish for teachers to decide and maintain my learning path

I wish for teachers to give me a personalized learning methodology

Accessing detailed technical explanations is not all you need to learn a language; you also need to retain this knowledge.

Most of my life, when teachers gave me homework, they often asked me to review the lesson or learn vocabulary. These instructions are vague. Beginners may think review and learn mean read again, but experienced learners know that repetition alone doesn't help much. Reading a word 50 times won't make it stick more than after the first few repetitions.

To learn new knowledge, you need to practice it in various ways and spread those exercises over time. I believe there are many methods, but not all fit everyone the same.

Creating a methodology and learning routine is more challenging than it seems. You need to be creative, and the numerous options can be overwhelming. Most of us end up just reading again.

In other words, being told "to learn [something]" is too vague. I need specific tasks I can act on without overthinking. Researching and deciding how to study Japanese is a burden I want to pass to my teachers, so I can focus on the actual work.

I wish for teachers to keep me focus on what matters

I often overwhelm myself with too many questions. Recently, while studying the manga Slam Dunk, I came up with 65 questions after reading the first chapter, not including vocabulary I had already looked up.

I want to understand everything in depth, including nuances, subtext, and the unspoken. If fluent people can understand it, I want to understand it too.

As a consequence, I always have a lot of questions and the fear of missing something makes me wants to clear all of them right now. However, not all questions are equally important, and tackling them all at once isn't efficient. It can be discouraging and counterproductive.

I wish teachers to help prioritize my questions and focus on what truly matters. I want them to reassure me that I am not missing anything important.

I wish for teachers to challenge me beyond my comfort zone

Learning alone can often lead to staying within your comfort zone. You might get used to certain materials, like watching TV dramas, and consume more and more of them. While this feels rewarding and you get better at it, you might end up only doing that. Over time, without noticing, you get stuck.

For me, it was using a flashcard system called Anki. Every day, I reviewed vocabulary and only that. Although I learned many new words and felt like I was progressing, my overall speaking skills didn't improve much because I wasn't practicing other skills like listening or reading.

I realized this problem in January 2024 when I restarted taking Japanese lessons. My teacher asked me to read articles every week. In the past, I quickly gave up on reading practice because there were too many words I didn't know, and it felt pointless to spend most of the time looking them up in a dictionary. I thought it was too early for me and that I should focus on vocabulary first.

But this time I had no choice, so I forced myself to read. I had to look up all the words in a dictionary. Yes, it took time, but actually less than I thought. Moreover, it was not as useless as I had convinced myself. Once you look up all the unknown vocabulary, you do feel you can read, and it is very rewarding. It is also better to learn vocabulary in context rather than just through flashcards.

Without my teacher pushing me to try new things, I would have remained stuck. They should keep me focused initially but challenge me beyond my comfort zone when it's time. By introducing new exercises or materials at the right moment, they will ensure my growth and improvement continue at the same pace.

Conclusion

My ideal teacher takes responsibility for my success. They will do everything for me except what only I can do.

Indeed, if my brain is not put to work, I don't learn. I need to read, write, research, and recall. It's part of the process. This only I can do.

For everything else, I want to pay someone to handle it. In particular, I want to delegate the burden of deciding what to do. I don't know how to learn Japanese efficiently, and I don't care about learning that skill.

My ideal Japanese teacher in the age of ChatGPT