Genki Fukuoka Summer School (Ages 14 – 19)

 “I first became familiar with Genki, and its founder, Evan Kirby, when its Fukuoka school (its first location) joined IALC a few years ago. There are a number of Japanese language schools in Fukuoka, but Genki stands far apart from them (as does its Tokyo school in that city) for a few reasons. First of all, the majority of the other Japanese language schools are targeted to persons of other Asian nationalities who are interested in attending university in Japan. As such, most of the students are already familiar with Asian culture, and are not particularly interested in a cultural “stay” in Japan. For that reason, those schools don’t organize extracurricular activities for the students—they just attend the lessons and go home. Secondly, many of these schools are huge, with hundreds if not thousands of students, and have very large class sizes—20 students to a class or more. In this way, it would be very easy for a student, particularly one from outside of Asia, to feel completely lost in one of them. Thirdly, most of the classes that they offer are long-term and begin on fixed start dates. Genki, on the other hand, is more aimed at international students, and organizes many of the cultural and recreational activities that they are truly looking to experience on a visit to Japan. It has a great mix of all nationalities, not only of persons from the West, its classes are small, and its start dates flexible. However, what impressed me most about Genki was that during my search for a school like this in Tokyo (there are a few that don’t conform to the description above), a prospective student and her father came to my office on a Saturday morning for information. For the fact that it was on a weekend, it was not possible to speak directly to any other language school in the city. On the other hand, Evan had invited me to call him on his personal number, and with the time difference it meant that he was taking my call at home on a Saturday night. That prospective student did in fact book the school for 5 months, and told me afterwards that she had received the same level of personal attention there that Evan demonstrated towards me as agent. She made a point of contacting me when she returned home to let me know what a positive experience she had had overall at that school, which not all students do, even when they have been satisfied. Genki Fukuoka in particular gives students the benefit of host families that are closer to the school than in Tokyo, and much less likely to speak English.  That fact is true for the general population of that city, allowing students a full immersion language experience while they are there.  Then for students who want the best of both worlds—the full immersion Japanese experience in Fukuoka, and the excitement of Tokyo—is possible to do a course combining a stay in both cities.”