The Lesson Environment

For teachers who teach in their homes, there is an added component to their interaction with their students. The teacher is also a host and the student a regular guest. This does not mean that the teacher must be overly formal but it does carry some extra responsibility compared to teaching in an office environment.

Here are some tips for making sure students feel comfortable in your home:

• Make sure that your home is relatively clean and tidy. If the student must sit on the floor during the lesson, make sure you have vacuumed recently. Japanese students are relatively understanding and tolerant of the look of an older apartment but they may be uncomfortable in a place which is obviously messy or dirty.
• Unless the student has requested a more casual setting, perform the lesson at a table so the student has a place to put his notebook, dictionary, etc.
  
• Try to always serve a beverage of some sort, even if it's only a glass of water. Since the lesson will include a lot of speaking, it's better for both the student and teacher to have something at hand to drink and it would be impolite for the teacher to have a beverage while the student does not.
• Clear the genkan of extra shoes and tidy up the shoes remaining in the box so that the student may easily remove his shoes upon entering.
• Keep the students' temperature needs in mind when cooling or heating the room in which the lesson is held. In the winter, be careful not to overheat the room as the student will be coming from a much colder atmosphere into a much warmer one. In the summer, be careful not to use the air conditioning at too cold a setting. Many Japanese people are comfortable in summer at warmer temperatures than foreign people.
  
• Make sure the room the lesson is held in is well lit. If there are windows, open the curtains to let in light during the day.
  
• Try not to cook food with a strong smell before a lesson. Some people are very sensitive to food odors and may feel uncomfortable in a small space which is saturated with such smells. Try to air out your apartment if you have done any cooking recently.
• Turn on the answering machine on your phone and turn the volume down so that its ringing doesn't disrupt your lesson. Never answer the phone in the middle of a lesson.
• If the doorbell rings during a lesson and it must be answered because you are expecting a delivery, apologize to the student for the disruption and answer the door. Add a few minutes to the end of the lesson time to make up for the lesson time which is lost because of the disruption. Do not dwell on the situation or speak of it upon returning to the lesson except to quickly apologize once more. Get back to the lesson as soon as possible.