JASH Japanese Language Program Overview & General Policies

Program Goals

The JASH Japanese Language Program (JLP) is designed to support the development of communication skills that can be applied to business, tourism, and social interaction at all levels. The curriculum will introduce basic vocabulary, essential grammatical forms, and sentence structure.  

From the introductory level, you will learn to read written Japanese while developing conversational abilities.  For students with a foundation in Japanese, our advanced classes offer the opportunity to develop greater fluency and master more complicated readings.  Courses also integrate information about business and cultural customs.

Classes, by design, are small. We believe that a direct relationship with your teacher and fellow students is key to understanding the language and feeling comfortable with your continued progress. 

JASH Japanese Language Program classes are geared towards adults and open to persons 14 years and older.

Each class in a session contains eight lessons, one for each week of the session.

Placement

Placement in courses will be determined by consultation through a short, course level-objectives-based interview.

Students will be initially assigned to a class and, with the guidance of instructors, will work together to ensure such class is best aligned with the students' learning goals.

Students may attend multiple classes during the first week of a session to determine the most appropriate course level.

All transfers between course levels must be approved by JASH and finalized by the beginning of the second week of classes. 

Registration
& Tuition

Tuition Fees are as follows:

JASH Member $175
Non-JASH Member $215

Tuition is payable by cash, check (payable to JASH), or credit card. 

Registration will remain open until the date one week prior to the start of each session. After the deadline, registration will be allowed on a case-by-case basis.

Registration will be deemed complete upon receipt of tuition payment by the registration deadline for each session. 

Payment must be processed by the second week of a session at the very latest to ensure class participation.

Partial payment by number of classes attended is not available.

Requests for payment plans must be vetted by JASH.  All such requests are to be directed to Patsy Brown at pybrown@jas-hou.org or 713.963.0121.

Those who currently have outstanding payment due to JASH will not be allowed future class participation until outstanding balance and program tuition or negotiated payment plan/tuition adjustment amount is paid in full. 

Textbooks Used

You may pick up your textbooks on the first day of class.  If you wish to pick up beforehand, please visit the JASH offices between 9AM and 5PM (M-F).

Textbooks/workbooks cannot be returned once purchased.

Cancellation

JASH reserves the right to cancel any class if sufficient enrollment is not obtained.  If a class has fewer than four (4) registrations and is cancelled, students may transfer to another class if space is available or may request a refund.

While effort will be made to provide as much consistency as possible, there may be occasions for adjustments to class schedule, class instructor, or class location.

Classes cancelled due to holidays or teacher emergencies will be rescheduled by discussing the optimal date with the class.

If there are no students present within the first 20 minutes of the scheduled class, the class will be cancelled and will not be rescheduled.

Before the end of the first week of the term, students may cancel a class and receive a partial refund of half the class tuition. After that, tuition is non-refundable and non-transferable for any reason including classes missed due to travel, business, or short-term illness.

Please note that membership fees paid at the time of registration are non-refundable. 

Attendance

Attendance will be taken at each class, as regular attendance is important. 

In cases where possible, class instructors should be informed of absences in advance.

Should a student miss more than three classes, the instructor reserves the right to not recommend promotion of the student to the next level.

Handling of Personal Information

Student contact information collected from the registration process will be shared with your class instructor for teaching and emergency purposes.  

While the majority of communications will come from JASH, notifications related to assignments for class or class schedule changes due to teacher circumstances will come from the instructor via email.