Thank you for 20 years of Coto!

On July 1st, Coto Celebrated its 20th anniversary!!!

There have been many ups and downs over the years – but the thing that has always stayed the same is the support of our awesome students.

We want to sincerely thank you for continuing to study with us – and are excited about sharing the next 20 with you.

Humble Beginnings

We started as a group of Four Volunteer Japanese teachers with a shared mission.

At that time – most Japanese schools only focused on preparing students for university entrance examinations. But we wanted to give something more.

We wanted to support the daily lives of foreign residents in Japan.

So from those four teachers – we decided to start something new.

We didn’t have any resources – in fact, our first location was a rented 2 bedroom apartment!

We can still remember the confused look on most students faces when they came to our “classroom” for the first time!

But people came – and they brought others.

And we developed friendships and helped our students grow. There are many cherished memories and experiences that we hold dear from this time.

(In the photo gallery above – we’ve included many photos from 2014 – the year we transitioned from our “apartment” location to the current Iidabashi school location.)

Looking back at these photos – we can’t help but feel an immense sense of thankfulness and gratitude for all of our students that have chosen and continue to study with us.

The Next Chapter

We are in the process of writing the next chapter of the Coto Story.

2020 has been a challenging year for foreign residents in Japan – as well as Coto.

Between the Coronavirus situation and the immigration regulations – things have not been ideal for our students or ourselves.

Regardless of the external circumstances – We have been unbelievably blessed by the continued support of our students – and cannot thank you enough!

In 2020 we were able to:

• Open our Yokohama Location
• Launch our online Lesson Platform
• Publish digital learning contents for the JLPT

Your Growth is our Goal

For 2020, Coto has a new motto!

Your Growth is our Goal.

We want you to have fun while learning – but as our student – our commitment to you is to keep you accountable in your learning and to foster your growth.

We want to enable you to achieve the goals that you set for your learning.

Whether you want to visit the bank – or pass the JLPT N2 – our commitment is to support your learning and keep you motivated.

In the coming weeks, we will be developing new processes in the following areas:

• Customized Study Plans
• Streamlined student support / more efficient customer service
• More channels for student feedback about their lessons
• A stronger focus on student learning goals

This is something that we are excited about – and something that we really would love to hear your feedback on.

How can we better support your growth? What are your goals? What do you want to achieve in your Japanese learning?

Thank You

We want to sincerely thank all that have studied with us – and we hope that you continue to commit to your learning goals with us in the future.