This morning was a very sleepy, rainy, stormy, miserable way to start the day. I’d spent the night listening to a furious thunderstorm so I wasn’t feeling very alert when I came into work. I was preparing my lessons when suddenly I heard a familiar voice call out “Hello!” into the room. [...]
I recently joined a local sports club I’ve been wanting to join ever since I arrived here 7 years ago. It’s quite expensive, so I’d shied away from it before. (Thanks to Smith’s School of English, I can now afford such a luxury!) Wouldn’t you know I ran into one of our students my [...]
One of our students is in the long process of trying to move permanently to Canada. Not entirely sure why, exactly, but it is her dream. Her husband has joined her in this adventure and went to Canada ahead of her in search of permanent work. After going on a student visa, he has finally [...]
We have several families who’ve joined our school. Sometimes they join together, but often they stagger it.
Our first family joined the first month we were open, 3 years ago. The husband dropped by one evening and rang the bell without an appointment. At that time we had hardly any students, so I was free to [...]
My husband and I took a short trip to the Izu Peninsula during Golden Week vacation. Before our holiday break, as is our custom, we discussed holiday plans with our students (our plans and those of our students). A great opportunity to use real English, it’s also a fabulous chance for us and students to [...]
Truly the best compliment I have ever received from a student was from our very first student (#001), who of course is still studying with us at Smith’s Azamino and has begun her 4th year with us. (Her son is also a student!)
She is a teacher herself, and therefore understands the value of reviewing one’s [...]
My school is in a 7 storey building. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors are for businesses, the remaining floors are for residents. I’m situated on the 4th floor. Most of the residents on the upper floors are salaried workers and a few students. A few weeks ago, it was a [...]
Through the years, I have had students come and go for all different reasons. Some join my school are through word and mouth.
Some years ago, I had one student who joined and then a week later introduced her friend, who in turn introduced her daughter and finally her father joined too. The [...]
In my lesson yesterday my student (doctor and his wife) shared our “bad experiences” with a particular American car maker’s cars. It seems that we had exactly the same kinds of troubles: power windows that stopped working, air conditioning that broke multiple times, especially just before the hottest season, and transmission problems. [...]
One of my students walked in the classroom last week and gave me a flower! When I asked why, she said there was no particular reason; she was just walking by a florist and thought she’d buy a flower for her teacher that day! After class, everyone was asking me about the nicely-wrapped flower on [...]
I had such a good time presenting my one point last week, that I decided to reuse it for a different student. My student was quite fit high level (green) and so when I asked him to visualise his waterglass growing little legs and running across the desk and into the lobby he had no [...]
Hello all,
Yesterday I took a day off!
Some friends of mine are visiting from America for a few weeks so I rearranged my schedule a bit in order to show them around. It’s pretty nice that I was able to do so with relatively little notice. Thanks office staff members and Kyobashi coaches for [...]
I’ve done flyers and managed flyer teams at many stations in Kansai over the years, and Heidi and I had an experience the other day I just have to share with you. I’m hoping this story will motivate you to increase the revenue at your Smith’s School Franchise.
Kotoen Station is midway on the Hankyu Nishinomiya-Takarazuka [...]
Hi! My name`s Heidi, I`m originally from Australia but have somehow picked up a half-canadian accent in the last 2 years of teaching English in Osaka. I`ve just finished my first month working at Smith’s School of English Kotoen, and couldn`t be happier. I quit my last job for a number of reasons, but [...]
On Wednesday I had a sudden trial with a 6-year old girl who’s family had just returned from Vancouver, Canada a few weeks before. After the normal introductory questions, realizing that she could already speak, ask and answer questions at the normal US/Canadian elementary school level, I asked her to read Peter Rabbit, then [...]
To be sure the monthly tuition system that we offer our students fits their lifestyle better that the ticket/point type payment systems. However, the “Powerful” (student’s who pay extra to be able to book lesson via telephone on a flexible system) students or those who require flexibility to call in and reserve a lesson when [...]
I’ve got two students returning after holidays today. One was doing her on-the-job training as a public nurse and the other just got back from the Netherlands for a 10-day trip. I am sure that both will have some interesting stories to share and my student returning from the Netherlands will have some [...]
My first Private Student
After I’d been in Japan for about a year, I decided that it was time for a change of scenery – figuratively speaking. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed my time spent in Japan up until that point, I just felt that I’d reached a fork in the road and neither branching [...]
Foreigners in White
I’ve been living in Japan for over three years now and had thought – up until now - that I’d seen just about everything. One early morning last September, I was about to be proven wrong.
Before last year, I had been maintaining the life of a night owl. Work late, sleep [...]
I previously posted something about this but I felt I should post it again to drive home the strength of being part of a system such as ours.
Last week at Smith’s School of English Horie I had two trial lessons book in through absolutely no effort of my own.
On Thursday night at 9pm I sat [...]
Recently the weather has been getting warmer and we all know what to expect in about a month or so when the mercury will be around 30 degrees Celsius every day and the humidity around 100%. http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa081901a.htm
A couple of days ago while riding the subway between my 2 schools I saw this English teacher who [...]
OK, so you are thinking about teaching English in Japan. It is a big business here due largely to the lack of emphasis on the development of conversational skills at the junior and senior high schools and the over-emphasis on grammar and translation.
Teach for a Big Corporate School:
There are a myriad of schools at [...]
I was thinking about this question the other day and thought I should put in a few words about it. In today’s business world, most businesses are franchise businesses. So why does a person decide to buy a McDonald’s franchise instead of just opening a “My Burger” shop? Well it is obvious isn’t [...]
Konan Women’s University was closed for one week from the end of the last week of May 2007 for German Measles. Starting in Tokyo, many university have closed due to several cases of German Measles.
Some of my students may not attend this week as Konan Women’s University is closed due to German Measles. [...]
Today for the One-Point English at Azamino Smith’s School of English we were practicing “I don’t know the first thing about ____.” Every one of our students knows I don’t know the first thing about cooking, so that was an easy one! This of course made it very easy to guess the meaning of the [...]
Just got home from a student’s place. She and her husband invited my husband and I to join their family at their home for an Okonomiyaki party tonight. She was our first student and is still studying with us, as is her son, who we have had the priveledge to watch grow into a wonderful, [...]
Just got to the school and noticed there was a fax showing that a student had decided to return. It’s great to see that. It is a nice validation that your coaching was appreciated when a student decides to come back. So on top of it being a fine sunny day, I’ve [...]
Being an aficionado of picnics, I sometimes like to prepare for the event most scrupulously. They are the sort of idea that can grow claws, wings and who-knows-what-else in their monstrous potential. They sometimes need to be finely tuned to prevent disaster. First and foremost, there is the scouting of the picnic spot. One must [...]