August 31, 2007 – 7:38 pm
1st time
They were humble beginnings at my first English school, money was tight and location was important. Near to the station was priority for me. Eventually a place became available a stone’s throw away from the station. The building itself wasn’t new. It looked liked it was built in the late [...]
August 31, 2007 – 1:42 am
After recently reading a posting about a BBQ event with students by a fellow teacher at Smith’s English school in Kyobashi I realized that I had neglected to write about my own BBQ event!
http://www.sse-franchise.com/soapbox/200708/31/pic-a-nic-time/
This event, unbeknownst to most of the students, also happened to fall on my birthday!
Well, if no one was going to throw [...]
By Alex
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Posted in SSE Fuse Corner, SSE Horie Corner, enjoyed this a lot
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Tagged バーベキュー, 大阪バーベキュー場, 月謝制のスミス英会話堀江校, 月謝制のスミス英会話布施校, 東大阪市英会話, 淀川, 淀川河川公園, 英会話四ツ橋校, 豊里大橋
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August 31, 2007 – 12:56 am
Last Monday I had a great time going on a picnic with some students and another staff member, Tim, from the Kyobashi School. We were all able to take the day and go out to a natural river area as it was a national holiday. This is actually the [...]
August 30, 2007 – 10:51 pm
A particularly enthusiastic student decided to book in a second lesson this week. She had something particular in mind that she wanted to learn, and so came in earlier than usual with this goal in mind. She works at an izakaya in the evenings, and a few days ago an English-speaking customer came in. The [...]
August 29, 2007 – 6:43 pm
Today was my first Saturday back after a little break. I was glad to see on the schedule that my first student was one that I knew rather well. It allowed us to have a good 5 minute chat about our respective holidays. I was able to tell him about my time back in England [...]
August 27, 2007 – 10:43 pm
Smith’s School of English Kotoen students have been very busy this summer, traveling all over the world.
One Student (of Billy’s Boot Camp fame) spent 10 days in Cairns, Australia. She and her husband explored the rain forest, went fishing, scuba diving and relaxed on the beach. But her favorite part was going [...]
August 27, 2007 – 5:10 pm
In my lesson last night with a student who is working to improve her TOEFL score, we worked on a reading exercise which happened to be about the Canadian Government. Although it is probably well known to my Canadian fellow franchisees and I seem to remember that Canada is still a part of the [...]
August 26, 2007 – 1:46 am
Last Thursday, during the weekly “Night Out” event that I hold for my students at the local cafe, one of my students who had just come back from a trip to Salt Lake City and Indianapolis where she gave a presentation on statistics behind pharmaceutical trials in English to a group of American employees of [...]
August 25, 2007 – 5:24 am
At my Smith’s School of English in Fukushima, I feel very fortunate to have an extra large, 1.8m-long whiteboard and with many colored markers, it is an enjoyable mission to fill the entire board during the lesson.
One of my incredibly charming Monday night students has the most interesting study habit. She takes out [...]
August 24, 2007 – 7:21 am
My good buddy Paul visited me for a week from the United States about two weeks ago. We decided to take a trip into the big city and went to Ginza, Tokyo’s most expensive shopping area, a must-see for anyone travelling this way. It was hot…Not hot. It was beyond hot, and as we [...]
August 23, 2007 – 7:25 pm
Yesterday I had the opportunity to coach a lesson for a student on working through Smith’s Travel Course. This is one of three short term courses that are focused on one specific area of English conversation. This particular student will be traveling abroad at the end of September so she has a specific [...]
August 22, 2007 – 5:17 pm
Saga Kita, a team from a nearly unknown school in the southern island of Kyushu, finished the perennial summer drama yesterday by hitting a grand slam home run in the 8th inning of the Japan Summer High School Baseball Tournament to take home their first championship trophy. This reversed a 1-4 deficit to finish [...]
August 21, 2007 – 11:24 am
Back into the furnace
Having just returned from my vacation in Toronto, I’ve been finding adjusting to the near-drowning humidity in Osaka a bit worrisome. Surprisingly, Toronto also managed to soar up into the upper-end of my threshold for heat tolerance with a few days hitting 30° C… and three days [...]
August 20, 2007 – 7:23 pm
Since I hadn’t seen my first two students today in over a month, they were visibly nervous about getting into the lesson. We got into talking about movies and that’s when they started to warm up, really getting into the topic.
One student told me that her favorite actor was George [...]
August 19, 2007 – 5:17 am
I have a married couple who are Green level students that often come on Saturdays for a joint lesson. He is a cardiologist and she is a housewife. They are both very good speakers of English but I guess that he is a little better given his wide English medical vocabulary.
We covered one [...]
August 19, 2007 – 4:35 am
My last student on Saturday evening surprised me a bit when she thanked me for teaching her English and said that most of all, she was thankful to “get used to” talking with foreign people by learning English from me. She said that she often gets approached by foreigners who ask her directions on [...]
August 18, 2007 – 9:59 pm
Hiroko, an elementary school teacher came to me about two months ago desiring the Smith’s Travel Course. She had never been abroad, was invited to a wedding in Florida, and planned on turning it into a ten-day vacation for her and her husband. Additionally, she had never studied English conversation before and was initially quite [...]
August 18, 2007 – 2:27 am
Last night, I had a terribly frightening experience with a rowdy cicada that happened to leap and bounce into my path. Up until my second class, it seemed like nobody would be able to sympathize with my phobia of the screeching insects.
When the lone student from my second class [...]
August 17, 2007 – 4:58 pm
He’s wearing a necktie when it’s 38 deg. C (100 deg. F) outside! You know already he is not working for any of the Smith’s English schools. Poor guy! I feel sorry for him not only because he has to wear that neck tie but also because he has not yet realized [...]
August 16, 2007 – 4:44 pm
Maybe it’s astrological destiny, or maybe pure coincidence, but one of my students has the same birthday as me. We discovered this in our first lesson together. (her husband and my boyfriend are also both Leos!) Our birthday is Sunday so we decided to have a mini-party in our lesson on Thursday.
Birthday [...]
August 15, 2007 – 7:55 pm
Not for us here at Smith’s School of English!
We all believe in working hard in order to achieve positive results but finding a balance between work and play is equally important, and we take our play time very seriously here at Smith’s School of English! http://www.sse-franchise.com/calendar2007.shtml
I have been looking forward to this year’s Obon vacation [...]
By Alex
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Posted in Living in Japan, SSE Fuse Corner, SSE Horie Corner, enjoyed this a lot, rewarding job change
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Tagged お盆, ビーチ, 夏休み, 夏期休暇, 岸べ, 暑中休暇, 月謝制のスミス英会話堀江校, 月謝制のスミス英会話布施校, 東大阪市英会話, 浜, 浦富海岸, 海辺, 英会話四ツ橋校, 鳥取県
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August 15, 2007 – 7:50 am
A week before the Obon break, one of the students at my Smith’s School of English Fukushima franchise in Osaka was having a little difficulty with one of the 1-points in the B-section: When I was ______ years old, I wanted to ______ but I couldn’t because ______ . Well, after modeling a [...]
August 12, 2007 – 9:00 pm
After a hard & enjoyable day’s work usually on Saturday evenings, I have the urge to indulge myself in the delights of one of my favorite Japanese cuisines (Yakitori) or side dishes with beer as others would say. In any case, I must admit I’m pretty hooked due to the wide selection of meats [...]
August 11, 2007 – 9:19 pm
Yesterday was my usual busy Saturday….7 straight lessons! In the middle of my busy teaching schedule, one of my man-to-man (private) students told me that she felt I must be a very rare English teacher in Japan since I have so much international business experience.
Having worked in Japan for a large Japanese electronics manufacturer for [...]
August 10, 2007 – 8:34 pm
Last night at Smith’s Tsukaguchi, I was saying goodbye to a student in the entrance when she told me that she enjoyed my lessons. This made me happy.
I really like it when students tell me that they enjoy my lessons. Some tell me I am a good teacher and of course I like that too! [...]
August 10, 2007 – 12:43 am
Last Monday I was discussing the issue of ‘marriage’ from the Lets Talk section of the Curriculum with a very talkative, confident high level student. She is currently dating a foreign guy so recently our lessons have resembled counseling sessions (at no extra cost)! I often teach her pieces of English that she [...]
I had a class with two orange level students this evening. One of them is a very cheerful mid-aged guy and has practically done everything from basic to intermediate more than once, the other only signed up recently, but had been taking classes with students lower than her. When I saw the combination, I thought [...]
Recently, I met a student at my Smith’s Kotoen franchise for the first time. He is a mature, professional man and although I have met him only once, he seems to be very intelligent and quick to learn.
I started out a little different than usual as I had been informed this man has been [...]
In my lesson last night with a young businessman, I was covering the first lesson about numbers. This student is a man-to-man student and is moving pretty fast. Especially, he seemed to have little trouble with numbers. The only funny thing was that he sometimes would say “47″ instead of “57″ etc. [...]
I had two office lady students in class today red and green levels. The Item of choice today was (May/Might)
One question of interest was…What might you eat after this class?
One of the students replied I might drop by Mister Donuts and pick up a few of my favorite doughnuts. The other student [...]