September 12, 2007 – 4:48 pm
Yesterday I had a really nice lesson with an orange student. We covered the item “Past II” for past continuous in which we cover the bank robbery and what the students were doing in the morning and afternoon. As expected, she did not know what “naughty” meant. I explained that it [...]
September 12, 2007 – 6:50 am
A green level student attended my lesson today and as soon as he walked through the door he had a huge beaming smile on his face and said,”I’m on top of the world”. He had learnt this previously in an idiom class I taught about a month ago.
I replied, “So what’s the good news?” [...]
September 12, 2007 – 5:44 am
Wow! My first post. A bit excited, but nervous too. My name is Steve. I’m originally from New York and I’m one of the partners here at Smith Tsuruhashi. (Any other New Yawkers out there?) We just recently completed a three day intensivse training course here at Smith Tsuruhashi. I would like to first give [...]
September 11, 2007 – 9:13 am
I must admit this is not my original idea…But the grammar combined with the function works well for high level English school students: I spent the first ten minutes brainstorming types of disasters, natural and those that humans are responsible for, resulting in lots of new vocabulary for the student…Then combined the [...]
September 11, 2007 – 2:45 am
ET
This English school class had three students so there were two different one points to review. The first I elicited by asking two of the students if they knew what the population of Toronto, Canada was. They answered, “I have no idea.” For the third student, I asked her to make an [...]
September 11, 2007 – 12:55 am
I’m just sitting here in the lobby of the Kyobashi English school doing some work at the computer and two students come in for their 5 O’Clock class. They don’t usually come at this time of day so I was a bit surprised and also happy to see them. After chatting with them [...]
September 10, 2007 – 5:08 pm
Over the past few months the real estate office on the first floor below my school has been converted into a crepe shop. ”L’air du Temps” is the name which seems to mean “The Air of Time” in French. Such off-the-wall names in French seem to be popular these days as we already had a cake [...]
September 9, 2007 – 11:07 pm
Hey, it’s Mike from Smith School of English Tsuruhashi here offering a big “tip of the hat” and “thanks” to Gavin at head office. Over the past three weeks, we had Gavin come down to our school to put us through the SSE curriculum and school operation training. I personally hadn’t gone [...]
September 8, 2007 – 9:16 pm
The recent Thursday, September 6th 2007 curriculum training event at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi head office was a huge success. This one was set on a weekday in the morning to accommodate those who have other obligations during our regularly scheduled weekend events. It was attended by a tight, focused group of [...]
September 8, 2007 – 1:20 am
ET: I was invited to (A) but couldn’t go because (B)
After a bit of a ‘Long time, no see. How are you doing?’ conversation, I asked her if she remembered her one point from the last class. She recited it without any hesitation, “I was invited to a tea ceremony but couldn’t go [...]
September 7, 2007 – 8:11 pm
Today’s English school class was a lesson for 2 students who were pink and orange.
ET
I jumped straight in and asked whether the students remembered their one points from the previous class. Both of the students were able to do it with no problem at all.
ROUTINE
For this part I wanted to review the questions from routine [...]
September 6, 2007 – 7:35 pm
E.T.
B28 – (a) is famous for (b) because (c) – from Smith’s School of English one point series
The first item on the menu was a review of the one point from last lesson. The red student quickly said Kyoto is famous for temples because there are a lot of them. I was impressed with her [...]
September 6, 2007 – 5:00 am
Recently I received some news that intially was not welcomed and was a cause of great concern to my English school in Mikunigaoka, Osaka. The owner of my 3LDK apartment where I reside and teach from, informed head office and I that they would not be renewing our lease after 2 years. I was shocked, [...]
September 5, 2007 – 2:21 am
ET: I’ve never heard of it
I start by telling the student that there’s a new restaurant in Kyobashi called “Smith’s English School BBQ”. The student looks puzzled and then remembers his one point. He replies in a loud, confident tone, “I’ve never heard of it!” We had a laugh.
Routine 8: Shopping
We go through the [...]
September 4, 2007 – 9:32 pm
Last week I had a lesson with 2 red intermediate level students. Both had been doing very well lately so I decided to challenge them a little with the post intermediate restaurant 2 item. But before starting this we tried a review of the routine 8 shopping story. I was happy to see [...]
September 4, 2007 – 3:15 pm
Now that I’ve left my English school (Smith’s School of English Nagaoka) running smoothly in the very capable hands of Gen (my profit-share teacher) for the summer, I’ve just started a language course myself and I’m gaining a new perspective on language schools from the other side of the desk. I’m in Montpellier, France, and [...]
September 4, 2007 – 7:26 am
This will be short and sweet…I try to avoid saying “never say never,” so I’ll say - I never want to work for anyone again in my life. Working for myself at my English school is the best. It really is!
Jim
addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sse-franchise.com%2Fsoapbox%2F200709%2F04%2Fnever-say-never%2F’;
addthis_title [...]
September 3, 2007 – 6:17 pm
Hello Everyone! My name is Sue Six (yep, just like the number). I am the new kid on the block ~ fresh from Kansas in the USA. After nine nights at the hotel, I am very happy say I’m moving into my new apartment this morning. My English school is here in Kofu City, Yamanashi [...]
September 3, 2007 – 5:03 pm
Of course I am sure that a human being can get used to living anywhere, but it really is easy to get used to living in Japan. Of course it helps a lot to learn the language and I highly recommend working to do that before you come and after you arrive. But [...]
September 3, 2007 – 2:03 am
One Point – Bless you.
Easiest One point to review in my opinion. After greeting the student I simply sneeze. The English school student immediately responded with the last lesson’s one point: “Bless you.” She has a smile on her face from passing the impromptu quiz and I know that we started the lessons [...]
September 1, 2007 – 7:38 pm
Initial Investment Payback in less than 13 months!
So I have now had my Smith’s school for 14 months after purchasing it for 2.7 million Yen in 2006. After starting with only 15 students I now have 49 but 7 are Man-to-Man (Private) which is like having 56 students. The clear earnings [...]
September 1, 2007 – 12:05 pm
I believe we have an excellent English school curriculum at Smith’s that focuses on things students need work on. I always try to use the “loop”, which is the overriding format for every lesson. It works very well and I use it at Smith’s Tsukaguchi school http://www.smithweb.co.jp/school/tsukaguchi.shtml . I was taught the loop at [...]