Tonight I posed this question to three “green” level students: “What would your ideal teacher be like?” I wasn’t surprised at the responses from them…They are looking for honesty, corrections (at about 50 percent of the time), interesting topics, friendliness…I am sure we provide all of that, and more…Then they asked me the same question [...]
It is normally rare to hear Japanese people say something to me in English outside my school, but over the last 4 days Japanese people said something to me in English 2 times! That’s amazing! The first time was last Sunday at a Starbucks Coffee shop in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture. I, my wife and [...]
WOW, What a morning. Thanks Gavin for helping out. This morning I surprised myself and also the way I think of flyers. We passed out close to 3 times as many flyers as we usually do and all we did was smile and greet people. I never thought that this would make a tremendous difference, [...]
Recently, we moved our school to a new location, one station away from our previous school. The difference between the two locations that excites us most is that our new Smith school is now located in a commercial space. With street level shop signage, the free trail lesson numbers have taken off! What better way [...]
My cousin is currently in Hong Kong setting up an office for an investment company. He is thinking about coming to Japan to visit us before xmas, so we have been exchanging emails on what to do. This really reminded me how much there is to do here! So many excellent activities (golf, skiiing, scuba [...]
Today a student told me something that really pleased me. She said that she had seen 3 foreigners in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture recently while on her way somewhere. She approached one of them, a woman, and asked her where she was from in English. The foreigner answered in English, saying that she was from [...]
My husband (and co-owner of Smith’s Azamino), Mike, has recently gotten back into golf, an activity he used to do quite a bit in Canada when he was younger, and one which we didn’t think we could afford to do here in Japan. While it isn’t cheap, it is not unreasonably expensive if you can [...]
A few nights ago I did the “Lawson” routine with one student during my 9pm lesson. After the lesson I was hungry so I walked down the street to Lawson convenience store. When I got there I spotted the bento shop across the street and found myself “standing in front of Lawson” with “a problem.” [...]
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