November 29, 2007 – 8:45 am
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 [...]
November 26, 2007 – 11:24 pm
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 [...]
November 26, 2007 – 1:25 am
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, [...]
November 26, 2007 – 1:16 am
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 [...]
November 25, 2007 – 7:35 pm
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 diving, [...]
November 23, 2007 – 4:52 pm
One of my man-to-man students is a premed student. In his English class at his university he was required to write his opinion on some difficult topics related to medical ethics. His chosen topic was “End of Life Issues”. He came to class with his draft and we checked it together and [...]
November 22, 2007 – 9:06 am
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 [...]
November 21, 2007 – 11:11 pm
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 [...]
November 21, 2007 – 9:34 pm
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.” [...]
November 21, 2007 – 6:46 pm
The staff at the head office is great! They have helped me many times and just the other day one of my students told me that the young women who answer the phone to book their lessons etc. are always very kind and helpful. She was very sincere when she said this. [...]
November 21, 2007 – 4:17 pm
With the recent failure of the largest corporate English school in Japan, I have come to wonder, shall I say “hope” that those 400,000+ students will take a hard look at how they were treated by this corporate school and decide to find a monthly tuition school like Smith’s so as not to be burned [...]
November 21, 2007 – 6:37 am
Well this was on the 5th of November 2007. It was amazing sitting in the class and thinking that very soon there wouldbe students in here wanting to learn. I suppose that sitting there made me realize how much this meant to me. ZTo know that soon I would be making a difference in some [...]
November 20, 2007 – 2:54 pm
Well that’s a good question. First, I like being able to set my own schedule. Second, I have the personal satisfaction of knowing that I am giving a good lesson since the Smith’s curriculum is solid and was developed considering the needs of Japanese students but is open-ended enough to be expanded to meet the [...]
November 19, 2007 – 3:41 am
On the 27th of October we had our 2007 Halloween Party. We booked a restaurant and gatherered there for 2 hours to share some fun discussion and even sung the “12 days” of Halloween Song”. Check it out on my school’s site.
Al Bartle (Smith’s School of English – Okamoto)
addthis_url [...]
November 18, 2007 – 8:23 pm
Last Saturday after work I and my wife went to the movies with a student of mine. He had invited us and we had happily accepted! He picked us up in his car. We went to MOVIX ROKKO on ROKKO ISLAND in Kobe. We watched The Bourne Ultimatum, starring Matt Damon. http://thebourneultimatum.com/ It was [...]
November 18, 2007 – 12:54 am
Last Saturday night, one of our students came to her lesson looking totally exhausted. She was shivering from the cold, and had a couple of very heavy bags she needed to bring home. Her husband, who usually picks her up after her lessons, was out of town. She doesn’t drive, so she was going to [...]
November 18, 2007 – 12:52 am
One of our students came to her weekend lesson as usual the other day. She was in great spirits as always, in spite of the rain. I had not taught her for some time, so it was nice to have a chance to catch up with her. I usually teach her son at that [...]
November 18, 2007 – 12:35 am
I had the night off on Friday and by a lucky chance was able to meet up with an old student of ours. She had first joined the school when she lived in our neighborhood, then stopped for a while when she moved away to Hayama (in the Miura Peninsula). It didn’t take long before [...]
November 17, 2007 – 7:01 pm
I have a student whose family lived in Vancouver for 2 years. She studied at a private kindergarten and elementary school for two years. She is reading at about 3rd grade level. However, she needs to practice writing, otherwise she will not be able to write at her level. She is [...]
November 17, 2007 – 4:01 am
Yasuko is also one of my favorite students. She is serious about improving her ability to speak, listen, and read. She has been taking two courses with me for quite a long time - the Normal course for speaking, and One-on-One for reading. She has shown lots of improvement, especially in her overall confidence…I remember [...]
November 17, 2007 – 12:57 am
My red student today was working on countable/uncountable nouns. As she reviewed the picture cards, she had a little difficulty sorting out the difference between slice of cake and hunk of cheese. She asked about pie and pizza, then chuckled a bit nervously at the piece and slice. But she was writing things down and [...]
November 16, 2007 – 9:10 am
Tomorrow’s a busy day for me but I’m looking forward to it because many of the students that are coming really have a thirst for knowledge. I love some of the topics that come up in their classes as they challenge me as a teacher to be better. But the ultimate compliment comes when I [...]
November 15, 2007 – 9:07 am
I’ve been teaching at my school for 7 years now and I’m proud to say that I’ve got students that have been with me for 4,5 or even 9 years. (before I joined Smith’s) It gives me great pride to see my students’ growth and unlike the big chain schools it’s in my best [...]
November 14, 2007 – 8:40 pm
Last week and this week on Wednesday, I had fun lessons with one of my Orange students. She is fortunate to have a lesson alone quite often. Last week I taught the lesson “Adjectives 1″ and under “Opinion” I wrote up “useful” and “useless” and used the remote control for the CD player [...]
November 14, 2007 – 4:51 am
Last week, during a lesson with 3 students, the topic of curry came up. Mike mentioned that he makes a great Thai-style curry, and this peaked the students’ curiosity. At the end of the lesson he promised to make them curry for the next week. Mike was excited to show off his favorite dish! [...]
November 14, 2007 – 4:35 am
A few months ago I had a new student start at our School and one of the reasons they gave for choosing Smith’s was that they were interested in the Pre-Build Up Course relating to travel which I had shown them during our trial lesson. Over the past few months we have had class together, [...]
November 14, 2007 – 12:27 am
In my last lesson at Smith’s School of English Ogikubo today, I had one of my regular students.
She is an enthusiastic college student who has neither missed a lesson in Smith’s nor arrived late.
We did a short ET, with me asking about her day and what she did over the weekends. We then reviewed the [...]
November 13, 2007 – 11:33 pm
I do flyer exchange with some local businesses such as a travel agency, an Okonomiyaki restaurant, a Japanese restaurant, a hair salon and a piano school. Some, like the hair salon and Okonomiyaki restaurant, have even let me put up laminated Smith’s posters on their walls. How nice!
I get my hair cut at the [...]
November 13, 2007 – 2:10 am
I had a high level student for one of my lessons, she was the first yellow level student I had had.
After going through the routine with her she was very pleased with the structure of the routine and complimented Smiths Schools of English curriculum, saying that it was a good way of teaching English.
We also [...]
November 13, 2007 – 12:59 am
YEAR END WINE AND CHEESE PARTY
A NOTICE TO CURRENT STUDENTS AND TO STUDENTS ON HOLIDAYS.
PLEASE NOTE IN YOUR DIARY THAT SMITH’S SCHOOL OF ENGLISH KOENJI WILL BE HAVING A YEAR END PARTY ON SUNDAY DECEMBER 9TH FROM 4PM. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO YOU MEETING NEW FRIENDS AND HAVING A GREAT TIME TOGETHER.
スミス英会話 高円寺
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