November 13, 2007 – 12:57 am
I love being asked to join my students for various events, everything from viewing and drinking under the cherry blossom trees in Spring, to going out to dinner, drinking and eating after work, going to plays, movies, rock concerts etc. I particularly like to patronize the restaurants and izakaya which are close to Smith’s School [...]
November 11, 2007 – 11:14 pm
This morning I handed out some flyers at my station. As always some of my students passed me on their way to work and greeted me as they passed me. I really enjoy meeting students. One of my students stopped to talk to me as he always does. He mentioned he had read something I [...]
November 10, 2007 – 10:40 pm
Every time I go overseas I always bring something back as a souvenir for the students. I feel this goes a long way in that students know that you think about them even when on vacation.
I don’t know whether due to this they are obliged to return souvenirs when they also go overseas, I’m [...]
November 9, 2007 – 10:34 pm
A time of pumpkins and black cats
If you’ve been out grocery shopping during the past two weeks, you’ve probably noticed the latest influx of pumpkins of all different colors, shapes, and sizes. In Canada, this would be a very important sign – an indication that the pumpkin patches had been thoroughly [...]
November 8, 2007 – 2:13 am
I often go to Starbucks Coffee at a shopping mall (a “Carrefour”) in Amagasaki City by bicycle. As I am a regular customer, some of the staff know me. Recently one of the staff told me(in Japanese) that the shop there would be open until November 11th then closing and that a new shop would [...]
November 7, 2007 – 6:51 pm
When I look back, I can recall several times when Mark Smith mentioned the importance of utilizing business relationships with local establishments near and around your school. The first time he mentioned it to me was about 6 years ago when I was just getting started in the system. It was a tip [...]
November 7, 2007 – 5:17 pm
Regarding the purchase of a large English language school by another corporation, it is high time for Japanese foreign language students to understand the basics of the business of language education. First you have a teacher in a classroom or over the net teaching perhaps 2 to 6 students. The basis of [...]
November 7, 2007 – 2:29 am
Last Sunday we finally had our Welcome Lunch at Popura, the restaurant at Kangaku. Our group was made up of 2 teachers, 7 students, 2 husbands, a beautiful wife, and one much-talked about boyfriend! Unfortunately not everyone could come due to work and family commitments (some lucky students have gone on holiday to England!) [...]
November 6, 2007 – 10:48 am
My wife works in a dental clinic. One of the staff, a Japanese lady, will be getting married soon in Japan. She has a sister that lives in Canada who is married to a Canadian man. Her sister will be coming to her wedding in Japan with her Canadian husband, who doesn’t understand Japanese. The [...]
November 5, 2007 – 2:43 am
I had two pink level students who were friends, they are fairly new students here at Kyobashi school. For them to come together is great.
ET: Either will do
I asked what colour pen I should use to write on the board. They were looking at the pens very hard trying to decide what colour to use, unfortunately [...]
November 5, 2007 – 2:18 am
Last Thursday here at Kyobashi I had one of those lessons that an English school loves. Intermediate level, and very enthusiastic about all that the lesson entails.
I started off by chatting to him a bit about what he’s scared of, his onepoint from last lesson. This turned out to be quite funny, inspiring him to [...]
November 4, 2007 – 11:20 pm
My class of 8 and 9 year old boys loves insects! In their recent lessons the boys learned to ask and answer questions like, ‘Where does it live?’, and, ‘how many wings does it have?’. I was a good way for them to pick up some vocab that was of interest to them, and they [...]
November 2, 2007 – 11:36 am
Each time a student steps through my door I wonder why they have chosen to come to my classroom, the obvious answer is to learn English but I’m always curious to know two things. (1) how they found out about my school and (2) why they really want to learn English. The 2nd part is [...]
November 1, 2007 – 11:42 pm
Today I will give my first lesson at 4pm. I started the day by doing some flyers in the morning, then I was free to do what I wanted until 4pm. I slept a bit then biked over to a mall about 15 minutes from home. I took my time. The weather was great and [...]
November 1, 2007 – 6:12 am
I have been relaxing in England for the past few days. In that time Mark Smith, my wife and the Smith’s team have been doing their part in promoting our school here in Otsu. Obviously I’d like to be there to help out. But that’s the whole idea about Smith’s and its [...]
November 1, 2007 – 5:10 am
While doing my routine with my red student today I came to the very last question of routine 6, “What do you do next?”. Whenever I do pre-intermediate routines I always make sure that I don’t slow down for them and keep it at a natural speed. So when I came to this [...]
November 1, 2007 – 1:27 am
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here; I’ve been a bit busy these days.
I guess running three schools will do that to you, but all is going well and I’m enjoying watching each of the three schools grow.
http://www.smithweb.co.jp/school/horie.shtml
http://www.smithweb.co.jp/school/kamishinjyo.shtml
http://www.smithweb.co.jp/school/fuse.shtml
October was a great month for each location!
The weather was great for handing out flyers and [...]
By Alex
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Posted in New start up or franchise?, SSE Fuse Corner, SSE Horie Corner, franchise v. small business
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Tagged チラシ, ビラ, マンツーマン体験授業, 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, 英会話四ツ橋校, 配る
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