December 14, 2007 – 1:14 am
Recently, my students and I have been to a few of Kyoto’s light up shows. They
are a beautiful sight this time of year, highlighting the Autumn season colors, among Japanese gardens, burning incense and samples of hot tea （I prefer the hot sake.） It’s obvious I wasn’t designed for kneeling [...]
December 14, 2007 – 1:13 am
I had a lesson with one pink and one orange student last week at Kyobashi School. I wanted to ask them how they were doing so I easily introduced last weeks B7 one point
I noticed that they hadn’t reviewed the routine 6 baby story for awhile so I choose this for them. At first they [...]
December 13, 2007 – 11:07 pm
I met a student manning a booth at the Kobe Global Charity Festival on the 21st of October. She’s raising money for a women’s university dormitory, her latest in many energetic achievements in Afghanistan. I was amazed at the number of volunteer projects in my area, it seems like Japan has most of the world [...]
December 13, 2007 – 10:55 pm
As I started serving students drinks today in the lounge, one lady came in who looked really familiar but I couldn’t quite place her face. I thought about it for a while and when she finally entered my class, I remembered where I had seen her before. She’d been a regular student at [...]
December 13, 2007 – 5:44 pm
The final end-of-year blitz is on. Fellow teacher Mark and I distributed 600 flyers this morning in 2 hours. I am not a morning person at all, but this was a beautiful morning!
jim
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December 12, 2007 – 2:34 am
Sunday December 9th has come and gone, but I dare say the 2007 Koenji Smiths School of English year end party will remain in the minds of the 21 participants for a long long time.
We were pleased to welcome Dean from Smiths School of English Kichijoji/Ogikubo, his attendance was greatly appreciated by all those who [...]
December 12, 2007 – 12:54 am
ET: You’re kidding
This lesson started off wonderfully since the student was only too eager to talk about her golfing weekend. After she had told me of the fun time that she had had with her friends, we moved onto refreshing her memory on the previous week’s one point. Seeing as how she had [...]
December 11, 2007 – 7:43 am
Got 500 flyers out between 6:30 and 9:00 this morning! Just had to tell someone!!!
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December 11, 2007 – 4:05 am
I had a lesson with two students who are friends and come every Monday. One of them happened to be married so, this helped alot with the one point which was ‘It was love at first sight’.
We did the routine ‘The restaurant’ which was the first time these two students had done this. At the [...]
December 10, 2007 – 8:59 pm
E.T.
The three students all merged on this last lesson of a Saturday afternoon from all different teachers, times and lessons previously. As I greeted each of them, I asked simple questions that gave them the opportunity to use the one point from their previous lesson.
Routine
Although they were pre-intermediate and intermediate students, I decided to review [...]
December 9, 2007 – 10:38 pm
about 2 years ago I took up magic. It was at a time when I just wasn’t able to find much free time in the way of being able to go into Osaka or Kyoto for rock climbing nor find enough people to play basketball. I still remember what made me want to learn - [...]
December 9, 2007 – 10:26 pm
I’ve been lucky enough to have met a number of great teachers of late and fortunately was able to hire some of them to work part-time with me in Hirakata. Until last year basically I took care of everything myself but lately my students have a chance to meet a few other foreigners while at [...]
December 9, 2007 – 8:33 pm
A couple of weeks ago, Japan celebrated a public holiday. I had been speaking with one of my students for some time about getting together for a fishing trip as it was an interest we both shared. This holiday seemed like a good time to see what fishing in Japan was all about.
I was picked [...]
December 7, 2007 – 4:53 pm
For those considering to work for a corporate school, you might want to take a look at one such teacher’s plight on a popular web video upload site. Although the story shown there is exaggerated a bit and was made mostly for the purpose of entertainment, it is still all too real for some [...]
December 5, 2007 – 4:53 pm
Well I’ve almost finished my first year and a half as an English school owner-teacher in Japan. Although there were some tough times, overall it has been quite fun and rewarding. I’ve had more fun this past year than I’d had in the five years prior! Great students, fun events, great [...]
December 4, 2007 – 10:59 pm
Recently one of the nurses from my doctor’s office joined our school. Although the clinic is for gynecology and dermatology, if you go there with other problems, they are willing and indeed happy to help. Because of this, they get a lot of business in this season for colds and flu. This nurse had recommended [...]
December 4, 2007 – 10:59 pm
With the recent addition of fingerprinting foreigners at immigration, there has been a lot of talk this past month about the treatment of foreigners in Japan. Here is something you probably don’t hear much about:
Last week, I had to go to one of the government offices to get some documents changed. I recently had my [...]
December 2, 2007 – 11:24 pm
Tis the season to get shots, fa lalalala lalalala.
Not a tequila or a B52 shot, though they might not be a bad idea either.
No, I’m talking about the injection variety of shot that don’t necessarily make us feel warm and giddy as the previously scribed shots.
They do, however, give us a little peace of [...]
December 2, 2007 – 3:21 am
I have often remembered my students birthdays and gotten them a piece of cake from one of the fine bakeries in the neighborhood of the school. As Okamoto is well know for great bakeries, this is always fun and I have never ever gotten cake that the students do not enjoy. But this [...]