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 [...]
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 [...]
October 26, 2007 – 11:47 pm
Today’s first high level student came in all excited because she had a very interesting recent news article that she wanted to discuss. After reviewing the ET: I am sick of (a) because (b), her example being; “I am sick of gossips because I am not interested in their private lives,” we moved onto [...]
October 23, 2007 – 9:11 pm
Last week, my regular Saturday afternoon high level student caught a cold so it was nice to see her back and healthy again today. She was also back to her regular joking self as we started out the lesson by discussing the new responsibilities that she’d been appointed with at her son’s school.
As usual, [...]
October 19, 2007 – 10:04 pm
Today’s high level student managed to do the ET and Routine without any problems whatsoever. He’s used to the format of the loop by now so he smoothly goes through all 4 areas with confidence. However, when we got to the item, which was the ‘Ghosts’ unit from the Let’s Talk folder, he [...]
October 8, 2007 – 10:01 pm
ET: After we’d done a bit of catching up from the lounge to the classroom, I asked the student if she remembered her previous one point. And of course she did because she’d been practicing it on the train this morning. Her example was quite interesting actually. “When I was young, I [...]
October 5, 2007 – 2:36 am
The two students that I had last night were very eager to get the lesson started. Given the fact that they were best friends, getting them to communicate with one another was a piece of cake.
ET- Both students were ready to go with the review of their one point. The first one said, [...]
October 3, 2007 – 8:32 pm
The other night I ran into two of my students outside the elevator of Smith’s School of English on my way home. They were still chatting about the contents of the lesson and invited me to walk with them to the station. We took a route that was different than the one that [...]
September 24, 2007 – 2:10 am
ET: I hadn’t seen this student in a while since she had been taking business training for the past few months. So, understandably, she could not remember her previous one point. We instead did a bit of chatting about her training and the short vacation that she took last month. I was [...]
September 17, 2007 – 11:53 pm
I just finished my lesson with a man who is well known at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi. Not only is he a very talented singer (having played some demos for myself and fellow teachers in the lounge), but he also seems to be quite skilled in the field of acting. He always [...]
September 14, 2007 – 11:06 pm
ET
My usual Saturday afternoon student was right on time today. She came into the classroom looking really cheerful. Apparently, one of her old friends had contacted her out of the blue (I made a point of teaching her the new expression ‘out of the blue’) for a class reunion. So, she used [...]
September 13, 2007 – 4:05 am
As soon as I noticed my next student in the lounge, last week’s lesson flashed through my memory. I remembered it being quite energetic, and that student in particular had made a comment at the end of the lesson. She had thanked me for the lesson and had said that she had had [...]
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 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 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 [...]
August 21, 2007 – 11:24 am
Back into the furnace
Having just returned from my vacation in Toronto, I’ve been finding adjusting to the near-drowning humidity in Osaka a bit worrisome. Surprisingly, Toronto also managed to soar up into the upper-end of my threshold for heat tolerance with a few days hitting 30° C… and three days [...]
August 18, 2007 – 2:27 am
Last night, I had a terribly frightening experience with a rowdy cicada that happened to leap and bounce into my path. Up until my second class, it seemed like nobody would be able to sympathize with my phobia of the screeching insects.
When the lone student from my second class [...]
One of my classes finished up their routine and eagerly jumped on the item after learning that we would be discussing movies for the remainder of the time. They were only too eager to talk about movies that they had watched recently, their favorite actors, and fond memories in the [...]
Tanabata
What were you doing last Saturday (7/7/7)? Perhaps playing the lottery and hoping to hit the jackpot? That’s what I would have been doing had I remembered that last Saturday was the 7th day, of the 7th month, in the year 2007. Not that I’m a suspicious person by nature but those [...]
The Japanese way of life
Perhaps those of you reading are already aware of how healthy Japanese people are on average. But did you know that Japan has one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world?
Listen to your mother and eat your veggies!
There are a number of factors that could possibly contribute to [...]
A new arrival
I arrived fairly early (as always) for my first day at Smith’s – last September. I wasn’t sure how much preparation time would be required for my lessons or how many students I would have that day so I thought that it would be better to be unfashionably early than risk something going [...]
USJ = UFJ?
My first summer in Japan was a mixture of adventure, surprise, and shopping sprees. I’d explored just about everywhere in the main Kansai area within the first two months. Or at least I thought I had until one of my students asked me one day “Have you ever been to USJ?” [...]
Whenever I meet a new Japanese friend or acquaintance, I am always asked this curious question, “When you first came to Japan, what surprised/shocked you the most?”
Well… there were many things. In the first year alone, I think that more things caught my attention than I could keep track of. And as I [...]
The other night, along my way home, I spotted a yellow display inside the local Mr. Donut. As I got closer, I spotted a great BIG stuffed Pon-De-Lion hanging inside the display. Ever since I was a child I have absolutely LOVED lions in all shapes, colors, and sizes. And in Japan [...]
This morning was a very sleepy, rainy, stormy, miserable way to start the day. I’d spent the night listening to a furious thunderstorm so I wasn’t feeling very alert when I came into work. I was preparing my lessons when suddenly I heard a familiar voice call out “Hello!” into the room. [...]
My first Private Student
After I’d been in Japan for about a year, I decided that it was time for a change of scenery – figuratively speaking. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed my time spent in Japan up until that point, I just felt that I’d reached a fork in the road and neither branching [...]
Foreigners in White
I’ve been living in Japan for over three years now and had thought – up until now - that I’d seen just about everything. One early morning last September, I was about to be proven wrong.
Before last year, I had been maintaining the life of a night owl. Work late, sleep [...]
Long time, no see
This year, I planned my Golden Week out in advance for 2 reasons: 1. I actually had days off to plan for (thank you Smith’s School of English!), and 2. I hadn’t been out in quite some time. So feeling slightly like a dusty, abandoned book in a long forgotten library, [...]
Golden Week
-SJ
Most people appreciate the occasional public holiday, waiting in tense silence until the next break from work arrives in the calendar year. Once that day hits, it’s like a 24-hour party beginning late on the night before and ending… whenever. And that’s only the reaction to a one-day reprieve from the all too familiar [...]
ET: When it rains, I~
This first student today is very adamant over learning English. Despite the fact that her Golden Week was non-existent due to overtime, she still manages to come in every Saturday afternoon with a smile. So when I ask her about the previous [One Point] she eagerly recites the sentence [...]