Category Archives: communicative method

スミス英会話高円寺 How Many English Words Are There?

An often asked question at Smith’s School of English Koenji (スミス英会話高円寺) is “ How many words are in the English language?”, which is similar to asking the question “How many metres are in a piece of string?”
Throughout the world there are over 6500 languages spoken, yet only about 1000 of them have a dictionary [...]

スミス 英会話 布施・東大阪 本屋・書店 いくぞー(To the book store!)

スミス英会話布施校講師が書いた記事。日本語のメインサイトはこちら
Book stores (本屋、書店) are wonderful places; even in this age of electronic media, nothing can replace some quiet time spent browsing through books at your local book store.  For me, I don’t think ebooks will ever replace the feeling of flipping through a book while relaxing on a sofa.  Touching a panel just doesn’t feel [...]

スミス英会話 布施・東大阪: Pronunciation Course and Contractions (短期発音コース)

スミス英会話布施校講師が書いた記事。日本語のメインサイトはこちら
After reading Les’s article just earlier about the difficulty students sometimes have with the disappearing “H” and also the various contractions and reductions we often use in spoken English I was reminded of the special focus I place on teaching and stressing some of these characteristics of spoken English in the pronunciation course at my [...]

スミス英会話川西校 What?…Why?…When?……TELL ME ABOUT

I often use “Let’s Talk” type question lists during lessons in my English conversation school, Smith’s School of English, Kawanishi スミス英会話川西校.
Sometimes I base most of a lesson on these lists (some from the Smith’s School of English curriculum, and some lists that I have made myself to augment these), or sometimes to occupy the last [...]

How to Practice English 英語上達のための “質問練習”

Since there are many students who read this blog, I have included here one useful way to improve your English conversational ability.  I have also posted this in the Japanese soapbox for students who want to read about it in Japanese.
Click here for Japanese –>英語上達のための “質問練習”
There are many ways to improve your English ability. One [...]

How I Teach Kids ‘I have…’

I love to teach kids but it is certainly different from adults in some (not all) ways.  To begin with, they do not have any English experience.  Next, they have shallower experience levels than adults.  But they also are more inclined to try to guess what you want them to do.  You will find using [...]

スミス英会話高円寺 Teaching and Studying English

I recently watched a video about teaching English in Romania and was fascinated, in particular, to learn that the Romanian Education system has switched from focusing on English grammar and vocabulary to a more conversation based learning process to the detriment of learning grammar and developing vocabulary. In other words they have gone [...]

スミス英会話高円寺 Entertaining a Foreigner

The “Entertaining a Foreigner” lesson in the Smith’s School of English curriculm is not only a way for students, and teachers for that matter, to learn the English meaning of many everyday Japanese words but it is also a fantastic means by which to encourage them to speak, ask and answer questions and have a [...]

英語上達の為質問練習 Simple Question Practice is Good for Japanese Students

I got a nice comment from someone on my simple question practice video on YouTube.  I thought it might be nice to share it to Smith’s teachers and students or anyone looking for a simple practice tool when they do not have a real person to practice with.
Comment from Viewer:
I think this is a [...]

Let’s say “well…” instead of “e—to”!

At Smith’s School of English Otsu, some students have a little difficult time, asking questions or saying anything such as “Really?” to keep the flow of conversation. Then, my thoughts flashed back to my high school days. I was taking English conversation lessons and every week I found myself stumbling over a word and decided [...]

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