Every day I see thousands of young people here in Japan, near the station and near my school (many are university students). Some of them are studying English or other foreign languages with the intent to become good communicators. I think that these young people are very wise because more than at any time in [...]
This week’s TOEIC video (TOEIC+ Lesson 35) and related lesson have been fun for my students. It is about a young woman from Kyoto who recently moved to Tokyo. She is a Japanese language teacher but what has really caught the attention of many people are her two YouTube channels “thatjapanesegirl” and “thisjapanesegirl” on which [...]
At Smith’s School English in Okamoto スミス英会話岡本校, in two weeks we will be exploring the question of which Beatle was the most prolific and best songwriter, McCartney or Lennon. There was a great post on Yahoo about it. ‘Was it John or Paul?’ As you may remember
This morning while distributing flyers to promote my English school in Kobe (スミス英会話岡本校） I talked to one woman on the street near the station who spoke English quite well. She said in English that I was ‘exaggerating’ when I commented that she spoke English well. Again, as has happened many times recently, I realized that [...]
This is an interim report on the Smith’s Okamoto school. I took over the Smith’s School of English in Okamoto in July 2006. It had been in operation since September 2004 (6 years total so far) and it had only a tiny 15 active students at the time I took over. This month (August [...]
Last week I had three students and decided to use the vocabulary lessons. These are an interesting part of the Smith’s curriculum. They consist of many units each comprising 12 words. The words are random and unrelated for the most part. Some are nouns. Some are verbs and some are adjectives. Some can be used [...]
Hi Everyone, I found this fun video on YouTube. Actually I think it can be fun for learning English. This video is from Michelle Phan, a Vietnamese makeup artist. She has her own channel and it is quite interesting. She is quite an artist. But I think you can use her videos to practice listening. [...]
This week, which was quite busy with a few trials, walk-in inquiries and the usual full load of lessons, I got a special surprise. When I called in to ask about a student’s lesson, I was informed that a student who had taken a trial at Smith’s School of English -Fukushima (スミス英会話福島校）had decided to join [...]
I recently received a few bottles of a special beer from my student. She brought them back from Hokkaido. The beer is a micro-brew made using iceberg water. It is called Okhotsk Blue. The Okhotsk Blue Draft is one of the most unique beers around, counting a couple of unusual ingredients into its mix. Chief [...]
Really, the answer to this question is quite obvious and the fact that students continue to sign up and make great strides is proof of it. The ability to communicate well in English will most certainly continue to grow in importance year by year and I think this trend is already accelerating with the current [...]
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