Category Archives: students keep coming

Making Requests is an Important Lesson

My 6:00 p.m. Saturday lesson this week included two students. We worked on making requests and went through the normal lesson plan with no problems but when I asked them to think of and make requests on their own, they seemed to stumble. In some cases I give them a simple scenario such [...]

楽しい英会話のレッスンはスミス英会話で必ずのことです。Smith’s Always Provides a Fun Lesson!

The laughs are abundant at Smith’s School of English. This week my Saturday 3pm lesson included three students who were tasked with miming some activities to get their partners to guess what they were doing and to use the past continuous tense. It never fails that one of the students does something [...]

英語上達最初のステプ  First Steps to Improved English Speaking Ability

Students often ask what steps they can take to become better at English. Of course there is no single answer but if I were pressed to give one, it would be to simply “use” English every chance you get. Though there are not millions of native speakers in Japan, there are a [...]

楽しい英会話スミス A truly fun English School: Smith’s

Yesterday’s 2008 Smith’s School Cherry blossom viewing party ( スミス英会話お花見会 ). Was a great deal of fun for all! Excellent weather, beautiful blossoms sometimes fluttering down like snow and terrific conversation were had by all. Students from the Okamoto, Fuse, Otsu, Horie and Tsukaguchi schools got together to enjoy great food, drinks, conversation, [...]

一味違う英会話 スミス英会話 A different kind of English School

Smith’s School of English provides a very different kind of experience for our students. Our teachers care about each and every student and we really try to stretch their ability in as many ways as possible. We often arrange for special events to give them the opportunity to practice the English they have [...]

スミス英会話は何故違う。Why is Smith’s School of English Different?

What’s different about Smith’s School compared with the multitude of English conversation schools in Japan? Bottom to the top it’s totally different. It’s truly a breath of fresh air. No stale lesson plans, no stiff teachers looking truly uncomfortable in ties, just a down-to-earth well thought out curriculum which provides what Japanese [...]

スミス英会話岡本の隠れたタレント A Hidden Talent is Exposed

Today, 6 of my students, my wife and I went out to have a bowling and karaoke party in Kobe. During this time, each student sung songs in English and lo and behold one of my quietest students belted out several songs with a voice I could not believe. Singing Backstreet Boys, Billy [...]

スミス英会話岡本校の2008新年会(Smith’s Okamoto 2008 New Year’s Party)

Our 2008 New Year’s Party was a blast for everyone. We had over 20 participants at this year’s party which was held at Cafe DECO on the first floor below my school. We had a lot of fun conversation, good food and drink and played some English games. Click on the link [...]

Keep it interesting and relevant!

This Saturday, one of my man-to-man students came to her class and I was all set to do the Ability 2 lesson on making invitations. After practicing making and accepting these for a while I realized that there is not much difference between an invitation and a request which we had covered in a [...]

The Importance of Using Articles and Prepositions Correctly and Praising Students When They Do

In one of my Man-to-Man lesson today, I covered Adjectives 2 and reviewed Adjectives 1. I think it was a good lesson in which I introduced and huge list of adjectives and encouraged the student to describe things and people. I encouraged her to always learn adjectives as pairs including the words of opposite meaning [...]

A Great Day Today!

Well all jobs have their ups and downs. After having two fun students go out on a two month leave, I had a fun trial and got one new Man-to-Man student today. And on top of that I had a really fun lesson with two Red students. We covered the Past 4 [...]

Make a Difference! Help Your Students Realize Their Full Potential!

We teacher-owners of Smith’s School of English are very lucky to be able to enjoy not only the rewards of owning and operating our own schools but also to make a difference in the lives of our students and to really be able to help them to realize their full potential. Unike the teachers at [...]

Christmas and New Year’s - a welcome time to reflect on the progress so far and make bold plans for the future!

I really enjoyed reading Adrian’s posts too. It is great to see that someone has been in this business as a Smith’s owner for over 7 years and still really enjoys it and has helped his students to get great results on the EIKEN and TOEIC. Makes me still feel like an infant with only [...]

スミス英会話岡本校の2008新年会のお知らせ・2008 Smith’s Okamoto New Year’s Party To Be Held at Cafe DECO

Well, I am planning to have a New Year’s Party again this year. This time I will rent out the cafe below my school for 2-3 hours. I often eat at the cafe during the year and the owner is always very kind and hospitable. It is a family owned restaurant called Cafe DECO and [...]

Web Pages Surely Help

Recently I noticed that more and more trial students are coming to the school with copies of my web pages. Copies of the main page and the pages for the events are usually included. I always mention that I noticed they had looked at my site. They always say, “Yes, it looks [...]

Golfing in Japan

My husband (and co-owner of Smith’s Azamino), Mike, has recently gotten back into golf, an activity he used to do quite a bit in Canada when he was younger, and one which we didn’t think we could afford to do here in Japan. While it isn’t cheap, it is not unreasonably expensive if you [...]

Smith’s School of English: Who are we?

With the recent failure of the largest corporate English school in Japan, I have come to wonder, shall I say “hope” that those 400,000+ students will take a hard look at how they were treated by this corporate school and decide to find a monthly tuition school like Smith’s so as not to be burned [...]

The Extra Mile

Last Saturday night, one of our students came to her lesson looking totally exhausted. She was shivering from the cold, and had a couple of very heavy bags she needed to bring home. Her husband, who usually picks her up after her lessons, was out of town. She doesn’t drive, so she was going to [...]

Confidence!

One of our students came to her weekend lesson as usual the other day. She was in great spirits as always, in spite of the rain. I had not taught her for some time, so it was nice to have a chance to catch up with her. I usually teach her son at that [...]

Catching up in Motomachi

I had the night off on Friday and by a lucky chance was able to meet up with an old student of ours. She had first joined the school when she lived in our neighborhood, then stopped for a while when she moved away to Hayama (in the Miura Peninsula). It didn’t take long before [...]

Curry dinner, at the school

Last week, during a lesson with 3 students, the topic of curry came up. Mike mentioned that he makes a great Thai-style curry, and this peaked the students’ curiosity. At the end of the lesson he promised to make them curry for the next week. Mike was excited to show off his favorite dish! [...]

Past II Lesson with an Orange Student

Yesterday I had a really nice lesson with an orange student. We covered the item “Past II” for past continuous in which we cover the bank robbery and what the students were doing in the morning and afternoon. As expected, she did not know what “naughty” meant. I explained that it [...]

Yoga, Sweat, and Community

I recently joined a local sports club I’ve been wanting to join ever since I arrived here 7 years ago. It’s quite expensive, so I’d shied away from it before. (Thanks to Smith’s School of English, I can now afford such a luxury!) Wouldn’t you know I ran into one of our students my [...]

A Family Hobby and Community Feeling

We have several families who’ve joined our school. Sometimes they join together, but often they stagger it.
Our first family joined the first month we were open, 3 years ago. The husband dropped by one evening and rang the bell without an appointment. At that time we had hardly any students, so I was free to [...]

The Best Compliment

Truly the best compliment I have ever received from a student was from our very first student (#001), who of course is still studying with us at Smith’s Azamino and has begun her 4th year with us. (Her son is also a student!)
She is a teacher herself, and therefore understands the value of reviewing one’s [...]

Monthly Tuition and Flexible Lesson Reservation Students

To be sure the monthly tuition system that we offer our students fits their lifestyle better that the ticket/point type payment systems. However, the “Powerful” (student’s who pay extra to be able to book lesson via telephone on a flexible system) students or those who require flexibility to call in and reserve a lesson when [...]

It’s Saturday and Another Great Day as a Smith’s Owner-Teacher

Just got to the school and noticed there was a fax showing that a student had decided to return. It’s great to see that. It is a nice validation that your coaching was appreciated when a student decides to come back. So on top of it being a fine sunny day, I’ve [...]

On Why Students Keep Coming

After nearly ten years of teaching English, eight of those spent in Japan and over five in the Smiths franchise system, I have reached the profound conclusion that running a small language school for adults is much like operating a successful hairdresser’s, and I’m not simply referring to handing out fliers on the street…
A Quick [...]