Category Archives: Living in Japan

Every day life: What it’s like to pick up and stay here for real.

Life in Japan is great!

Japan is truly a nice country in which to live. For the most part the people are very pleasant and a lot has been done to make Japan a comfortable, clean and convenient place to live for all residents. I like the U. S. too but it is difficult to [...]

Interesting Lesson with a Husband and Wife of Different Nationalities

Last night I had a great lesson with two of my newest students, a husband and wife. He is a Japanese engineer and she is a Chinese housewife. They are a very nice couple and get along very well during the class. Their participation is great. They are beginners but I [...]

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 [...]

Smith’s opportunity was just right for me!

So what is good about the Smith’s opportunity? Well, in my case, it allowed me to come back to Japan on my own terms and not at the whim of the company for which I was working. It allowed me to bring my wife back to be near her aging parents and my [...]

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 [...]

Chinese New Year in Japan

There are a lot of times where a familiar sight or sound in Japan makes me feel just a little bit homesick. Although these sorts of feelings are only natural, it’s much more pleasant if they can be negated or avoided. Either that or quickly bribed with an interesting [...]

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 [...]

Valentine’s Day in Japan

In recent years, I hadn’t really gone out of my way to celebrate Valentine’s Day any differently than in the way that I was accustomed to. Although shopping for the perfect gift can be a major pain, I had grown so reliant on boxed chocolates and candy arrangements that to [...]

Setsubun – the last day of winter

There are many unique and interesting customs in Japan but one of the most attention-grabbing is probably Setsubun (the day before the beginning of Spring). Setsubun has many customs surrounding it that date back to the Ming Dynasty in China, that were then adopted by Japan in the Muromachi Era [...]

Steakland Kobe

One of the reasons I love living in Japan is the great food. There is so much variety and I am pretty sure that most of the veggies are the freshest that money can buy. But what’s more is the quality of beef in Japan is superb. Even when you order the [...]

Time for a little television

It seems like with the New Year also came some ‘new’ weather. We’d been experiencing a fairly warm winter up until the two week vacation period where things started to really cool down. And along with the cold scarf and glove (or mittens, depending on your preference) weather came [...]

English in Japan

English in Japan. Simply put, it is everywhere and nowhere at various levels of correctness and authenticity. It is being used by some Japanese on a regular basis to communicate with foreigners they meet or correspond with through their business or study. It, or some semblance of it, is found on thousands [...]

Great Advice Craig! Get Out and Meet the Local Merchants and Show the Brand!

I really enjoyed reading this one written by Craig, the owner of the Ohtsu School. It expresses exactly what we must do to succeed. Become a part of the local merchant family and show the brand. Get to know the people doing business in the vicinity of your school and let them [...]

Praying for good fortune in the New Year

Once the bells are done ringing, everyone gets ready to visit the temples and shrines in order to make pledges for the coming year and pray. As late – or early depending on your point of view – as 4:30am (which is the time I visited a shrine last New [...]

Celebrating Christmas in Japan

Before I came to Japan, I was told that the Japanese people don’t celebrate Western holidays or traditions, one of them being Christmas. Is this true? Judging by the drastic increase of people frantically shopping around for presents, the change of standard gift wrapping to festive greens and [...]

Flu shot on the go!

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 [...]

Being a foreigner in Japan

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 [...]

Tis the season to get shots…

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 [...]

Birthday Presents Too!

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 [...]

So much to see and do here!

My cousin is currently in Hong Kong setting up an office for an investment company. He is thinking about coming to Japan to visit us before xmas, so we have been exchanging emails on what to do.
This really reminded me how much there is to do here! So many excellent activities (golf, skiiing, scuba diving, [...]

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 [...]

What do I like about Teaching and Owning My School?

Well that’s a good question. First, I like being able to set my own schedule. Second, I have the personal satisfaction of knowing that I am giving a good lesson since the Smith’s curriculum is solid and was developed considering the needs of Japanese students but is open-ended enough to be expanded to meet the [...]

Halloween in Japan

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 [...]

Lesson Quality, Aftercare and True Value in Language Education

Regarding the purchase of a large English language school by another corporation, it is high time for Japanese foreign language students to understand the basics of the business of language education. First you have a teacher in a classroom or over the net teaching perhaps 2 to 6 students. The basis of [...]

Sh-sh-sh-shake it up, baby!

This morning I was awoken by an earthquake, and thought it had been awhile since I’d felt one of any significance. Thankfully I have never been in an earthquake that did any more damage than to toss a plastic honey-bear bottle on the floor. The clean-up took all of 10 minutes, but that earthquake was [...]

Crepe Shop Opens Below My School

Over the past few months the real estate office on the first floor below my school has been converted into a crepe shop. ”L’air du Temps” is the name which seems to mean “The Air of Time” in French. Such off-the-wall names in French seem to be popular these days as we already had a cake [...]

What is good about living in Japan?

Of course I am sure that a human being can get used to living anywhere, but it really is easy to get used to living in Japan. Of course it helps a lot to learn the language and I highly recommend working to do that before you come and after you arrive. But [...]