January 15, 2008 – 5:10 am
Isn’t it great that in this job we get to meet so many different people and have so many opportunities to make new friends? This is my fifth year teaching at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi, and teaching here is not just a job any more, it has become a very important part of my [...]
January 15, 2008 – 12:32 am
I had a very unique and interesting student today. Although a pink level student, he had good comprehension and understood every word I said without having to rephrase any sentences. He was also well-spoken where he was capable of verbally expressing his thoughts and feelings. His character struck me from the first time I met [...]
January 12, 2008 – 2:49 am
I had a student today that I had for the first time. She was well-spoken for a pink student, so I asked her to give me a little introduction of herself. She gave me an explanation of where she lives, her occupation and several hobbies that she made sure she made time for during the [...]
January 11, 2008 – 11:32 pm
I hadn’t seen my 1pm student at Kyobashi school for ages as she took a leave for a few months and it is always nice to see students coming back, she was apparently also very happy to be back here at Smith’s School of English and I was glad to see she was in a [...]
January 11, 2008 – 11:15 pm
Isn`t it funny the poeple you meet in this job? It was the first time for me to teach my man to man student at Smiths Kyobashi this year so we spent the first few minutes of the class doing introductions. While we were doing this she asked me where I came from and I [...]
January 10, 2008 – 4:19 am
Normally, I’m pretty happy doing the job that I do in the place that I do it in, but there are some days that really make me stop, pause and think, “If I were working for another company, in a different position, I couldn’t possibly have this much fun.”
The other day, I had the pleasure [...]
January 9, 2008 – 2:32 am
Since the 1st of January, I have been receiving quite a handful of nengajos (New Year postcards) from mainly close friends and a couple of acquaintances. Nengajos are very important in Japan because they promote good relationships between businesses and clients, and friends and family. They are considered to be much more influential [...]
January 8, 2008 – 12:22 am
It feels like I’ve been on holiday for months instead of two weeks. That may be because this past Christmas vacation has been one of my most productive ones. I managed to accomplish quite a few things on my list of resolutions already and am striving to take care of the rest of them [...]
December 19, 2007 – 4:17 am
ET: Never mind
Using this one point is a bit tricky so we reviewed it carefully to make sure that she was confident with it. She gave me a scenario where her daughter had dropped an expensive vase and she had told her to “never mind” about it.
Routine: 10
I gave this student the 10 questions from [...]
December 18, 2007 – 5:06 am
ET: When I was ( ) years old, I took up (A)
The first few minutes were spent on doing a bit of catching up since I hadn’t seen this particular student in a while. She was quite busy with her work and wanted to ask me what I would be doing for the holidays. [...]
December 18, 2007 – 3:16 am
ET: Long time no see
My first Tuesday afternoon student came in today with a cheerful smile and all ready to study English. She jumped right into the one point by announcing, “Long time, no see,” just as she sat down. It’s nice to see that she keeps practicing her one points even after [...]
December 18, 2007 – 2:30 am
I had a lesson with 2 green and 1 red student last week. I noticed that 2 students had recently joined. Since I hadn’t met them yet I decided to start this lesson with some greetings and introductions. After we all met each other I reviewed last week’s B5 one point “today I feel______ because_______”. [...]
December 18, 2007 – 2:17 am
Just the other day I went to Starbucks (as I think every gaijin does) and I went to order my drink that is no longer on the menu. Here I was speaking my very minimal japanese and then the young lady behind the counter just outright said “Pardon?” I was very suprised and also slightly [...]
December 14, 2007 – 1:13 am
I had a lesson with one pink and one orange student last week at Kyobashi School. I wanted to ask them how they were doing so I easily introduced last weeks B7 one point
I noticed that they hadn’t reviewed the routine 6 baby story for awhile so I choose this for them. At first they [...]
December 13, 2007 – 10:55 pm
As I started serving students drinks today in the lounge, one lady came in who looked really familiar but I couldn’t quite place her face. I thought about it for a while and when she finally entered my class, I remembered where I had seen her before. She’d been a regular student at [...]
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 [...]
December 11, 2007 – 4:05 am
I had a lesson with two students who are friends and come every Monday. One of them happened to be married so, this helped alot with the one point which was ‘It was love at first sight’.
We did the routine ‘The restaurant’ which was the first time these two students had done this. At the [...]
December 10, 2007 – 8:59 pm
E.T.
The three students all merged on this last lesson of a Saturday afternoon from all different teachers, times and lessons previously. As I greeted each of them, I asked simple questions that gave them the opportunity to use the one point from their previous lesson.
Routine
Although they were pre-intermediate and intermediate students, I decided to review [...]
November 5, 2007 – 2:43 am
I had two pink level students who were friends, they are fairly new students here at Kyobashi school. For them to come together is great.
ET: Either will do
I asked what colour pen I should use to write on the board. They were looking at the pens very hard trying to decide what colour to use, unfortunately [...]
November 5, 2007 – 2:18 am
Last Thursday here at Kyobashi I had one of those lessons that an English school loves. Intermediate level, and very enthusiastic about all that the lesson entails.
I started off by chatting to him a bit about what he’s scared of, his onepoint from last lesson. This turned out to be quite funny, inspiring him to [...]
November 1, 2007 – 5:10 am
While doing my routine with my red student today I came to the very last question of routine 6, “What do you do next?”. Whenever I do pre-intermediate routines I always make sure that I don’t slow down for them and keep it at a natural speed. So when I came to this [...]
October 23, 2007 – 9:14 pm
I had a lesson with 3 orange students last week. 2 of the students I hadn’t seen in a while and the other was a new student who recently started here at Smith’s school. I noticed that they had been doing some basic items recently so I chose the more challenging intermediate ability 2 item [...]
October 23, 2007 – 3:46 am
It is really quite scary how fast time passes! Here I am in Japan, for 5 years now, and, approaching 30!!! Yes, I just spent my 29th birthday last Tuesday at Kyobashi. Well, I didn’t get a full-on birthday party, which isn’t my style anyway, I was congratulated by my closest colleague and handed a [...]
October 23, 2007 – 2:44 am
A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Kyobashi Wine and Cheese Party. The highlight of this evening was not only the chance to try a variety of new wines and cheeses but to also have the opportunity to meet and get to know a lot of new [...]
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 18, 2007 – 2:48 am
I had a student the other night who has only been at Smith’s for 4 weeks. His English is quite basic so when he gave me an example of his one point, I had made a comment and then he replied with a one point from two weeks ago, I was very impressed.
It was [...]
October 15, 2007 – 3:28 am
I first found out about Smith’s School on gaijinpot.com when a job was advertised for at Kyobashi school. I applied, then came in to meet Gavin for an interview and really liked the sound of the school. Having the curriculim available to plan the lessons, the flexibility and the dresscode all appealed to me.
Gavin [...]
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 [...]
October 3, 2007 – 4:06 am
I had a lesson with 1 red and 1 orange student recently. When they arrived I noticed that 1 of the students was drinking a bottle of cold green tea. After asking her where she bought it she replied that it was from a convenience store. I was also amazed when she mentioned that she [...]