Have you ever noticed how some students ask you to repeat what you say much more frequently than other students? If you’re like me…
Tomorrow, I have an opportunity to meet our founder, Mark Smith. He’s coming out to my school (スミス英会話 生駒) for a bit and I hope to gain a lot from meeting with him. I thought about it, and realized that a guy as successful as he is certainly has to have a lot of knowledge and [...]
Tonight I’m trying out some software. This software is called Dragon Naturally Speaking and it lets me dictate into my computer and the computer writes Out all the words that I say. So far I’m pretty
I was just thinking about how to learn English vocabulary. I like to give advice on how to study here in Ikoma (生駒). I thought about using software like Supermemo, or Anki. None of my students know about this software, but it is mostly English. I wonder if there is any similar software in Japanese [...]
February 20, 2010 – 8:12 am
My Father’s a really nice guy. Last christmas, I went to Canada and I met him at the airport. Then, from there we went to his house and I stayed at his house for the whole holiday. It was really nice. That is the script I use to reinforce the silent ‘h’ phenomenon I pointed [...]
February 12, 2010 – 10:25 pm
In English, not all t’s are the same. We have an aspirated t and a stop t. I don’t wax on lyrical about this in class; I just want the students here at my スミス英会話生駒 (English converstation class inIkoma) to notice that a difference exists. I can change how the ending of a word sounds. These [...]
February 8, 2010 – 6:26 am
The other day I was thinking about the role of listening in the 英会話 (eikaiwa) industry here in Japan. A lot of students in my school (スミス英会話生駒） have trouble repsonding because they have trouble with listening.
February 24, 2009 – 9:43 pm
Here in Ikoma, we are having the annual JAPEC test for out kids classes. It is voluntary for all students, but a large number choose to take the test. The kids all love it, too. This year, however, I noticed that the level is substantially higher than last year. I helped them prepare based on [...]
October 5, 2008 – 4:33 am
I have kids in my school. Many people don’t like teaching kids, but I do. They work for me, and they are (almost) always enthusiastic. They have a lot of energy and teaching them is often close to playing. Well, I also have a boy who is one year seven months old. Baby? No. Toddler? [...]
October 5, 2008 – 4:01 am
Today I went to the Smith School of English training seminar. I like to go to these becuase it refreshes me and keeps me current with the other owners and the direction and goals of our group. Of course Mark Smith had lots to tell us that was really valuable and interesting, like the