Smith’s School of English – Okamoto
Last week John of the Kawanishi school and I (Okamoto School) helped each other to distribute flyers. Though we started at 7:30 a.m. the time went so fast as we enjoyed chatting during the time. The funny thing is that I think just our talking while we worked [...]
We are now looking good! The street was just repainted green as is common for streets around schools in Japan. It looks great! But on top of that we have a new shop downstairs.
TAKO YAKI (Hot Octopus Balls) are now available including various tastes: SHOYU (Soy), SHIO (Salt), PONZU (Soy-vinegar), KARE [...]
Smith’s School of English events are lots of fun, both for the students and the teachers. I always look forward to the next event, whether it is one for only my school, Smith’s School of English Tsukaguchi（スミス英会話塚口校）, or a joint one with other Smith’s schools. The next event is a Christmas one and I am doing it jointly with two other schools, [...]
On September 27th we had a very nice BBQ Party attended by 29 students, teachers, family members and friends from Okamoto, Tsukaguchi and Kawanishi Schools. We enjoyed some great barbecued beef, seafood, drinks and two great cakes and great Hawaiian coffee supplied and served by Derek of the Tsukaguchi School. Watch the Video here.
These events [...]
I recently read an article in TIME magazine about Japan and how, if the current trend continues, the population will drop by 25% to 95 million from the current 127 million by 2050. Also, at that time more than 50% of the population will be over
On Sunday June 7th, 2009, the Okamoto School and the Fuse School joined to have a Bowling-Karaoke Event in Kobe. We met at Rokko Bowl in the afternoon and were going strong until 7:00 p.m. Alex and Smiths School of English Fuse joined. This was the second time we have done this and last time, also, [...]
Before learning difficult English, every student in Japan should master the correct use of articles and prepositions. And they must be able to ask and answer easy questions right away. I made the following test. Students must get a perfect score. English learned in junior high school is sufficient. However, even though nearly everybody in Japan learned [...]
I have just had a sunroom built on the house where we live and had some grass planted outside of the sunroom. Adding the sunroom made my yard look just like an English garden (slight exaggeration LOL). Did you know grass is a very important part of English and American culture? The topic of Grass and Lawn Mowers quite often [...]
Last week I held the “Night Out” free talking at Shunju Cafe ( 春秋カフェ ) and 5 current and previous students joined. For last week’s cafe time I prepared a little information about the U.S. National Parks and we talked about some of them, especially the places I had visited. I explained that I had visited Yellowstone [...]
The lesson on “Questions” is a great one. I looked back through my teaching materials from over 20 years ago and found several lists of simple questions. Although short answers could be given in a conversation, I always required the students to make complete sentences as answers to the questions. This helps them to perfect [...]
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