Tag Archives: Japan

The Importance of English in Japan INC.

As many have seen over the past few months there has been a plethora of bad news in the media concerning some of the largest companies in Japan; JAL, Honda, and last but not least Toyota. This has happened for many reasons.
What I noticed that this “news” was not exclusive to Japan. It has been [...]

My second year anniversary living in Japan

Can you believe it? I have been living in Japan for two years. Wow, 2 years, it’s true what they say, time flies. It’s seems especially true the older that you get. It really does feel like just yesterday that I arrived. I mentioned my mile stone to my wife on Saturday and I told [...]

10 years

This is my 10th year at Smith’s…and I’ve learnt a lot over those years. I have become a better teacher, a better businessman, and a better student (because I’m always learning). I’ve had the privilege of learning from many different people within the system and for that I’m extremely grateful. My students at Smith’s 英会話 [...]

Warm-up and an Easy Start, Keys to Lesson Success

Upon entering an English school, students are greeted with a slew of standard English greetings. From the simple “Hello” and “How are you?” to the more colloquial “What’s new?” or “How ya going mate?”, students are immediately immersed in English. English classrooms are the place for English immersion: the walls have English posters, the book [...]

Curling

This week I have been lucky enough, due to the time difference between Japan and Canada to catch the Women’s Olympic “Curling” event. It’s great, because I usually wake up right at 6 a.m., so right about the time that I am getting around and having breakfast the games start. I have always enjoyed watching [...]

Olympic History in Vancouver Feb 22 2010

In a sport dominated by Europeans, and Russians in particular, it was a huge surprise when the Canadian pair of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the gold on February 22nd 2010 in Vancouver. Their win was the first ever by a North American pair, and they also made history as the youngest ever ice dance pairs [...]

Professional Basketball in Japan?

Basketball in Japan?
Sports. I love ‘em. I love to watch sports, I love to play sports.
My hometown, Nanaimo BC Canada is a standard Canadian city- small, homely, and full of sports. Or so I thought. Nanaimo has Junior Hockey, College Baseball, and a slew of minor leagues and high school sports. Now that I live [...]

BC’s Kermode Spirit Bear

With so much news about the Vancouver 2010 winter Olympics, and everyone in my English school talking about them, I thought it would be nice to post about other wonderful goings on in Canada. Below there is a link to a live web cam placed with care and much effort in the den of a [...]

ECCC 英会話 Since 1996.

At Smith’s we all know we have used for many years the letters CCC. To Smith’s School of English staff these letters mean “Coaches of Communicative Confidence.” Today as I prepared the next school owners seminar I realized that we have now been Coaching Communicative Confidence to many thousands of Japanese for more than 13 [...]

Japanese Olympic Medals

So yesterday Japan finally got their first medal, making it to the podium in 500m men’s speed skating. 2 Japanese olympians stood shoulder to shoulder on the podium, smiling and clutching their hard earned silver and bronze medals. As I am from Canada I was a bit sad because they both had races with Canadians [...]

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