October 18, 2008 – 7:33 am
Back when I was still living with my family in Canada, I made it a habit to regularly watch any new anime titles that I could get my hands on. When anime really started to become popular about 10-12 years ago, I was always on a quest to find a good video or DVD [...]
September 30, 2008 – 8:39 am
I really enjoy reading the news in Japan and keeping up-to-date on all the amazing or wild and crazy inventions that are constantly popping up in the headlines. The Japanese people pride themselves on their technology and constant mission to make their lifestyle a lot more convenient. A lot of their ideas inspire [...]
September 16, 2008 – 12:34 am
The popularity of manga – or comic books – in Japan really is phenomenal. It doesn’t seem to matter where you are, what you’re doing, or how many people you’re surrounded by. If you take a good look around you, you might be surprised to find someone (or several people) indulging themselves in [...]
August 29, 2008 – 1:16 am
For the month of August, I taught part time at SSE Kyobashi. I was nervous at the beginning but thanks to Kyobashi staff, teachers, and students welcoming me, I felt very comfortable teaching.
At first, I felt concern about my nationality
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There are a lot of unique customs in Japan that aren’t always easy to understand because their meanings don’t always translate perfectly into English. Sometimes there are misunderstandings and things aren’t interpreted in the way that they were meant to be. A prime example of this can be easily seen if you pick [...]
Last weekend I had an appointment to go sailing with my friend Tom. We met at Kobe Marina and got onto the yacht. We prepared the yacht to sail and were ready to go at about 2:00pm. We motored out into Osaka bay and then put up the sails, tightened the ropes and had a [...]
Every night after I finish my shift at Smith’s School of English, Kyobashi, I head on back to the station in a somewhat brisk walk. Usually, the little snacks that I carry with me to work disappear rather quickly, so by the time I’m ready to head home, I’m famished. The only two [...]
I’ve recently been on a nostalgic Star Trek kick and have had trouble finding someone to share my trekker feelings with. It’s very fortunate that Smith’s School of English Kyobashi has such a wide range of students with a vast number of interests. Unable to contain my excitement one day over the new [...]
What a beautiful day it turned out to be for our cherry blossom picnic in the park. The sun was shining and the yakitori was grilling. What better an accompaniment than the greatest of Japanese beers, an Asahi!! So off I went in high spirits ready to kick off the afternoon with some merriment under [...]
The weather forecast was predicting that it would rain this past Sunday, but thanks to some good luck and quite a good deal of sunshine, it turned into a beautiful day. The perfect day for a picnic! It was just a wonderful coincidence that the cherry blossoms were in full bloom at the [...]
February 23, 2008 – 12:51 am
Last week, I did a bit of research for one of Smith’s School of English Kyobashi’s high level students. He had requested some information about comic book stores in Japan after a conversation that we had about comic books and superheroes. After hearing about how I had learned a good deal of kanji [...]
February 19, 2008 – 2:44 am
I met an incredibly interesting student this afternoon. He’s brand new at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi so he voluntarily offered up quite a bit of information on his job/hobby. His job and hobby are actually one in the same - learning and teaching about Chinese history. For the past 30 odd [...]
February 12, 2008 – 5:28 am
Today a lot of students just happened to be carrying around a stash of candies. At three different times tonight, three different students approached me with chocolate offerings. I thought that this was an odd coincidence but a deliciously welcome one. It’s not every day at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi that [...]
February 9, 2008 – 1:08 am
When I woke up this morning, I wondered why it was so dark outside. As far as I knew, rain hadn’t been part of the weather forecast last night. So I pulled back the curtains to peer outside and was pleasantly shocked to see a flurry of white snowflakes raining down on the [...]
February 7, 2008 – 2:33 am
Just the other day, one of the students at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi was telling me about her unusual pet. She has not one, but two ferrets! I haven’t heard of many people in Japan housing ferrets as pets because miniature dogs are all the rage over here. I’ve only seen a ferret once [...]
February 6, 2008 – 3:30 am
Today’s first class started out phenomenally well considering that the weather outside was dreary and not so inspiring. One of the students brought in a folder of photos that he’d taken during one of his scuba diving expeditions. Before seeing these pictures, I had no idea that he was such an avid diver. [...]
February 5, 2008 – 1:51 am
Everyday, regardless of the time or weather, as soon as I arrive at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi, the first thing I do is look out the windows. Not just one window, or several detached singular windows, but a wide expanse of windows that encompass the entire lounge area. The view is quite spectacular from [...]
February 2, 2008 – 2:14 am
For the last few weeks, a friend of mine has been chasing after me to install a new program on my computer. It’s kind of like a role-playing game, or so I’ve been told. I can’t really be sure until I play this hyped up game. So, giving into the peer pressure, [...]
February 2, 2008 – 2:12 am
There’s nothing better to warm you up when you come in for a lesson at Smith’s School of English than a nice hot cup of tea.
Not only is tea delicious, but we often hear that tea is really good for your health as well. Tea has been been proven to be good for all sorts [...]
February 2, 2008 – 1:14 am
“So, anything exciting?” I asked my 4pm student as I walked her into the classroom in Kyobashi school.
“Well, I finally decided the departure date for New Zealand!” she beamed.
It’s not every day that students tell you exciting news like this, and she apparently wanted to share this with me, so we kept the conversation [...]
January 31, 2008 – 3:23 am
I’ve been thinking about the environment a lot recently, what with concern for global warming publicly becoming a prerogative for many countries.
The United Nations have pointed out the need to assist developing countries to invest in environmental protection in order to avoid the negative repercussions of economic growth. Japan is in a unique position after [...]
January 30, 2008 – 4:22 am
My last student of the night ended up being about 10-15 minutes late, I was starting to think that she wasn’t going to turn up. Thank goodness she did, as it was a great lesson.
She was a higher level student so we went through the ET and Routine like a breeze, which was good for [...]
January 30, 2008 – 3:24 am
I almost always come to Smith’s School of English Kyobashi everyday at least thirty minutes early. That leaves me with just enough time to prepare my files and get ready for my first lesson. Sometimes, I have a couple of minutes on my hands with nothing to do and go off in search [...]
January 30, 2008 – 3:21 am
I just returned to the Kyobashi lounge from a lesson two green students and one yellow students, feeling really elated. In terms of student talk time, development and stretching, it was the ideal lesson.
At times it can be difficult to balance a lesson of high level students who don’t know one another, but this was [...]
January 29, 2008 – 12:46 am
Quite often at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi, I find myself serving as both a teacher and confidante to the variety of students that attend classes on a regular basis. Aside from the new friendly faces of students who have recently joined Smith’s School of English Kyobashi, there are the familiar ones that I [...]
January 28, 2008 – 2:12 am
Somewhere in the Smith’s School of English curriculum is the statement “Traveling in America isn’t as safe as traveling in Japan” (I think it’s part of comparisons 2). Personally, I always agree with this statement. Though I’m not from America, I’ve done some travelling there, and in other parts of the world, and really I’ve [...]
January 28, 2008 – 2:05 am
I have a friend staying with me at the moment. She has been here for two weeks. She is off back home tomorrow, it’s been great having her here. I have been able to practice my Japanese since I don’t have my boyfriend to rely on when we are out and about enjoying Japan.
We have [...]
January 26, 2008 – 2:29 am
Sometimes in a lesson, especially one with high level students, it’s nice to have some honest, down-to-earth discussions within the lesson structure. There are times where the student really gets into a topic and wishes to elaborate or go off in a completely different direction due to individual interests or past experiences.
We were on a [...]
January 26, 2008 – 12:22 am
There are many popular foods in Japan but the most intriguing is perhaps the onigiri. Whenever I ask students what they’ve eaten for lunch, at least one usually answers with “onigiri”. I myself eat at least two rice balls per week. So what is so special about these rice balls that they [...]
January 23, 2008 – 3:27 am
Last week, one of Smith’s School of English Kyobashi students told me about a cooking course that she is taking at ABC Cooking School. She’s been going there for a while and is learning how to bake cookies, bread, and cake. Apparently, this month and next, that cooking school is offering a special course for [...]