Manabu has been a student at Smith’s School of English since 2012. When he started he was new to English conversation, though he had been studying English at school and on his own since the beginning of junior high school. Manabu is a goal oriented person, and although he doesn’t need English for any specific reason, he recognizes the usefulness of it in all aspects of life. Being a goal oriented student, he sets goals for himself and time-frames for achieving them in order to push himself to learn. In the past he had set a TOEIC score goal for himself, which he achieved after taking the test 5 times.
Having been satisfied with his TOEIC score, he decided to try a different test which would challenge his conversational skills. He decided to take EIKEN, and he set his sights on the pre-1st test. In order to pass the test, he asked for my help and independently decided to take 8 lessons a month until he was ready for the test. We worked together for many weeks and he finally took the written part (the test has 2 parts) which he passed. We then studied some more until it was time for him to take the interview part of the test. Last night Manabu sent me an email, excitedly telling me that he had passed! Manabu had previously shown me some statistics, and last year only about 300 people passed this test in all of Japan. His accomplishment is really impressive. I was so happy that I did a little happy dance in my living room, which my children thought was very amusing.
I love teaching English at Smith’s, and it’s times like this, when I can tangibly see how I am helping my students make their dreams come true, that I am truly proud of the work I do.
Edward, Smith’s School of English Otsu
Leave a Reply