My student over the past year and half wrote a nice comment and I thought I would share it with you all.We recently covered a topic about Mr. Kikuchi who was written about in the Japan Times. Mr. Kikuchi is known as the ‘English Monster’ because he has taken the TOEIC 50 times and never scored lower than 970 (20 points below the maximum of 990) and he has scored 990 27 times. My student discusses some similarities between Mr. Kikuchi and himself. Very interesting. I enjoyed teaching Mr. Watanabe very much. I wish him luck in Tokyo.
Al,
Thank you for still sending me the lesson material. I guess the reason why you sent it to me is that it is useful to improve English skills.
Actually, the article is very interesting and I can observe some similarities between he and I. I started studying English intensively, or “seriously” as mentioned in the article, at the age of 35, after I quit the 1st company where I had worked for 12 years. When I quit the company, I did not think of studying English at first. I had started studying finance and management 4 months before I quit the company to get a certificate, which is a small and medium enterprise management consultant. At the same time, I had been looking for a new job for a couple of months, but it was difficult to find a job which offered same salary level as the previous company. I wanted to change a job soon after quitting the 1st company, seamlessly, but unfortunately it did not come true.
I found there was enough time for studying to get the certificate during between jobs. Then, I took up studying English for a change. Mastering a foreign language takes long time and I thought my situation fitted for such study .One day I was reading a Japanese magazine during lunch time and found an article which stated that Japanese people could get US CPA. I thought it could kill two birds with one stone, which means I can study finance and English at the same time. A couple of days later, I visited a private school which features US CPA course and decided to apply for it. It did not serve live classes in Osaka then, a lot of video tapes were sent to me, instead. I had watched them almost 12 hours a day for two months. In a sense, I was forced to be like recluse.
Those are similarities. But he and I took different courses after that respectively. I got back to the business field after I had got US CPA. Of course, I continued to study English, but I did not do it as much as him. Main focus of my study changed from English to management. However, I felt pendulum swung in the direction of management too much. In order to strike a balance, I took up an English conversation school again a year ago. That is why I entered into Smith English School.
As I told you before, I have been taking several trial lessons here in Tokyo. Sometimes, a trial lesson entails assessment of applicant’s English skills. Most assessments show similar outcome; listening comprehension, pronunciation, vocabulary and structure look good, but an weak point is natural expression. It agrees with my feeling.
I am going to decide the school I will study this week. I will take a course which serves Gessha system as Smith did. It makes me easier to change schools, when I am not satisfied with the contents. It never happened at Smith School, thanks to your competence and good characteristics!!
Regards,
H Watanabe
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