talent

My first student back in high school actually went on to attend Carnegie Mellon, a prestigious American university. She even invited me to her high school graduation ceremony and dinner with her family. It was my honor to see her grow as an individual and an English speaker. Still today we keep in touch through Facebook. I was also invited to attend the graduation ceremony of one of my students at Smith’s 英会話 Hirakata, she went on to attend Waseda University, and will be graduating soon enough with a degree in accounting. I have attended weddings, parties, and events all thanks to my students and seeing them succeed in life gives me great pleasure.

Just yesterday I had lunch with a student that went to China to study art for 4 months and it was great to hear about his adventures over there. When he first started out I had my doubts as to whether he could learn English because he was both shy and didn’t have much interest in learning a language. And yet, 8 years later I must say that he was one of my hardest working students and thanks to his great effort he finds it comfortable to both read English books and converse in English with people from all over the world.

Talent is often overrated. Just because you are good at something doesn’t mean you don’t have to work at it in order to be great. In fact, if you have talent at something you owe it to yourself to give it all you’ve got to see just how much you can become.

I can’t wait to see just what success stories my students will share with me this year.

Adrian