By the time you’re reading this I should be on the plane to Tokyo. I’ve got a professional development workshop at Keisen University on Saturday, then a CD signing event at the Maruzen Marunouchi Store on Sunday. The Maruzen event is open to the public, so please pop along. It’s free, I’ll be going through lots of teaching ideas and you just need to give Maruzen a call on 03-5288-8881 (in Japanese) to reserve your place!

Beijing was cool!

So I’ve just spent the last 2 months in Beijing and it’s been great. Of course the main reason I was here was for the research project into the private schools for the low-income families. Everything seems to be going incredibly well there, the Genki English kids were way above the other kids. So there wasn’ t really that much more for me to do other than help out the teachers with the next set of themes.

What we did find out very quickly was that it’s not just low-income schools that need/want Genki English, many of the private evening English schools, called centers over here, were really into it as well. I had some really great workshops and meetings with some of the big chains and the British Council even invited me to tender for a 15 city Workshop Tour!

Then this past few weeks we’ve been pushing it further with trying Genki English for adults and even my personal development classes which worked great.

Thank you!

So a very big xie xie to everyone who attended a workshop, organised a workshop, came to my class, met me in Starbucks, invited me to the Great Wall or bought me a beer! I had a great time.

When you’re also limited by time, my visa was only 2 months, then you do really appreciate everything about a place.

I also figured out Chinese food, forget anything from Beijing and get stuff from Sichuan. Now that is nice food, just look at all those chillies!!

Plus due to unbelievable good luck and some very clever negotiating I was staying in the most beautiful city center hotel suite for a ridiculously cheap price.

Just check out the video for the KeiKaiWa site!

Anyway I hope to be back in China later in the year so keep your emails coming, and lets hope Japan lives up to all the experiences of the last 2 months!