According to the Yomiuri Newspaper (English version here) the Eigo Note “textbook” for elementary schools won’t now be scrapped after all.  It was decided earlier in the year to scrap the printing and distribution for next year due to budget cuts, but now it looks like it’s had enough support from teachers to be re-instated….

(I just wrote this up in the newsletter but thought you might like to see the pretty picture!) Target Language: Anything, it’s a counting game! This is another great game sent in by Mido: 1. Draw a wavy line across the board, this is the ocean. 2. Draw some simple shark fins on the water…

I’m sure quite a lot of you will have been lucky enough to find a shiny new flat screen TV in many of your classrooms.  And I’m equally sure many teachers will not know how to use it! So to cure that, let’s show you how to connect your laptop to the TV to get…

I was at an academic presentation this weekend.  I won’t say where just in case anyone is reading, but it was quite good, about testing.  It was full of academic and often technical language. The reaction of the audience was most interesting.  Roughly half of the audience were foreign males. About half were Japanese females….

If you’ve just got a teaching job in Japan you might be surprised to hear your boss telling you to “make sure the kids don’t actually learn any English.” Now this may confuse you a bit – and I know it still freaks me out.  But here’s how they attempt to justify it …. In…