Up early for a drive through the mountains from Odate in Akita to Aomori airport. Along the way the sign posts were showing the temperature of the roads (vital info in the Winter.) Most of the way it was 17 degrees – in August! At one point it was down to 14 degrees. We also…

Akita, Japan Some people have been wondering why I put “snails” as the first animal in the new “I like animals” song. Surely something more exciting would be better first? Well, if you saw the kids’ almost cinematic reaction to it this morning you’d have seen exactly why snails are the best! What you do…

Japan – Ehime to Akita. Take my advice, don’t ever travel on the last day of the Japanese Obon holidays. It’s like Christmas Eve in the West or Chinese New Year and the airports are packed. Mostly with people who’ve no idea of what to do with check in luggage or metal detectors (we’re allowed…

I’ve just done a quick video so you can see what’s inside the new edition of the Foxy Phonics book. If you teach in junior high school it’s highly recommended. Also apologies for everyone who ordered Foxy Phonics over the last couple of weeks. Our delivery was late arriving, but they have now all been…

Tokushima, Anan. I often get people saying “How come when you do workshops the teachers answer your questions and actually join in? In my workshops they just sit there nodding even if they don’t understand, hate to make mistakes, they never ask questions and some of them even sleep”. Well, that’s what’s taken me 10…