Two weeks ago my music teacher asked me to buy a book. I was all eager, wanting to get it to practice at home. But… once I left the lesson everything else closed in and I never made the time to go shopping. This week I hadn’t improved. What I wanted was a display in…

If you run your own school, how much fun is it to sign up with you? And, more importantly, how easy is it to recommend to your friends? Last week I signed up for a music course at a big chain school. Nice clear, simple forms, simple process, friendly staff who talked you through it…

Learning English is just like the gym, for most people it’s one of the things you know you should be doing, but… it’s always just too much hassle. Too much computer work this month meant I had to join the gym. But one great idea they have is a “Buying Fat” campaign. After three months…

One request I’ve had quite a few times over the last few days, from various ALTs, has been for an explanation of Halloween in Japanese to show your home room teachers. I used to simply recommend ALC’s “Kodomo Eigo” magazine as each year they usually have a Halloween special that has a description of Halloween…

Just spent the last couple of days in Korea. As usual the food was fantastic, tons of vegetables with just about anything you order. Going on the high speed Beetle boat makes it seem like it’s just an island hop, which I guess it is really. It’s a year since I’ve been here, so it…

I’ve had quite a few people asking to put up demo versions of the Adult / High School Hip Hop songs. It would be fairly easy to do, but …. I figured it would be a bit boring really. So…. I’ve put them up on the site, with pictures, but as an interactive listening quiz!…