Today was billed as “songs and games”, and as we covered all the important theory and motivation bits yesterday, that’s what we did all morning. In fact the first hour we spent doing the the full “Left & Right” lesson in real time, just to show what sort of speed a class would go (…

I’ve been looking forward to this workshop for a while now, instead of a 1 hour “sales pitch” or 3 hour introduction, I have three full days of professional development workshops which is itself part of a 2 week long programme. About half the participants were elementary school teachers and about half were student teachers….

Unlike usual workshops where I work through things in stages according to the teachers needs, this week’s workshops have all got titles. Tomorrow afternoon is “International Understanding”. Usually I have that as the big finale at the end, to show the teachers how important their work is. But tomorrow I have a full 3 hours…

Greetings from sunny Okinawa! I’ve actually spent the last few days in (rainy!) Ehime, where in amongst all the boxes of CDs and Kids English ( very big boxes!), we found an unopened carton of Genki English t-shirts. Lots of people have been asking to buy them, so after taking out a few for myself,…

I get lots of request for new things for the site, and also lots of “thank you”s for having Japanese translations. But strangely enough I’ve never had any requests for Japanese translations of any readers’ games. That’s always surprised me. I’m sure they’d really help with lesson planning and Japanese teachers are always asking for…

If you’ve ever wondered why trains in Japan can be so expensive, here’s the reason…. Japan Rail (JR) are starting to label all their stations with a number then a letter for the line name. Great idea, that will make things a lot easier for a lot of people. So they have to change all…