Today was this year’s Kobe Conference for recontracting members of the Japanese governments’ JET programme. This was the 4th year I’ve been asked to present here, but quite a few things have changed, so it was almost like doing it for the first time. First of all there was no AJET info fair, so I…

The Daily Yomiuri is doing a series of interviews with people on the government panel who are discussing Elementary School English in Japan. This week it’s the turn of one of the people in favour, Mineo Nakajima. Here’s the article http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20060518TDY14001.htm (The link will expire soon. Link found courtesy of the ELTnews)

I made a couple of big changes to the site today. The first is splitting the printed/laminated picture card packs in two. Quite a few people already have the cards for CDs 1 to 4, but were getting fed up with the all the hassles of printing out lots of the new ones. After trying…

One of the things I always try to do when teaching is to make the subject alive, to take it out of the realm of just being in the classroom by bringing in the things kids are interested in from the outside world. With all the hype that surrounds them, Hollywood movies make an obvious…

It is a strange feeling being asked to do CD signings and presentations in bookstores. When I was back in England I’d see people presenting in Borders or HMV and think “That looks cool.”, now I’m here in Japan, of all places, doing the same thing myself! It doesn’t seem real somehow. Oxford University Press…

After finding out how many pages were on the site yesterday, and figuring out that the old search system only indexed about 800 pages, I decided to put in a new google powered search engine on the site. It seems to be working out really well, you just put in the target English you want…