Part two of the voice tips series…. steam! If you feel your voice getting hoarse, get a humidifier for your room ( Argos sell them in the UK). Or before school in the morning, put a towel over your head and breathe in the steam from a hot bowl of water for 10 minutes. It…

When experienced teachers ask me for a bit of advice, I always recommend singing lessons. This isn’t to get your singing any better ( hey, I can’t talk there myself!), but to help you use your voice and breathing more correctly. Very often teachers don’t have the time to sit down and learn the techniques,…

If you’re flying from Japan to overseas locations, the company I use to book my tickets is No.1 Travel. They’re cheap, friendly and they’re just sorting out my schedule for next month which is looking just crazy. There’s something to be said for putting development time and presentation time in blocks, but it means in…

I got an email this morning saying the phone number on the Kids English page was wrong, and indeed it was. The correct number is 0898-48-0256. I’m really grateful to the lady who wrote in. If anyone else spots any mistakes in the site, please let me know!

The British Council ( who are organising my mini Thailand tour next month) are again this year running their Team Teaching competition in Japan. The first prize is a Virgin Atlantic ticket for you and your JTE ( Japanese Teacher of English) from Japan to the UK. Very nice. I attended the prize giving ceremony…

When I first wrote the Kids English series in 2002 I was really happy that I could do all the fun parts of writing a course for kids, but the publishers paid for people to do all the hard work of putting all the nuts and bolts together! They always sold the product for kids…