3 years ago I was asked to write a series of 12 picture books for a publisher in Tokyo. Picture books are huge in Japan, but I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to write one. Luckily for me though they put me through a year’s crash course with some of the best editors and producers…

I must say that the demonstration schools these days are getting so much better. Even a few months ago they tended to leave me under impressed to say the least, but all the schools this week have been getting some great results with their kids. Today’s school was a huge open day with all 18…

Spent the day replying to my email and maintaining the site. Then in the evening I caught up with one of the ALTs in town. It’s always good to hear how other people see the materials. Usually the ideas and things I put on the site and the idea is you twist and shape them…

A train at a very silly hour ( any train time that begins with 6 something can’t be normal), and finishing with a 30 minute taxi drive through the mountains ( don’t even imagine how much it cost!) , I eventually arrived at today’s school, right in the south of Oita prefecture. The school here…

Today was a big school today. One of the schools that I did a workshop for in Summer was having their parents’ day ( where parents come to watch lessons), and the theme was that all the teachers would be teaching English. Then afterwards I had a presentation for the parents, because their support is…

One thing that constantly crops up with Japanese teachers making their own lessons is the confusion over “I like apple/apples” etc. Last week this came up when a teacher was asking about a demo class. She came up with a great idea of using real Christmas ornaments of things like a bell, a snowman, a…