Today was a workshop for the Okayama City Education Center. I know lots of the teachers here, it’s the 7th year they’ve invited me and I was really looking forward to presenting lots of new things for them, as they are always really keen and probably the best teachers in Japan! I’d put together a…

Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. Today’s school is another pilot school and as it’s also the start of the new term in Hokkaido (they get a longer winter holiday) so I also had a demo class for the kids. If you can do Genki English with 30 kids then it’s pretty easy, or actually easier, to just…

Started off the day with a fiery Japanese breakfast. Then found myself changing trains in Tokushima City, just as they were having their famous “Awa Odori” festival. This is early in the morning so people are quite sober and co-ordinated. They continue like this during the day, drinking more and more beer and sake, until…

This morning was the final day of the Ehime workshop and the difference in the teachers from the “we want to, but can’t do anything” mentality on Monday compared with today was amazing. Some of the lessons today (such as “What are you doing?” ) were better than I do! They really knew how to…

It’s only a couple of years since I started doing the “jissen” workshops where teachers actually teach and then learn from their mistakes. And I think I’ve got quite good at it, what used to take 2 days I can now do in 1. Of course it helps that today’s teachers have been trying to…

After catching up on a bit of work, and before dinner with the teachers from this week, I got picked up in an open top car for a nice drive round the beautiful Pacific Island of Okinawa. It’s so nice to finally have a day off here, as usually I just fly straight in and…