Normally day 2 of a 3 day workshop ends on a “will they really be able to do this?” note. But today’s teachers were fine right from the start. It does take a bit of getting used to teaching Genki English, especially the idea that pronunciation and learning something new actually matters, but once you’ve…

People often ask me if I ever get tired or feel like quitting. Usually, no. This morning, oh yes. Now I know why Japan is so bad at elementary school English…. This week I’ve been invited to do two and half days of training as part of the certificated Japanese elementary school teacher programme. I…

Today was the first board of education workshop of the year organised by one of the Ministry of Education’s test schools. They also opened it up to other teachers – including junior high teachers – so we had quite a nice turn out. Content wise it was the usual confidence building & questions: What if…

Today I was invited by the Seigakuin University to do 2 lectures to teachers and students near Tokyo. Usually after being abroad I get really depressed with the state of teacher training in Japan. This morning some of it was as boring as anything with very dodgy English being taught, but generally things were pretty…

It’s 10 months since I’ve been in Japan and I’m only here for a week. It’s actually been rather nice, almost like a holiday. The best thing has been cramming in as much gorgeous Japanese food as I can. There are so many great things to eat here from ramen to unagi, bibimba and all…

After arriving back last night, this morning it was straight into a set of workshops at Osaka’s Shoin University sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education. My workshop was part of a 6 day course, split over several weekends and although there were 70 people I had 4 time slots with 20 people each. Compared…