Some schools are just perfect. And I think today was the easiest workshop I’ve ever done. The teachers were mega genki, up for learning new stuff and asking lots of great questions. If every school in Japan were like this they’d rule the World.

We started off with the warm up and they got into that. One question was “I can’t understand when people speak fast. What should I do?”. Good question, so I started off with “stand up”, “sit down”, etc. and then instead of going into the weird stuff like ” eat a hot curry”, I did more classroom stuff, adding in “Girls”, then “Boys”, then things like “open the window”. Then ended up being able to say “Boys, stand up, go over there and open the windows”, “Girls come here and close the doors” at full speed and they got it straight away. The point being that just by building things up slowly in layers you gradually get better and better, and for teachers the best way to do that is to listen to English on the way to school for 5 minutes a day.

After my self intro ( to get them relaxed enough to ask questions), the usual set of problems came up ( pronunciation, what to teach, what to aim for etc.) which are all pretty easy to solve. And as this school actually has to teach real lessons ( and with no ALT ) they were all over things like the software on the CDs, the lesson plans and the games. It’s like the Anthony Robbins line, it’s the “have tos”, not the “shoulds” that make the difference, and these teachers have to teach every month, so were really into all the ideas.

One of the best things was in the second half a new teacher joined. I did a quick review of the first half, ending by saying “Right, so everyone is cool with the fact that English is quite easy”, all the teachers went “Yes!” and the new teacher just looked shocked ( as she had always been taught that English was something only phds could do!) But it was cool as everyone was saying what I’d just taught them, that it’s not brain surgery, it’s something they can all do with a bit of practice!

So, brilliant really. I also tried videoing the workshop to put on the site ( like the English one I did the other week), but the teachers got so carried away in the Mingle game they sent my video camera flying across the room! I tell you, there’s some of these people who say that kids English should be all “serious”, but they have never set foot in a real school!

So today’s teachers were really, really great! It was a real pleasure to help them, and I’m looking forward to working with them in the future.

But now I have to get ready for my 6 hours of workshops tomorrow, a shinkansen down to Kagoshima and the start of the 3 week Summer Tour!