Happy Birthday to me!

I became 43 two days ago. I have been looked back on the past year in recent days.
After quitting the comopany, I accomplished the short stay in Seattle with Airin and started my own English School, Bears Enlgish Club and finished 4 seasonal events and got a licence of J-shine. I think I have done quite well. I will be proud of me by myself.

But my struggle has just started and this second year would be more important one for my school to be put to the test. I should improve my students' ability to gain a good reputation.
The first thing I should do as a teacher and a school owner is to believe that all my students can be bilingals. I will praise my students as much as I can and I will give them as much confidence as I can. This is the starting point of the second year.
Happy belated birthday to me!

Soon it will be my Christmas Party!

I will have a Christmas Party of my school on 22th. This is the second event of Bears English Club. The first one was a Halloween Party. I was so panicked at that party. I spent most of the time looking for something because I didn't put my things together. I would like to make preparations in good time this time.

My little students; they are all girls from 3 - 6 years old, will perform their dance and chant. I am afraid that they cannot do well but such experience will work to motivate their mind to practice English.

Anyway they are sure to look cute and lovely just standing in their costumes.

Seminar for English Teachers

I attended a seminar for English teachers in Yokohama. The lecturer is a famous English teacher for children. She writes famous mail magazines and published a CD called　”Chants de Pong!” Now the CD has been a big hit among English teachers for children. Yesterday she introduced many effective ways to utilize the CD. I bought it in September but I didn’t use it for my class. I want to but until now I couldn’t imagine how to use it. Soon it will be our Christmas party, so I want to use it as one of the main programs.

After the seminar we had lunch together at the restaurant which is in the same building as the seminar room. I enjoyed talking with other experienced English teachers very much. Now my biggest worry is recruiting students but I found teachers who have opposite worries like they don’t want more students. Maybe it arises from the difference of years of experience. Anyway I wish I could have a feeling no more students.

It's Culture Day!

I planed to take my child to the nursery school today but today is the Culture Day and I had to spent whole day with her. So we went to the Chiba city library and made her own library card. In the same building there is a lifetime learning center and we sometimes enjoy watching DVD in the AV room. Today Airin chose one of the series of the Winnie the Pooh and we watched it in English mode. Airin got bored halfway and she wanted to go to the park because she couldn't catch the story. She can catch most of my talking in English but she is not able to get native language. I should give her more oppotunities to get used to native English. Anway we enjoyed reading many picture books and watching DVD and playing in the park. I couldn't finish my work but I am satisfied that I could do so many activities suitable for Culture Day.

I got a call to apply for trial lesson of my school, Bears English Club. It's a lucky day!

My First Class

Last Thursday I experienced my first class to teach English enjoying artwork. The day before the class I had to finish making up many documents such as brochures and curriculum sheets, so I stayed up all night.
I had three trial families. Each family took 2 children, one is 7 year-old boy and another is 4-year -old girl like that. They stayed at my house from 16:30 to 19:00. I was stressed out heavily and I couldn't keep my energy to the last class. Actually I didn't prepared for the elementary school students enough and just arranged the infant class program a little bit. When I was finished all classes, I felt like an empty shell.

Anyway I learned a lot from this lesson.

1. Parents wants their children to speak up English a lot.

Children loves artwork but they tend to be silent while making. I should make sure to motivate them to speak English naturally.

2. I have to think more about junior students.

They are much more different from infant students, so I need to devise the way to teach them.
Maybe I should better concentrate on the infant class at first.

Tomorrow I will give one trial lesson to a 5-year-old girl. I want to relax and enjoy myself more.

Many Thanks!

Owning business is so tough. I should be a good sales person to make a success of Bears English Club.

Today I handed out leaflets of my school near the Soga station. I don't like doing this kind of sales usually. But I could enjoy this job thanks to Jason and Airin.

Jason came over to Soga and joined us. I started volunteer work of teaching Japanese at CCIA this April and he is my Australian student now.

He passed out our leaflets very naturally and smoothly to my potential customers; parents with little kids. And it looked like they got them willingly. Wow, he is a good sales man! Airin had a fun time with him playing fighting game with toy guns. She was running with glad cry and shooting him.

Jason-san! Thank you from my heart for your wonderful support!

My English School

My English school, Bears English Club will open this month. I have been very busy for preparing and I have still many things to do. I always try to stay up late to finish my work but actually I fall asleep with my daughter.



Bears English Club is one of the business that my company Manabos supports. In the future I want to help many childrens and other people living in Soga area to make their life happier through learning and teaching together. Now we don't know each other and live only for their private things. I think there are many people who has something good at, something familiar with and who likes children. If we could teach children many interesting things, our regional society would be more confortable to live and more happier it would be.



This is my ideal but the reality is cruel. I distribute more than 8,000 copies of my leaflet and put out the advertisement on many bulletin boards. I haven't got any response yet. Oh my!



Anyway I can't stop my school opening even though no student.



This is my school signboard.