Back about 10 years ago in an interview applying for a MEXT scholarship I was asked what in my opinion was the biggest difference between NZ and Japan. My answer now is the role of women in society, however that Japan is extremely conservative and NZ extremely progressive would be a close second. When I […]

I heard of a challenge from Seth Godin to write everyday. I have learned the importance of effective communication by being a teacher, translator, and interpreter over the years, and I'm going to write this blog, even if it's crap, everyday for as long as I can. My reasoning is purely selfish, to be a […]

I was a little taken aback the other day in one of my junior high school English classes because the teacher had told the students to work alone on their self-introductions just because he wanted them to finish quickly. Actually I was angry because I said that they should ask each other before they ask […]

When you are put in charge of teaching English to young children it can often be quite challenging. They need to be constantly entertained and engaged, which means either one really fun task, or lots of little ones are necessary. Any activity that is not the least bit fun will have the children off-task and not learning, so […]

Quite often in the conventional language classroom listening "practice" involves listening to something and writing down answers to questions. In real life when someone is talking to you, you don't sit there and write down what they are saying, you respond by showing in some way or another that you have understood what they have said […]

The research may not be very conclusive but it is conclusive on one thing: there is not one single way to learn a language. Of course this comes down to terminology; like what does true success in language learning mean? Does it mean simply being able to be understood, or is it more than that, i.e. […]

Japan is supposedly built by people who would rather run around the bush to get their way rather than simply demand their way. In Japanese companies if the subordinates notice that their boss is wrong, instead of confronting the boss with the facts, they would subtly hint that something is wrong until the boss realises, […]