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Urawa Reds Juniors: what’s it like playing on a J. League team

I’ve (Dave) always loved soccer. I’d play throughout the day in the 3 school breaks. Get home, have a stack of jam butties, a cup of milk and head out for more footy at the park. I played for my school and local teams. Footy’s been good to me: It’s […]

Trial Lesson Hell

Here’s some of our terrible trial lesson stories: The uninvited guest Doing a trial lesson in the August heat, a meaty cockroach flew out of the air-conditioning onto the trial lesson Mom’s lap. Signed up?: No Lessons Learned: Cockroach traps needed. No more trial lessons in August: Students come hot […]

Happy English

Happy, clappy English teaching: not a fan. Why? After 22 years here, we are miserable sods jaded with teaching and life itself. Ha ha, gotcha! No, we are very happy people but definitely not into the concept of bouncing around a class, bug eyed leading […]

Time on Text

At Dave and Amy English School, we believe the ideal length of time on a text is 1 year or less. Just to be clear, we don’t rush students through texts or level them up without merit. After 1 year, we expect the student to be able to level up to […]

CVC Phonics Text and Games

The following is how we use My English Book and Me 4 text and games / flashcards in our classrooms. The Japanese translation is here. We give the following to all students so that they know exactly how / what we are teaching. 1. About the Texts My English […]

Naming your School

It might seem ridiculous, but it took A LOT of thought before we decided on Dave and Amy English School as THE name for our school. At first, Green Gopher, Purple Panda, Mauve Marsupial were deliberated on because there were similarly named local schools. Then, the ubiquitous Rainbow […]

Advertising: What we DON’T do

In Part 1, we explained our current advertising methods. This is what we have previously tried (or not tried) and our thoughts on the effectiveness of those methods. 1. FLYERS in Mailboxes. Worth doing if you need students / just starting out. In the early days of our school, Dave spent many cold, dark nights […]

Advertising your English School

Currently, Dave and I: 1. Have BRIGHT, COLORFUL eye-catching signs. Essential information only. Don’t duplicate (English school and eikaiwa kyoshitsu— not both needed) Cartoon faces: might be effective if like Dave you are “facially challenged”. (and faces stand out) About us: All of our school signs are visible from […]

Saying Good – Bye to Seiji

Dave and I went to the wake of our dear friend Seiji Nakayama yesterday. He died aged 47, saving his and another child from a river. He was a great guy, loved by everyone. The wake couldn’t do him justice. The sheer numbers made that impossible. […]

Learn from the Best: Brown Teachers

At Brown University, I filled my schedule with classes from teachers that were known to be great teachers. It didn’t matter WHAT they taught. If they got rave reviews from previous students, I signed up to their lessons. And I learned so much. A good teacher makes learning fun, challenging and advances […]