Year-End Progress Update and 2024 Plans
What better time to update my blog than the last day of the year? Allow me to reflect on the last 12 months to see if I accomplished anything of worth.
ESL
Teaching ESL in Japan and my thoughts on education in general.
Gupty and I are working magic together
It might surprise you that I didn’t write my previous blog post myself. Instead, I thought it would be interesting to get ChatGPT to write it for me. I thought one of my three readers would catch on and call me out on it, but instead, my “net buddy” Mike responded to my post about cholesterol with, “Yeah, I know exactly where you’re coming from.” Or something along those lines. […]
Ways to Learn and Earn while Teaching Online
Since I started teaching on DMM Eikaiwa, I’ve been wondering if I can get more out of my time when sat at the computer. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far: Learning from students I have so many students that work in Medicine, IT, Engineering and Finance, or teach at high schools and universities. These are clearly highly educated individuals doing quite well for themselves, so I can probably […]
Teaching with DMM Eikaiwa (aka Engoo)
When I finished teaching at kindergarten, something I had done for nearly 20 years, I found myself needing to replace the lost income. I had assumed that I could get some private students, but living 5 kilometers from the nearest train station, and only being available on weekday mornings really limits the potential for that. So I looked online. I was surprised to see how little the big companies pay […]
NHK English Characters Worse than Nara Mascot?
We were all highly critical of the “freaky looking deer-horned Buddha” mascot that was chosen to represent the Nara Heijo-kyo anniversary, and rightly so, but I fear that even he was more appealing than the two characters that front NHK’s “Eigo de Asobo” children’s TV show. Meet Kebo and Motch Let me introduce these ambassadors of the English language… This picture from the cover of an NHK CD actually shows […]
ESL-Kids.com Featured in T.H.E. Journal
I wasn’t planning to blow my own trumpet, but regular commentator, Keith, told me not to let pride stand in my way, so let me shout it out loud… My site got featured in T.H.E. Journal! Whoo-hoo! I launched ESL-Kids.com, a website offering free ESL materials, in 2006. Since then, it has had 2.3 million page views, about 400,000 visitors, and is now frequented by around 1,500 people a day. […]
Download Songs for ESL Children
Once a week, I throw my Pooh bag over my shoulder and haul my collection of flash cards and toys to my local kindergarten. With a fresh bunch of children starting their English lessons in a couple of weeks, I’ve taken to revamping the curriculum I’ve been using, and injecting some energy into it with some very genki songs. The problem with classic children songs For years, I’ve made do […]
Arnold Schwarzenegger Calls AEON English School
While I’ve been (and still am) waiting for my websites to move to their new web host, I’ve had some time to catch up on my favorite podcasts. One of those podcasts is from Gaijin-in-Japan.com, and recently in Mike’s 82nd podcast, we got treated to this brilliant prank call to an AEON English school in Japan: Arnold Calls English School There are lots of similar ones on ArnoldCalls.com, and you’ll […]