BRITZ英会話教室

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My 1st and 2nd grade second grade students took their first Jido Eiken tests recently. They practised hard and did a great job. Well done everyone!  

We decorated eggs in today's Yoji class. I was so impressed by their good behaviour! Although the children in this class are so little (ages 3-5), everyone took turns, waited patiently and looked so happy eating nest cakes and colouring their eggs. Well done!
  

Here are the photos from today's egg-decorating class. There were a couple of broken eggs but everyone seemed to have a good time anyway!
  

In today's classes we tried a few new ideas for decorating the eggs, and the results were really colourful! Everyone experimented with sponges, roller brushes, mixing colours... some of the students who have been in my class for a long time are becoming more and more imaginative and there were less broken eggs than the year before. They also enjoyed eating my nest cake with chocolate eggs on top.
Please take a look at the photos!
  

Today was the first day of a week of egg-decorating. We had fun dipping the boiled eggs in various colours, drawing pictures on them with a 'magic crayon' (candle) and eating chocolate nest cakes. Enjoy the photos!
  

During the spring holidays I went on a trip to Shikoku and Shodo-shima with my family. Shodo-Shima is famous as an olive-growing area, and it's also featured in TV commercials and shows (it is the home of Big Daddy!). We travelled by car and ferry and spent a day in Matsuyama, where we visited Dogo Onsen. The building is over a hundred years old and it was great to be there during cherry blossom season.
  

'A Taste of English: Food and Fiction' is the textbook that I helped to write last year. It has now been published and is available to order via Amazon. You can take a look by following the link below:

フィクションにみる食文化  

Last weekend I went to a meeting of the Kumamoto German Board Games Club (熊本ドイツボードゲームの会）for the first time. They hold meetings once a month and have a huge collection of board games to choose from, with both tournaments and casual games going on at the same time.
Boards games can be both fun and educational and are a great way for families and friends to spend time together. I tried Settlers of Catan, Magical Labyrinth and Fauna and had a wonderful afternoon.
  

After our Tuesday morning class we decided to eat out at Terrasse Ezu-ko which is just a short bicycle ride or drive from my classroom and overlooks the lake. The food was beautifully prepared using locally grown vegetables and the building itself is in a wonderful location. I think we could all enjoy a delicious meal as well as interesting conversation!
  

After the spring holidays it will be time for Easter parties again. Every year we enjoy egg-decorating and this year we'll be trying a few new styles. I',m also planning to make chocolate bird's nests again, as my daughter has been requesting them. I'll post photos when they are ready!g   

I'm busy with preparations for the new school year and have decided that from April I will begin teaching Eiken classes for 5th and 6th graders who have already done Jido Eiken to Gold level. The Eiken class will be on Wednesdays from 7 to 8pm.  

Every February I hold a class event that my students really look forward to - chocolate making!　The recipe is so safe and simple that even three year olds are able to make their own chocolate with very little help and without getting too dirty! All the ingredients (cocoa powder, icing sugar, cream cheese, margarine and vanilla essence) are put into a Ziploc bag, and are mixed together using a combination of karate chops and massage! As you can see from the photos this is a fun part of the process! The chocolate doesn't look too nice but it tastes really good!
  

This weekend I went skiing at Gokase Highland in Miyazaki-ken. It was my first time to ski in almost twenty years! I learned how to ski when I spent a year living in Canada during my student days. The winter there was so long and cold that I had plenty of opportunties for skiing, skating and even ice-fishing! Skiing is a really popular sport in England even though there are no places to ski (there aren't many high mountains). Many people take a winter holiday skiing in nearby countries such as France, Austria and Switzerland.
It seems like snowboarding is more popular than skiing these days but I didn't have the confidence to try that. Maybe next time!  

I spent Christmas in Kumamoto this year and was shocked to discover that December 25th was a regular school day for my children, It seems like a lot of people in Japan celebrate Christmas on December 24th but in Britain Christmas Eve is not such a special day - it is just the day before Christmas, and the 25th and 26th are national holidays.
It was a little strange waking up early on Christmas morning, not because my children were excited about opening their presents from Santa Claus, but because they had to go to school! We were finally able to celebrate when they got home in the afternoon. Since it was very different from our usual Christmas I decided not to cook a traditional meal, and instead we went out for dinner and enjoyed an all you can eat buffet with roast beef and a chocolate fountain. It was so nice not to spend Christmas Day in my cold kitchen cooking and washing dishes!
  

As usual, Christmas parties were a lot of fun. The children enjoyed playing party games, exchanging presents and eating tree and teddy bear shaped Christmas cookies.   

In the middle of December we had an end of year party for all the adult students of Britz. We met at 'Trattoria Oggi', an Italian restaurant close to my classroom in Wakaba and had a wonderful meal with lots of wine, conversation (in English and Japanese) and party games and prizes. Thanks to everyone who joined the party, and I'm now looking forward to the next party at the end of January.

  

I was invited to take part in a volunteer activity in Shinmachi with the students of Isshin Elementary School. The sixth graders, along with some English speaking volunteer guides took a small number of foreigners (as well as myself, there were people from Indonesia, Bangladesh and the USA) around a few local places of interest. The students had prepared speeches about all the places in English and acted as tour guides while the foreigners (including those like myself who have lived in Kumamoto a long time) were asked to pretend we couldn't speak any Japanese and act as tourists. It was an interesting exercise. The children were really shy throughout the activity until we got back to school and met a special guest - Kumamon! Then all those quiet kids turned into hooligans and jumped all over the local mascot to the surprise of their teachers as well as Kumamon's assistant. I'm surprised the poor bear didn't suffer from a serious injury but I guess Kumamon is used to getting jumped over wherever he goes. Perhaps because he is a non-speaking character, kids are able to get over their fears of communicating with the unknown!
  

If you'd like to find out more about the textbook I co-wrote, please check the link below:

http://daieikyo.jp/aetp/modules/bmc/detail.php?book_id=46768&prev=texts