BRITZ英会話教室

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We had a fun week of Halloween parties at the end of October - lots of students came in costume and enjoyed playing games such as the Hungry Witch popcorn game, Pass the Parcel and Horror Bingo.   

Next month I will be having my book published. It is a textbook that I co-wrote with two Japanese colleagues at one of the universities I teach at. I received some copies of the book in advance and was so excited to see my name on the cover. The book will go on sale in November!


  

  

  

  

If you are on Facebook, please check out the new Britz page! You can find it easily by doing a search for Britz English School, Kumamoto. I'll be posting news and photos there, and both past and present students can use the page to comment, post their own news and keep in touch with each other.  

  

  

What a wonderful time to be in the UK! Experiencing the magic of the Olympics in your home country is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I'm really glad I had the chance to be there. Although I didn't visit London, I got to see one live Olympics event - the semifinal of the men's football between Brazil and Korea. Before the match I 　was feeling slightly disappointed that I didn't have tickets for Japan's game against Mexico instead, not to mention that Team GB had been beaten by Korea in the quarter-finals, but that changed as soon as I arrived in Manchester and approached the huge stadium at Old Trafford. Almost 70,000 people filled the stadium and the atmosphere was amazing. We arrived early enough to see the players from both teams arriving, and had great seats just behind the goals. During the match there was lots of singing, shouting and thousands of people doing the Mexican Wave. I think it was an unforgettable experience for me and my children.
I've been sharing my photos, brochures and video footage with students since classes started again at the beginning of September. I hope they will feel inspired by the amazing achievements of the athletes at the Olympics and Paralympics and that it won't be too long before the Games are held again in Japan!  

The 2012 Olympic Games are just a few days away and excitement is building. This will be the third Olympic Games to be held in London, but as the last time was over sixty years ago in 1948, it's the first in my lifetime.
The Olympic Torch Relay passed through my hometown、Matlock, on June 29th. Although I couldn't be there to see it I was pretty excited to watch the procession on Youtube. The convoy started outside the school that I used to go to and passes very close to my house. If you watch the clip on Youtube you can see it pass the pub at the end of my street at 3.55.　Hundreds of people are lining the streets to cheer on the Torch-bearers. What a great atmosphere!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNoBLwUmOd4&feature=relmfu  

Recently the students of the Thursday evening class decided that it would be nice to hold a party. We got together at Ristorante Miyamoto for a great evening of Italian food, wine and conversation. In fact, the conversation went on so long that we completely lost track of time and several people had to run through the rain to catch the last bus home! I hope we can all get together again soon. A big thank you to Kyosuke-san for making the reservation and introducing such a nice restaurant!
  

I'm happy to announce that I will be able to teach a daytime adults class again from April. Due to my university teaching schedule I had to give up my morning classes last year, but happily I now have Tuesday mornings free and can offer a class to people who are busy in the evenings. The new class will be on Tuesday mornings from 10.30 to 11.30 beginning on April 10th.   

I was asked yesterday about the origins of 'Britz' and where the name come from. It's a long story! I opened my English school back in 1997, starting on a very small scale with one class a week in Jonan-machi. My in-laws had a pre-fab building outside their house and several families living nearby were keen to give their children English lessons with a native-speaking teacher. Through word of mouth and much effort posting leaflets and putting up posters I gradually expanded and started classes in Mifune and Matsubase, as well as a larger class in Jonan. At this time I settled on 'Piccadilly English School', named after the famous place in London. I kept this name for several years but always had trouble with the pronunciation. It's easy enough in English but in katakana the sound changes to 'Pi-ka-de-ri' and whenever I answered the telephone I had to decide whether to say the English or Japanese version of the name!
With two young children to take care of, I started teaching classes closer to home　in Kumamoto City, opening up first in Onoue and later at what is now my main classroom in Wakaba. I can't remember when exactly, but at some point it seemed like a good time to come up with a new name and design a logo. Designing logos is fun... choosing names, extremely difficult! I wanted to have something with a British slant but wanted to avoid the obvious names (like London) or anything difficult to pronounce or put into katakana. After playing around with other famous place/people names like Trafalgar, Wellington etc I then decided it would be better to have something short and snappy instead. The first choice was Bricks, and this led to Brits, and finally to Britz. Although it's not a proper word, I feel it's a good blend of 'British' and 'Ritz'. The Ritz is of course a luxurious London hotel and is used in the Irving Berlin song 'Putting on the Ritz'. The expression means to dress up very elegantly and the movie of the same name is synonymous with top hats and tails. That's why the Britz logo has an elegant top hat in its design! I'm still really pleased with the name I finally decided on (so much easier to say on the telephone!) and am especially proud of the school logo. I have no plans to change it anytime soon!
If you read all the way to the end, well done and thank you very much! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the name 'Britz' and especially the first impressions it gave you.   

Students who enjoyed Valentine parties last year have been asking since last August when we would be making chocolate again and how soon until Valentine's Day... I think they were more excited about this event than even Halloween or Christmas! It's a Britz tradition to make chocolate fudge in class using　cream cheese, margarine, cocoa powder, icing sugar and vanilla essence mixed together in a Ziploc bag.


  

I have put lots of photos from the Christmas parties on the wall of my classroom in Wakaba, and you can see some of them above. The highlight of this year's parties was a huge inflatable snowman who was happy to pose in our pictures and made for some fun party games!  

Halloween parties are over for another year. I hope all the children enjoyed them as much as I did! This year, almost everyone came to class in a costume, and those that didn't soon found something to try on in my box of fancy-dress clothes. I will be putting up the photos in my classroom over the next few days. Although getting ready for Halloween takes a lot of work (buying lots of popcorn, sweets and prizes, filling goody bags, preparing games and decorating the classroom), the actual parties seem so short and I always wish we had more time to play a few extra games. However, there will soon be Christmas parties to look forward to....


  

When I left Kumamoto at the end of July to return to England for the summer holidays, I suggested to my adult students that they keep in touch with each other during the month-long break so that they could continue to use English even without a regular weekly lesson. Two months later, and this seed of an idea has grown and grown! Thanks to Tetsu's inspiration, dedication and technical know-how, we now have not one but two blogs for Britz students to communicate with each other in Engish. Both blogs are private so that we can feel safe and secure in posting photos, news, recipes,　questions about English, restaurant recommendations.... anything at all!　It has become a really valuable and fun way to keep improving English skills outside of class, and it has also inspired me to try and write in my own blog more often...  

From tomorrow I will be heading back to England to visit my family. I am looking forward to spending a few weeks in a cool place (hope it won't be too cold though!) and catching up with family and friends in my hometown.
There will be no classes in August - so I hope everyone can enjoy a relaxing break and recharge their batteries before school begins again in September. Have a great summer!  

Just before the Golden Week holidays we spent a fun week in class decorating eggs for Easter. Even the very youngest students took part, and although there were a few cracked and broken eggs by the end of the lesson, everyone was able to take home their colourful works of art. Some children kept their eggs and some ate them as soon as they could!

ゴールデンウィークが始まる少し前ですが、クラスでイースターエッグの装飾を行いました。
最年少の生徒もがんばって装飾にトライし、レッスン終了間際には玉子の殻にひびが入ったり、割れたりもしましたが、何とか皆一生懸命に手掛けた作品を持ち帰る事ができた様です。
ある生徒は大事にかばんに仕舞っていましたが、ある生徒は作業が終わるやいなやパクリ！



  

We had a farewell party in class today to say goodbye to a student who is leaving Kumamoto city at the end of the month. It was a potluck style party, and we enjoyed eating chirashi sushi, sandwiches, an Italian seafood dish and chocolate brownies. I feel really full now!
Takashi-san, thank you for your very kind words, and I hope you will stop by and visit us if you're ever back in Kumamoto!

本日、今月いっぱいで熊本市から転勤される生徒さんのお別れ会を開催しました。
ちらし寿司、サンド、イタリア料理、チョコレートケーキ等々。
皆それぞれの料理を持ち寄ってのパーティー形式でお腹が満たされました！
タカシさん、とっても温かいお言葉をありがとうございました！
熊本へお越しの際はぜひクラスへお顔を出して下さい！