Overview
February started quite cold, and the first and only snow of the season fell on the 10th. Even with the cold weather BumbleB English welcomed several new students, including two elementary school-age children of a current adult student. We also welcomed four students to a beginner class (students who will be starting elementary school in April). With entering and departing students happening during January and February, our class schedule is in flux. Please contact directly at: [email protected] for information on the availability of lessons.
General Notice: Our teacher does not wear a mask in school, and we will strongly encourage students to remove their mask during the lesson. Of course, students who are ill or have pollen allergies may continue wearing masks in class.
Group Lessons – Kids
In mid-February, we welcomed a group of four students to a new class for beginners. This class starts at 15:45 and focuses on elementary school students entering Grade 1 or Grade 2. The Monday class is full, but we plan to offer a few more classes and have available time slots on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 15:00. Our beginner classes focus on phonics, vocabulary, alphabet letter recognition, and basic speaking patterns.
Our intermediate and advanced group lessons focused on having students recite a self-introduction. At first, the students wrote the following ” I am ….”, “I like…”, “I have”… Gradually, the students added more sentences and introduced themselves in more detail. For one intermediate class, the students added the negative form, such as “I am not…”, “I do not…”. In doing so, these students were able to speak over twenty sentences. We recorded a video of each student’s self-introduction and made the videos available to parents. We intend to practice once or twice a month and review the students’ progress.
Additionally, many of our advanced group lessons use native-English workbooks such as Scholastic Success with Reading Tests and Scholastic Succes with Grammar. These are helpful workbooks to improve student’s language ability and to prepare students for junior high school level English and beyond.
Private Lessons – Kids
We received good news from two of our private lesson students. A very young Chinese student passed the first section of the Eiken Level 3 exam, and a Japanese student passed the Eiken Pre-2 exam. We were delighted to hear the good news. During February, we spent time with both students, preparing them for Part 2 of the exam, which focuses on reading, listening, and speaking. Part 2 of the exam can be difficult as there are specific grammar patterns the examiner is judging, such as whether or not the test taker can use the present progressive (…ing) tense and the simple future tense (will….). The last two open-ended questions can be difficult for students who have yet to learn how to express their opinions.
In February, we began to teach two sisters who will be moving to the United States in the summer. Even though the students are pretty young (a five-year-old and a ten-year-old), the English language ability of each student is above average as they have been exposed to English previously, and the family had lived in the U.S. several years before. For the younger sister, we focus on alphabet letter recognition, phonetic practice, beginner-level reading, and introductory letter writing. The five-year-old is a quick study and should not be too far behind native speakers when she arrives in the U.S.
The older sister was the student who passed the 1st part of the Eiken Pre-2 exam, so she has above-average English language ability. For this sister, after studying for Part 2 of the Eiken exam, we will focus on the Scholastic Success Workbooks for Grammar, Writing, and Reading Tests. Both these students are confident, outgoing, and eager to learn. These qualities will help them improve quickly over the next several months.
Another adult student will relocate to Turkey due to a work promotion, and he will bring his family. We started teaching two of his children in late February and will focus on developing basic communication skills before the family’s departure to Turkey later this year.
Private Lessons – Adults
In February, we welcomed a new adult student. This student started a public relations position with a leading Japanese real estate developer and wanted to improve her business-level English. The student’s English level was already high, so lessons focused on understanding business magazines, newspaper articles, and business idioms. In addition, the student’s spouse, a doctor, was also interested in learning English and has begun taking lessons at our school. So now we have two pairs of spouses taking classes at BumbleB English.
For the manager relocating abroad, our February classes have focused on the Linguaskill English Assessment Exam. This exam was created by Cambridge University Press and is supported in Japan by the Eiken Foundation of Japan. This exam is quite challenging and tests all four language skills – speaking, writing, reading, and listening.
For the pre-MBA student, we tackled some articles from the Economist, reviewed some more business cases, and worked on financial statement analysis by checking the major items from the balance sheet. A website, Corporate Finance Institute, provides free and paid lessons on various financial topics such as: Financial Modeling, Accounting and Valuation. It is a good service, and I recommend it to professionals interested in online post-graduate-level business courses.
Summary
BumbleB English welcomed new students in February, including students entering elementary school in April, and created a new beginner class focusing on phonics, vocabulary, and alphabet letter recognition. Our intermediate and advanced group lessons focused on having students recite self-introductions. Private lessons for kids included preparation for Eiken exams and teaching sisters who will move to the US. Private lessons for adults focused on business-level English and passing language assessments. Finally, the school started incorporating material from the Corporate Finance Institute for professionals interested in online post-graduate level business courses.
Just a reminder, we are running a special Spring Campaign, 10% off our monthly lesson fees until March 31, 2023, and we encourage anyone interested in our school to contact us for a free trial lesson.
As always, please get in touch with us directly for information about our school: [email protected]
