Monthly Update April 2024
Welcome to our school monthly update for April 2024. Our school offers lessons for elementary school-aged children and above. We also provide daily conversation and business English classes for adults. Additionally, we offer customized classes for Eiken, TOEFL and iELTS tests. Our classes are held at our school location in Yoga, Tokyo. Online lessons via Zoom is also available.
Please contact us at [email protected] if you are interested in a trial lesson or have any questions about our school.
Group Lessons – Kids
As the new school year started, we took a week or two to review prior class material, as students tend to forget things fairly quickly, even after a short break.
This past month, our Monday night lesson for junior high school students focused on conversation and vocabulary practice. During the lesson, we reviewed the students’ junior high school textbooks and improved their English class grades as they prepared for the high school entrance exam.
We have three lessons for fifth—and sixth-grade elementary school students on Wednesdays. Since many students are preparing for the junior high school entrance exam, we do not give the students a lot of homework. However, since these students tend to be more academically motivated, we use more advanced English than they will probably find in their junior high school English class.
This past month, a new student joined BumbleB English, and although she is currently the only student in the lesson, we anticipate more students will join. This student is a bit shy and doesn’t have prior English-language experience. For these reasons we introduced the Let’s Go Level 1 textbook and some additional writing tasks. The online site we started, https://academy.bumblebenglish.com, has been useful for this student as she can practice listening to the textook audio files as well as watch lesson videos and take vocabulary quizzes.
One of our elementary school students desires to enter an international school and needs to improve his level to take the English language entrance exam. He is taking two lessons a week with us, and we have recommended some other tools to use at home to help him improve his English. Luckily, his parents speak English well, so they can help him with homework and communication practice at home.
Although we have finished adjusting our class schedule for the new academic year, most of our classes still have room for 1-2 more students, so we welcome anyone interested in joining our school to contact us.
Some parents and visitors may have noticed, but we have been more active on social media, primarily Instagram and Facebook. While we do not post pictures of our students online, we have posted some of our students’ classwork and materials. Please follow us to see what our students are up to and to learn more about our school.
Private Lessons – Kids
We currently offer private lessons for elementary and junior high school students. Next month, we plan to introduce an online TOEFL iBT course for a high school student we taught a few years ago when she was in junior high school.
Private lessons are really helpful for students who require short-term English study or who are returnees from overseas and have a higher level of English ability than their school classmates.
Students in these classes typically use learning materials that native English speakers use. They can also read newspaper articles and passages that contain longer sentences and paragraphs. Some students read chapter books such as Magic Tree House and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
A junior high school student is studying with Eiken Level 3 materials and a native-level writing workbook. Quizlet vocabulary word sets for Eiken 3 are also being used.
A second-grade elementary student who has been with us for several years is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This student has strong language ability, so this book is a good level for him. In addition, the book contains several new phrases and vocabulary words that he is not familiar with, so it is a good tool to develop his skills further.
Private & Group Lessons – Adults
We offer a group adult class on Wednesday mornings at 10:00 a.m. and private lessons in the evening. Sadly, one of our adult students will no longer be studying with us as she is moving to a new company where she will use English most of the workday. When she studied with us, we covered many business English skills, such as expressing one’s opinion, making suggestions, and talking on the telephone. We are sad to see her leave as the lessons were enjoyable, and discussions often included topics around educating children, as this student has children around the same age as ours.
This month, a pre-MBA student started taking weekly lessons via Zoom. This student will attend a top-level business school in Europe and wants to work on giving her opinions during MBA class discussions. This student’s English is at a high level, so we will focus on case studies, current business news, and other topics from the Economist, Nikkei Asia Review, WSJ, and other sources.
Summary
The new school year (April in Japan) is always an exciting time as new students join and current students progress to higher levels in their English journey. We recognize that not everyone progresses at the same rate, and we try to make sure students enjoy the classes while they are improving their English.
Our enrollment is ongoing, and we welcome new students throughout the year. We do our best to assign students to the appropriate level.
We encourage anyone interested in our school to contact us for a free trial lesson. Online lessons are available as well for students regardless of location.
As always, please get in touch with us directly for information about our school: [email protected]
