Monthly Update February 2024
Welcome to our school monthly update for February 2024. Our school offers lessons for elementary school-aged children and above. In addition, we provide daily conversation and business English classes for adults. We offer onsite lessons at our school location in Yoga, Tokyo. Additionally, we provide Zoom lessons for remote students.
Please contact us at staff@bumblebenglish.com if you are interested in a trial lesson or have any questions about our school.
Group Lessons - Kids
Our pre-elementary school class is progressing well. We have a small class of students who consistently come and show good improvement. We have room for a few more students, so please get in touch with us if you are interested in the lesson. The lesson meets twice a month on Sundays from 10:00 am. This lesson is perfect for 4-5-year-olds; parents can stay in the class to help encourage their child.
Our Monday and Friday beginning classes are also doing well. Attendance is high, and all the students are active participants. We use the Oxford University Press Let’s Go student book and workbook series for these lessons. We supplement the materials with phonics practice, writing, and supplemental reading.
Our intermediate-level group classes are working on reading longer books focusing on a single topic. One book we are using focuses on Art, and for a separate class, we use a reading book focusing on Fruits. These books are a bit challenging, and sometimes the student needs to look up an English word in a dictionary.
Our advanced group classes use Scholastic Success with Writing and the Scholastic Success with Writing and the Scholastic Success with Reading Comprehension workbooks. The students in these classes have been with us for several years, so their reading and writing are more advanced than a typical student’s. However, the workbooks are still challenging, and we progress at a pace that is not overwhelming for our students.
As the weather is still cold, several of our students have had to miss a lesson due to illness. Usually, we are able to place the student in a different lesson for a makeup class. We advise parents to contact us as soon as possible if their child cannot attend a lesson.
Private Lessons - Kids
We are happy to announce that one of our elementary school students passed the Eiken Pre-2 Level 1st exam. His results were good, especially his reading, but his listening results were lower than expected. Another student is taking the online Eiken CBT Pre-2 test, so we have provided private lessons to practice test-taking techniques covering reading comprehension and writing.
In addition, one of our previous students, who now lives in Kanagawa-ken, informed us that he passed the Eiken Level 2 1st exam. This was an outstanding achievement, as we worked with this student last autumn to help him prepare for the autumn test. Though he tried hard, he could not pass the test last year. Through his efforts, he passed the winter exam, and he would like us to help him prepare for the speaking portion of the test.
Yet another of our previous students, currently a junior high school student, informed us that she also passed the Level 2 1st exam. We are very proud of our current and previous students, who continue developing their English language skills and their knowledge and interest in the world around them.
Private & Group Lessons - Adults
Our Wednesday morning adult group class is going well. The lessons have incorporated a lot of role-playing and real-life situations. We are also incorporating more extended communication activities, such as asking students to describe an aspect of Japanese culture, such as how to use a Japanese bath or pray at a Japanese shrine.
Our private adult classes are customized for each student’s English level and interests. One student wants to practice reading and listening. In contrast, another student prefers to focus on understanding high-level sentence structure in the NHK Radio English materials. Other students choose to focus on current topics, so we use articles that discuss entertainment, culture, travel, and business and discuss various aspects of these topics. This approach is exciting and useful for adult students as they have the knowledge and can use their own experience to communicate their opinions.
Summary
As the new year progresses and cold and flu season continues, we hope everyone takes care of their health. Many of our students are good at studying, but not all are active or involved in athletic activity. We encourage everyone to be more active as it not only benefits a child’s physical abilities but also improves mood, improves overall health and also improves learning.
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: staff@bumblebenglish.com
