Monthly Update May 2024
Welcome to our school monthly update for May 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.
Golden Week came and went very quickly. Though the school had a few lessons during this period, we were busy improving our online courses. Currently, these courses are available to existing students who attend online or onsite classes, but we intend to provide these courses as standalone offerings.
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 Monday 4 pm lesson is doing well, but some students could improve even more if they did their homework more diligently. Many students have other activities and time commitments, but an additional 30-45 minutes of learning time at home can go a long way to improving their English ability.
We usually ask students to highlight the pages they need to do for homework, and they have a homework sheet to complete before they leave the class. Unfortunately, some students still forget to do their homework, so we will think of other methods for them to remember, such as getting the parents engaged a bit more so they understand their child’s progress and weekly homework.
Our Monday night junior high school class has a similar issue, but in this case, students need to remember to bring their school English textbooks. It is not a big problem since they usually complete the worksheets they are given for homework each week. As the new school year started, we took a week or two to review prior class material, as students tend to forget things reasonably quickly, even after a short break.
Our Wednesday lessons are going very well. We have several classes consisting of 4th, 5th, and 6th-grade elementary school students. Our 5 pm lesson now has a few more students, which is excellent news for students studying alone for a few weeks. This student recently joined our school and is a bit shy, so we hoped to have more classmates for her, and fortunately, two really nice students joined.
The boys in the Wednesday lessons are doing well, even with our advanced material. We haven’t asked the students in these lessons to do a lot of writing, but it is good to do so. Last year, for one of our beginner classes, we started writing from the beginning, and a year later, we saw improvement—not only in penmanship but also in understanding grammar points.
Our Thursday 5 pm class writes a lot, and we have improved their grammar. Several students who come from other English language schools didn’t do much writing, and now it takes more time to instruct these students on subject-verb agreement and verb tenses.
Our Friday 4 pm class is doing well. Though we heard that one of the students will be leaving the school to focus on cram school studies, a new student will join in June. Elementary school 1st and 2nd grade students are in this class and their motivation and attitude for learning is high. These students show good potential to improve, and their parents are also active participants in their education, which is very helpful. Our 5 pm class is focused on helping a student with her TOEFL Primary test. Much of the material is similar to Eiken Level 5 and Level 4, so we have also been revising those materials.
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. As mentioned last month, we are now offering a TOEFL iBT course for a high school student we taught a few years ago when she was in junior high school.
In this class, we use practice test materials, TOEFL vocabulary sets, which we have available on Quizlet, and many written passage question sets on our online school platform: academy.bumblebenglish.com. Next month we will begin to provide listening practice questions and also writing practice.
Another student is vigorously studying to enter an international school in Tokyo. This student also takes a group lesson with us, and we have seen good progress in the months he has been with us. To help him increase his understanding, we are providing native-level materials plus materials from online websites.
Private & Group Lessons - Adults
We offer a group adult class on Wednesday mornings at 10:00 am and private lessons in the evening.
We have been working with a pre-MBA student for the past month or two. She is doing well, and we have been discussing various current events and case studies.
Case studies are used at most business schools. Because they are unfamiliar to most people, it is essential to familiarize oneself with the case study method commonly used in MBA programs. We practice analyzing and discussing case studies in our sessions to build critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Our older adult students are highly motivated to study and always come to class excited and enthusiastic. One student comes prepared with a weekly diary of his activities. It is excellent practice and easy to incorporate English expressions in conversation. The student uses Google Translate to assist with some parts that are difficult to translate. Though not perfect, Google Translate does a decent job in most translation tasks. In addition, NHK English materials are used, and the students find these materials very helpful.
Summary
We had several trial students in May, and several new students joined. For the most part, our students are motivated and come to class prepared with homework completed homework.
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