Monthly Update August 2024

Due to the summer holidays, we only held one week of regular lessons during the month of August. We held special summer lessons, as we have done in the past few years. This year’s lessons were ninety minutes long and available for private and group lessons.

Our private lessons primarily focused on English test preparation. As noted last month, one student aiming to enter an international school in Tokyo must take the MAP Growth Screening Test for Grade 5. This test determines a student’s ability level in English, Math, Science, and Language. As the material is all in English, this test is typically administered by international schools outside the United States. For this student, our private lessons focused a lot on writing to bring up the student’s sentence construction and paragraph organization. In addition, we supplemented the student learning with assignments from Khan Academy and access to a leading US online learning tool that provides in-depth instruction in vocabulary, spelling, language development, reading comprehension, and more.

The student was diligent, not only coming to class and doing assigned homework but also spending time at home on Khan Academy and the specialized learning tool. His parents’ involvement and motivation were extremely helpful, as they also encouraged and supported their son throughout the summer. We are happy to report that the student successfully passed his English level requirement and was able to enter the international elementary school as a fifth-grade student.

We are also happy to report that the student (Yuna), who attends an international school in Vietnam and returned to Japan for the summer, has successfully passed the Eiken Pre-1 level exam. We prepared many writing examples for Yuna, reviewed interview questions, and covered advanced reading comprehension. We encouraged and motivated her and were happy to see how diligent she was in doing the homework and attending classes well.

Yuna’s brother also joined for several lessons during the summer. For the lessons we taught him, we focused on preparing him for the Oxford Placement Test, an English assessment test he would need to take to enter an international school in Vietnam.

We also welcomed a Japanese student living in Beijing, China, for our group summer sessions. Although he attends an international school there, his parents wish to continue his English.

In addition, we welcomed back a junior high school student whom we have known since she attended lessons with us as a kindergarten student. Amane has been a joy to teach, and we were sad to see her leave the Yoga area a few years ago. She returns occasionally, and we enjoy seeing her when we can. She is currently studying for the Eiken Pre-1 exam, and we have a few lessons to help her with the reading and speaking portions of the exam.

The group lessons focused on informational writing, speaking, and research. Each student was given a packet of information on a specific country (USA, UK, China, Australia, etc.) and had to write a short report about it. This activity was an excellent opportunity for students to choose a country they were interested in learning more about and to talk about their work in English.

We also continue supporting a Tokyo-based high school student preparing for next year’s TOEFL iBT exam. We have incorporated many exam questions for this student in our online school: https://academy.bumblebenglish.com.