Overview
Finally, the weather turned warmer, and the cherry blossom trees were in full bloom. Unfortunately, it rained on the few days I planned to see the trees at our local park. However, I could see several cherry blossom trees in Yoga and enjoyed seeing the beautiful trees.
In March, we finalized our lesson schedule and added another beginner class on Fridays at 4pm. We still have space for elementary and junior high school students. Please contact us directly at: staff@bumblebenglish.com 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
On Tuesdays, we have started a Junior High School lesson and in addition to the ESL textbooks from Oxford University Press, we are also using the New Horizon textbooks that local schools use, including, Sakuragaoka Junior High School and Yoga Junior High School.
Our Monday class for beginner students is progressing well. All students are first-year Elementary students and have a lot of energy. As with our Friday Beginner class, we are using the Oxford University Press Let’s Go Beginner textbook and a separate textbook for learning how to write English alphabet letters. Our Monday night Junior High School class for 2nd-grade students is going well, as the students are practicing more at home, especially with vocabulary and grammar review.
Our Thursday group lessons are more advanced, and we have introduced a chapter book series called “Magic Tree House”. It is a popular American series with over twenty book titles in the popular series by the author Mary Pope Osborne.
Private Lessons - Kids
Good news from our students taking the Eiken exams. After preparing each student for the 2nd part of the exam, which consists of reading a passage and answering questions, the students informed us that they passed! Now we are preparing more advanced materials for these students so that they can continue improving their English. As with our advanced group lessons, we have introduced the Magic Tree House book series. We especially like these books as the chapters are short and there are not too many difficult words.
As we mentioned in our January and February school update, we are also teaching two sets of siblings who will be relocating overseas in late spring / early summer. The youngest student is five years old and has been progressing well with her letter recognition, saying simple greetings, and is responding well to common English commands she will encounter at a U.S. school. This student’s older sister is a hard worker and has diligently completed the weekly grammar, reading comprehension, and writing homework. Doing homework and other activities is extremely helpful in supporting a child’s English development.
These students are also using the Lalilo service that we provide to students. Lalilo is a web-based application offering instructional practice for foundational literacy
skills for kindergarten through second-grade readers. With engaging characters and a seamless user experience, Lalilo takes students through different worlds, benchmarked by various activities and skills. Centered around college and career readiness standards, content developers with years of early literacy teaching experience created Lalilo’s activities, influenced by a balance of explicit and systematic phonics and word study instruction paired with authentic
texts to allow students to practice skills in context. Lalilo can is used with our students who attend our lessons at the Setagaya school or by our online-only students. For more information, please get in touch with us at: staff@bumblebenglish.com
Private Lessons - Adults
Just as we now have two sets of siblings in our private lessons for kids, we Our March lessons for the manager relocating abroad were mainly free-talk discussions concerning current work assignments and transferring the workload to the successor manager.
For the pre-MBA student, we have been reviewing the weekly summary of business news as well as tackling business school case studies from leading universities around the world. For example, one week, we discussed a case from MIT Sloan School of Management concerning the call center reorganization of Quest Diagnostics. The case study analysis was a very relevant exercise, as the student will soon be expected to provide feedback and opinion about these types of case studies. In addition, providing direct experience from one’s work history is very useful in class discussions and future MBA group assignments.
Summary
BumbleB English welcomed a few more students in March. We still have room for more students; either to join our kids’ group lessons for elementary and junior high school classes. We currently teach private high school students and are looking to add more junior and senior high school students, especially those interested in studying abroad.
In March, we also had a farewell pizza party for the junior high school students who graduated and will enter high school in April. Several students will move away from Yoga and be busy with their high school club activities and studies. However, we hope to keep in touch and also offer online lessons. Online lessons are available to students not in the Yoga vicinity.
Although our Spring 10% Off Campaign ended, students paying by SetaPay will receive a 5% point discount until September 2023. 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: staff@bumblebenglish.com
