Category Archives: Language Coaching

Teaching approaches must be attuned to the learners or clients and to the objectives of the course of study. In Japan, the ESL industry is a continuation of high school English, a long joyless slog where children and teenagers are forced to cram as much information as they can into short term memory to elevateContinue reading “Attempt, Discuss, Demonstrate”

A great way to have students engage with each other, also a pragmatic way to make use of the remaining funds after 50% of secular tax-based revenue was cut and diverted to supremacist groups by the neoLiberal Party, peer critique exercises must be defined pedagogically. This week, a lecturer expressed disappointment that a particular punctuationContinue reading “Peer Critique”

What happens when people who do not know about learning teach people? And then what happens when people who do not know about learning styles teach teachers? And then what happens when people who do not know about skills development and acquisition hire people to teach? We end up with universities full of extremely capableContinue reading “Lemmings”

Translating in real time is a skill that many would love to have, yet most of my clients tend to approach this in the worst possible way. The people I’ve met who are capable of translating with ease use vastly different approaches. I shall try to differentiate them here.  The basic method I employ withContinue reading “Don’t Paint Cows with Zebra Stripes”

Skills Development What is ‘skills development’? For language learning, the opposite of ‘skills’ is ‘knowledge’: what we know about the language is balanced by what we can do with that language. While most of the language learning experiences people have in Japan focus mostly on knowledge acquisition, accompanied by some speaking practice, the ultimate objectiveContinue reading “Intention and Result”

Know or Use Cramming more information into someone’s head does not help them communicate with another human beings later on down the track. Adults usually have a huge passive wealth of knowledge not just about L2 (the second language, in this case English), but also about L1 (one’s primary language). So, what is the purposeContinue reading “Skills Acquisition”

We build tools to amplify our abilities and language is merely another tool we employ. As the world has developed into an interconnected global village, English has become the lingua franca – the predominant tool for communication. Before English was French or Chinese or Latin, but currently, English is our global linguistic tool. My goalContinue reading “English as a Tool”

The adult learner has a wealth of knowledge not just about the language they need to study, but about how their primary language functions. Most people aware of their learning style and what they need to know. What most people lack is an awareness of how their brains can be supported in learning, or howContinue reading “Making Connections”

Causes for some people not learning I often wonder why my methods and approach are not successful when they aren’t. I try to understand what happens during the process of establishing rapport which is where most disconnects related to learning and development begin. Unlike the industry-standard first lesson where I’ve noticed most English language instructorsContinue reading “Anti-Learn”

Five Ways to Reduce Student Panic After many years of schooling, I’ve noticed many of my adult Japanese students feel quite certain as to their poor aptitude for English: they have years of proof of their inability for this esoteric subject. Yet times now require this lingua franca as a professional necessity in many companies,Continue reading “Five Panics”