"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, Yule-tide carols being sung by a choir, And folks dressed up like Eskimos."

Christmas in Japan may be a little different to those celebrated back home...but celebrate it they do. Hee at englishpool we're all busy planning the various parties and events at the schools. Kasai will have their annual Christmas Party this coming Saturday, 16th December. In all about 30 students will attend! Wish us luck!

The final student newsletter of 2006 can be found here. Enjoy.

Finally had the time to get the Thanksgiving Day crossword up on the website.
The crossword is fully interactive and can be complted on-line or there's an easy to print version available.

Enjoy

Well with a mad dash back to England for a friend's wedding, October was an extremely busy month. After over four years away England didn't fail to disappoint by still being cold and wet. Returned to Japan to find that here also it had got a lot colder but not quite so wet. So I suppose this is autumn...

Just posted the November newsletter on the site (in Japanese) although there's a rather nifty crossword puzzle included (in English) if you feel like testing your Thanksgiving Day knowledge.

Just time for a quick update on developements over the past month or so:

1. We've opened the classroom in Waseda and have welcomed the first students.
2. Waseda entailed a new design for the schools top-page. With a bit more tweaking we will use this as the template for other schools.
3. Halloween lesson ideas added.
4. Student Newsletter for October added. Again we've tried a small design change.
5. Overhaul of the English langauge pages to follow once we get some time!

Catch you later.

We have now finished rebranding Kasai to create the first stand alone 'englishpool' school.
Basially it was a case of changing over the signage and of course not forgeting to answer the phone as 'englishpool'. Well of course there was a bit more to it than that!
The picture above shows the main sign facing the Kan-Nana Dori and is some 2 meters long. Seeing it for the first time on Tuesday was quite a shock, as it really stands out. Which I suppose is what a sign is supposed to do.
The picture below shows the ground level signboard. This actually attracted a potential student to come up and visit us within about 30 minutes of placing it outside. So let's hope this trend continues!