MIE teaching developments

Long time no write...

Things have been very busy at MIE in the past. Recently, though, it feels like things have calmed down a little. I'm still working about as hard as before to prepare for classes and such; but I feel much more organized than before, and I've given less attention to attracting new students than before.

I'm becoming more organized thanks to trial-and-error and a couple of changes of habit. I'm attempting to keep a schedule book now (something I loathed the idea of before), and I try to hone my teaching plans for the adults' classes in on making basic materials (textbook stuff, etc.) more exciting than they would be otherwise. Up to now, I practically did away with basic materials or attempted to create only my own. While I appreciated the opportunity to be innovative, I failed to give enough value to a foundation in resources; I was more or less just copying anything I liked here or there and dishing it out at high speed. But now, I'm weighing in the fact that the textbooks I've selected are ordered in a professionally decided way, and while I shouldn't become completely reliant on them, I should definitely give them the credit and attention they deserve. Besides, extending from the texts still allows me the opportunity to do and use what I want, and with more relevancy than the random fashion I had going before.

The children's classes have completely revolutionized. I owe everything to a little research I did on methodologies used in Montessori schools after being introduced to one during my stay in the US this past Christmas. I've been making the materials myself (boxes neatly organized with colored juggling bean bags or miniature objects for pronunciation games or rearrangeable shapes, including print-out laminated flashcards), which has taken a decent toll on my time as well.

As far as my waning attention on attracting new students, I feel completely justified by saying that we have done just about all we possibly can in that area, including flyers, posters, radio advertisement, and institution visits, and I honestly think that the better thing to focus on at this point is making the classes here so good that they advertize themselves via word of mouth. Quite frankly, I'm sick of soliciting myself anyway -- just a couple of fallen ethics short of prostitution. People will come and stay at this point because they want to, not because they've been convinced that they need something that they see no realistic immediate benefits in (aka, the process of creating demand).

Anyway, things will probably continue to grow busy again from here, as I will have to start visiting and teaching at local elementary schools and the military base in the next town over.

Other random news:

- I just purchased a Japanese Acer Aspire One yesterday, which is what I'm using at work now.
- I've begun adding extended pages to the MIE website that will include further interesting studies and study methods in both English and Japanese.
- The rain and fog here today is beautiful in a wet and dreary way.
- Naoko will be graduating next month. We're not sure yet how that will effect our lives until she starts working less than a month later.
- I'm growing my nails out for no great reason except that I'm finding unexpected advantages in having them.