Movie Club

Hi everyone,
And a Happy New Year to you all!!

On the subject of New Year, many of my classes have been discussing their New Year's resolutions, and it's been interesting... we've had everything from keeping the house tidy to walking on the moon! Of course it's important to keep these goals realistic as unrealistic goal setting just leads to disappointment. And, if you're going to achieve your goal you need to think about what steps you can take to make it happen. And so what was once a dream can become reality, and it all starts right here and now.

As a teacher I've been leading the focus onto English orientated goals, such as becoming more fluent, or plucking up the courage to actually publish something on the blog!!

So what steps can we take to achieve these goals? Reading books in English is an obvious way into the English-speaking world, and graded readers not only provide very good practice, but are also interesting, covering fiction, non-fiction, popular films, the classics novels etc. Subscribing to a podcast can also be a valuable way to improve your listening skills and improve your general knowledge. Watching movies is also a fun and an accessible task. For those who would like to use a film for study but don't feel confident enough to watch it in English the first time there is nothing wrong with watching the dubbed version first to get to know the story, or use the Japanese or English subtitles to help you along. Once you know the ins and outs of a story you can watch the English version in comfort, enjoy the language and come one step closer to achieving your goal.

Many of my students have set themselves goals of watching one English film per month or reading six books this year. It is towards this end that the idea of a movie club came about. Many classes have set up a book-sharing club, so why not start a movie club too!? As a way to achieve your goals, meet some other students and have an enjoyable evening. The idea is to show one film a month at the school. So why don't you bring along a friend, something to eat and drink and lets get started!!

Unfortunately both Jim and I work quite late during the week, and often on weekends too, so the only available time would be on a Friday night from about 9:00pm. What do you think??

We'd love to see you there!! Please let us know if you'd be interested, and/or if you have any suggestions regarding what films you'd like to see, or any other bright ideas you might have!! We have a projector system which means we can set up a mini-theatre experience!

I look forward to hearing from you,

Tana