Postcard from...Nagoya, Japan

Hi there blog readers!

I went to Nagoya to meet English teachers, school owners, an ex-student and a couple of really cool old friends I've not seen for a while. It was good to reconnect, talk about absent friends a bit, and to get new ideas for my classes and the year ahead.

My side hustle was making an excuse to finally photograph Nagoya Castle. I think I've been there before, but so long ago my photos will be faded as much as my memory. 

Honmaru Palace (foreground)

The first thing to know, is that it is a long walk from the station - so don't bother - get the subway! And understand this is a reconstructed, concrete job, with an awful elevator stuck on the side but ironically, no access to the main tower at the moment. Restoration to the walls is ongoing - somewhat slowly by the looks of it - and the grounds are sparse. The Honmaru Palace has been beautifully restored. A walk around the outer (now mostly dry) moat gives you a good idea of the scale (modest, I'd say). And don't be surprised when you see deer in the moat bed!

I got the impression that this castle was a bit of a peacock - look at my green roofing & golden kinshachi (fish) on the roof - but rather soulless and disconnected from the town (compared to Himeji, for example, which dominates the city...or Matsumoto, where there's ALWAYS something going on and the backdrop is stunning anyway).

Editing my photos, I realised black & white gave the structure more character. What do you think? The full set I took are here on Flickr

I was disappointed with this experience as there was not a lot of information to read, not much signage, and not a whole lot of story to attach to it....not a lot to explore or learn, nor clever angles to tease more out of the photography.

 

An away day - Cambridge in Nagoya

I don't recommend insisting on a formal dress code in Aichi/Gifu/Chubu region in the middle of summer - quite likely to have people passing out on parade, even with the air-con turned up...step outside you you melt like a cheap ice cream!

The Chubu SE team with Hyogo assist

Nevertheless, great to see speaking examiner team that has been together for quite some time now, tackling ALL levels between them from Young Learners to C2:Proficiency. Obviously, YLE is close to my heart as we at Luna offered these exams for 20+ years to our students in Matsumoto & around the country to numerous schools & venues; a whole generation of learners across Japan. Sadly no nore.

OK from the boss!

Our team 2025 also briefed on how to potentially deliver & assess exams remotely, in case of emergencies or unavailable local staff. Not easy to achieve, for technical & logistical reasons, but another 'can do' we have made sure we can provide if necessary.

As you can see, Jim's boss at JP026 is pretty happy with things - so let's hope Jim gets asked back to Nagoya next year?! Good news too - looks like candidature will be rebounding 2026, so I hope we will also be recruiting new talent to join the team. Get in touch if you are interested in examining for Cambridge.

A miraculous day - a lifetime in the day of a superfan

 Avoiding the end of the year ceremony, having made a huge excuse, my husband and I got on the Shinano.  The train was packed like sardines with overseas tourists and Japanese families going to their hometowns for the New Year holiday, and our destination, Nagoya.  It was the 28th December, the last working day of the year.  Although we were rather uncomfortable on our journey, we were overjoyed with the prospect of being able to see the final show of our favorite singer,Yumi Matsutoya, Yuming, on her 54th concert of her tour, “The Journey “.

When we arrived at Nagoya, there was an announcement of cancellation for further service to Shinano because of some falling rocks.  We felt so lucky to have gotten on an earlier train, even though it had been a very painful two hours.

Our seat numbers of the show only came out at midday on the day of the concert on our phone, and we found out that our seats were on the 2nd lane in the arena, the best seats we’ve ever had in the seventeen previous shows we’ve been to!  We were absolutely thrilled to see that but the seat number was so tricky that we never knew if it was a real good seat or not until we were actually in the concert hall.

knick-knacks

With our huge expectations we arrived at Nihon Gaishi, and joined a long queue to purchase some concert souvenirs, such as a tin-badge unique to every venue, T-shirts, bags…. During this concert tour, concert staff had been introduced through Instagram and we felt as if they were our old acquaintances.  So when we saw the person in charge of the stalls, we greeted her, and she kindly responded with her beautiful smile, which gave us more familiarity.

After we had had a happy little chat with the sales lady, it was time for the lottery for the special pair of glasses, released as a commemoration set; we had been able to get the lottery ticket only when we bought her new CD.  Actually we bought four, even though we already had three copies : to tell you the truth, we had a little discussion about the necessity to buy this same CD just for the glasses, even though they were ‘special’.

There were lots of people in front of us and we had had no luck so far.  It was our turn.  We were at the lottery desk without any hope.  First my husband, Isamu tried and failed, of course, then me…  Goodness gracious!  I’ve made it!  Yeeeeeeees!  Hooray!  The lottery guy was so surprised that he dropped the big hand bell and there was a huge noise and he screamed ‘You got it!  Congratulations!’

I was extremely surprised and couldn’t believe it because I had never won any lottery before.  Of course I was very happy but at the same time I started being anxious about what would happen next, as we had been too lucky that day so far.

It was about 4 pm and the concert started at 6:30 pm, so we went back to our accommodation, only a ten minute walk from the hall to calm ourselves down.

At the hotel, we had a little snack, changed into the white tour T-shirt which we have always worn on this tour (our uniform) and got perfectly ready mentally and visually by 5:30 pm…and off we went back to the hall and found an excited audience of!

About 10,000 people were already there, and we lined up to find our seats, East 3 Block 2nd lane 11, 12, which were super good seats, we called ‘god’s seat’!  We were absolutely delighted and thrilled!!

We felt all the audience’s huge excitement and anticipation, the concert started with the familiar introduction, then our goddess, Yuming, was walking towards the stage in front of us!  That stage set up was centre-stage so if our seats were the opposite side of the 2nd lane, we couldn’t have seen her passing through.  So we were super lucky indeed!!

superfans 

The concert was the very best, Yuming and the other performers played so well and I felt as if I had made eye contact with Yuming a couple of times.  The absolute highlight was when she pointed at me in the middle of  ‘Mamotte Agetai’ … I almost fainted with joy.  

We were dancing, jumping, clapping our hands, waving at her frantically, screaming, singing along, enjoying ourselves every minute, I have never been happier!

At the end of the show, all the staff were on the stage and they hugged each other, which was a very emotional scene and made us cry as well: the show, the tour, The Journey really is finishing…

There was a triple encore that was very rare, and moreover Masataka Matsutoya, Yuming’s husband & producer and director of the show and a great musician himself, accompanied her on keyboards for her last song, ‘Sotsugyo Shashin’, one of her iconic tunes and the best song for the final.

Mr and Mrs Matsutoya came down from the stage and they walked past in front of us, under the thunderous applause from the crowd.

Finally the overwhelming show and our miraculous day was over. 

"It's examining, but not as we know it, Jim"

Speaking Examiners at arm's length

Cooperating SEs

A couple of months ago, we were able to run a Cambridge Speaking Examiner certification session in Chikusa, Aichi, with participants very aware of the need to be safe - wearing masks throughout, being socially distanced and not sharing materials, as well as sanitising hands etc.

With recent spikes in Nagoya and Tokyo, we've unfortunately had to cancel a couple of these workshops - sensible, if inconvenient, and reassuring to all that safety is at the top of our considerations.

We are hoping that we'll be able to provide all our examiners with the professional support they'll need to safely deliver speaking tests in the next couple of months, as we try our best to run the exam sessions we are commited to. 

For JP004/Luna's YLE open sessions in Tokyo, Nagoya & Matsumoto >> 

https://luna-jp004.jp/cambridge/exam

For JP004/Luna's A2:Key & B1:Preliminary sessions in Nagano >> 

https://luna-jp004.jp/cambridge/exam

For JP004/Luna's B2:First sessions in Tokyo & Nagoya >>

https://luna-jp004.jp/cambridge/exam

Speaking Examiner training for Japan

下記の日程にて、ケンブリッジ英語検定のA2 Key/A2 Key for Schools (KET)とB1 Preliminary/B1 Preliminary for Schools (PET) のSpeaking Examiner（スピーキングの試験官）トレーニングが実施されます。


https://cambridge-university-press.jp/events_news/cambridge_speaking_examiner/


In 2019:

June 29: Key (KET A2) + Preliminary (PET B1) in Sendai
July 20: Key (KET A2) + Preliminary (PET B1) in Tokyo
Aug 17: Key (KET A2) + Preliminary (PET B1) in Kagoshima

Aug 24: Young Learners (YLE Starters, Movers & Flyers preA1 – A2) in Tokyo

Sept 29: Preliminary (PET B1) + First (FCE B2) in Tokyo
Nov 2: Key (KET A2) + Preliminary (PET B1) in Tokyo
Nov 9: Key (KET A2) + Preliminary (PET B1) in Nagoya
Nov 30:Key (KET A2) + Preliminary (PET B1) in Tokyo

In 2020:

Jan 18: Key (KET A2) + Preliminary (PET B1) in Nagoya
Jan 25: Key (KET A2) + Preliminary (PET B1) in Tokyo
Mar 21: Key (KET A2) + Preliminary (PET B1) in Tokyo
Mar 28: Key (KET A2) + Preliminary (PET B1) in Nagoya


申し込み・お問い合わせはこちら：

お申込みフォーム

ケンブリッジ英語検定東日本センターJP004
Speaking Examiner Team Leader
Jim George
oyajim@gmail.com

Notes in Nagoya

One way to get an abundance of English teachers in the same place? Put on an Expo. On Sunday I went to one of the many that are on throughout Japan; armed with a pen and notepad I made my way down to Nagoya, ready to learn about different techniques and tools that I could use in class and how they would benefit the students. My personal favourite was from David Paul and hearing about his seven-step sequence to teaching phonics. As this is a very new topic for me, I found hearing about these techniques from someone who spent so long developing them here in Japan to be incredibly valuable; thank you David! After meeting many other teachers, hearing about how their teaching journeys and going to a handful of lectures, I can honestly say that this is one field that will never stop evolving. The number of resources we constantly have at our fingertips is astounding and I can’t wait to slowly make my way through them.

My first journey - after reading "Gone"

My first journey I ever made was to go to meet my uncle's family who live in Nagoya.

I was 6 years old at that time. It takes about 3 hours from my home to his house by train. It was my first time to get train by my self. My mother worried and let me have some food, drinks, clothes and souvenior for my uncle's family. They are heavy but I was much more anxious about how I get to there.

Nagoya TV tower, the oldest TV tower
 in Japan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fortunately, there was only one time to transit the train at Matsumoto station as my uncle was waiting at Nagoya station. As I have often been to Matsumoto station with my grandmother, there was no problem to transit the train. 

After reaching Nagoya, he take me to TV tower which was famous in Nagoya at that time. I was impressed everything I watched as most of things were that I had never seen. Especially for the experience to watch the movie. That was my first time to watch the movie. Although the story of the movie was a bit of heavy for me, I enjoyed my first movie in my life.

Posted for Reiko

Sweet Home, Nagoya

Nagoya Castle Originally built around 1525, destroyed during World War II. Reconstructed in 1959 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nagoya is about 400km west of the capital,Tokyo. Nagoya is in a region call Tokai or Aichi. Nagoya's fine old castle and famous for Toyota car's.

One of the biggest cities in Japan.
Our winters are cold and wet,and it sometimes snow.

Our summers are very hot and wet with tempertures around 30°. Here's a photo of around Nagoya castle. I got the photo from the internet.

I hope this information is helpful to you.

Best wishes
Kie

Another traveller's tale: Tales from Longpuddle after reading

Write about a peaceful long journey you made? Where were you going, and who with? Why were you travelling, and how did you feel about arriving?

That was differently our honeymoon to Australia. We got on the plain two days after our wedding party. We spent about 10 months for preparation on our party and new life at our new house. We had done everything we had to do and were filled with a feeling of freedom. It was a night flight from Nagoya to Sydney via Cairns. We had a good meal with some wines and good slept during flight. We really enjoyed the journey and it is still the most wonderful one for me.

Posted for Tomoko

A new job, a new start, a new teacher.

It’s Sunday 26^th of January and I’m up at the crack of dawn to meet Jim at Matsumoto station to catch the first express train to Nagoya for my first ETJ experience: a series of presentations at the Sugiyama Jogakuen University. Or so I thought. After missing our train by the skin of our teeth, we decided to hole up at the nearby Mos Burger for a quick nap and recharge before getting on the next express train to Nagoya.


We arrived fashionably late, so unfortunately we missed the first set of presentations which started at 10:00. We went to get ourselves signed in and were asked to make some name badges for ourselves, I felt like a student arriving for his first day at a brand new school. This feeling was further enforced by every presentation that I observed, learning new and creative materials or teaching tools from many experienced English teachers and publishers working around the country.

Ritsuko Nakata

My first presentation, “Getting forgetful kids to remember” by Ritsuko Nakata, outlined the importance of her “MAT (Model, Action, Talk) method”. It focuses on giving students a meaningful context to the language that they are learning, as well as encouraging the use of gestures within to classroom to aid students when learning vocabulary so they are not dependent on the teacher to practise the language by constantly listening and repeating. This allows the students to practise the language among themselves and also feel accomplished for doing so.

Next up was David Paul’s presentation on “motivating teenagers and adults to communicate”. This was a presentation I did not want to miss as from personal experience a student who is not willing to communicate is the most difficult to teach. Many ideas and techniques were presented with an emphasis on personalization and the importance of recycling language to build confidence in the students (also as a way making sure they aren’t forgetting everything you teach them as soon as they walk out of the classroom!). We looked at using activities which encourage a communicative response rather than using language that is situational and regurgitated from any old classroom textbook.

Mari Nakamura

My next presentation was by Mari Nakamura on her new book “Lily and the Moon” to engage children’s hearts and minds with a picture book. A story inspired from her childhood following the adventures of Lily the ladybird as she meets an array of little critters on her journey to see a ladybird on the moon. The book can be used as an aid for teaching times of day, colours, animals, nature and comes with an array of activities and flashcards to use within the classroom. There was a strong emphasis on the use of gestures and the involvement of the students whilst reading.

David Paul

Next was another presentation by David Paul on his publication “Finding Out”, a step by step child centred course for children. What I found intriguing was his use of “nonsense” words in his book to strengthen the students the ability to read, rather than focusing on their ability to recognise written words from exposure and repetition. In this manner a student can’t learn to read any word regardless of if it is real or not and will never be afraid when faced with an unseen word.

Last of all was Jo Ando’s presentation on the importance of phonics textbooks in the classroom. Albeit more of a sales representative than an experienced teacher with multiple publications, he pressed the importance of incorporating captivating images and the use of colouring in phonic textbooks to maintain the interest of the students.

Having only just started teaching my own classes the Monday before, I have had very little opportunity to try and implement ideas and activities of my own into the classroom. Now having attended the series presentations, I feel armed to the teeth with new techniques and activities that are going to help engage the students in the classroom environment and inspire them to further develop their English language skills. The whole experience has aided me in broadening my mind into the depth and excitement of English language teaching, and I am looking forward to implementing the plethora ideas, techniques and activities that I was able to take away from this event.

Thank you to all the staff involved in organising such a wonderful event, I will be waiting in anticipation for the next event.

Also a very big thank you to Jim for encouraging me to attend, showing me around, introducing me to many new people, as well as convincing me it would be a great idea waking up at 6 a.m on a Sunday!

Damian Gowland

A Conference from a different perspective - photographer

The weekend of May 18-9 I was asked to be the official photographer for JALT PANSIG Conference 2013, held at Nanzan University in Nagoya.

I was very excited to have been asked, and thank David Kluge for the leap of faith. I should also thank all the presenters etc who tried to ignore me scuttling in & out of rooms. I tried my hardest to be unobtrusive & uninvasive. I sincerely hope I managed that, and that the shots I did achieve captured the lovely feel of the Conference - very friendly, co-operative and calmly professional. My regret is that I did not spend any time in any presentations for long enough, but I did get a taste of a lot more than usual, and got to meet a lot of inspiring educators.

A lot of people worked very hard to put the Conference together, and a testament to their hard work was that you couldn't see any obvious signs of panic!

This slideshow highlights the people I portraited during the first day:



After a long day for presenters and audience alike, there was a short walk to a local Italian restaurant, which tried valiantly to refresh an hungry & thirsty crowd. It was a very confined space with everyone diving for the plates & topping off each others' drinks. Like everyone else, I was starving and keen to talk to friends - such as Theron Muller - and less worried about the actual photography.



This slideshow features some of the people I could catch on the second day:



Every Conference needs a volunteer team on the day to do all the running around, finding cables, carrying umbrellas & telling presenters when to stop...the "Green shirts" at PANSIG were very cheerful as well as efficiently organised. One of the perks of my job this weekend was to take their 'official' photos.



I have the feeling I took far too many pictures, but my encouragement to anyone doing this kind of assignment is keep looking & keep shooting. A theme will emerge although you probably will not realise until you get home and start looking through your raw shots. While shooting you have to keep checking thumbnails & adjusting your settings - try not to be too ambtious with zoom indoors (so be nosy & get closer - "ignore me" works wonders!). I prefer to avoid using my flash in intimate groups, so think about natural light from windows (awfully hard if presenters draw curtains & turn the lights off to show a slideshow...come back later near the end if you can). Lean on stuff as much as possible to get steady (I should have taken my monopod). Clutches of people in conversations in corridors are as much the conference experience as listening to presentations, and often the speaker will be more relaxed chatting with interested audience members when they have finished presenting & not in the flustered setting up stage. Don't be shy about asking co-presenters to pose for you as a team, and get Plenaries & other VIPs to give you a few seconds for a banker (try stepping outside for some greenery background & warmer lighting). Most importantly, keep track of where you have been! Your metadata will give you times shots taken, but you will not remember which rooms you were in/which presentation was which - certainly not after 2 days in 3 floors of rooms with 26 different Special Interest Groups! My solution was to scribble a timeline on my conference schedule & circle any speakers in it as I went. Another solution would be to snapshoot the door number before you go in. And talk to people; they will have no idea who you are or why you are aiming a camera at them all the time - especially outside the presentation rooms - so say hello & chat early. They will relax & ignore you (photographically!) as the event progresses allowing you to 'pry' and get better candids.

I loved this opportunity to get my tired 10D out of its bag. You can find the whole weekend of PANSIG right here http://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_george/sets/72157633731993876/  If anyone wants a picture without the copyright notice, please drop me a quick email with the jpeg number & I will happily oblige. Likewise, if you are in a photo and would rather not be, let me know & I will take it down.

Important last note - make sure the organisers have included a 'photo release' clause in the registration process.

Our recent training sessions - slideshow

Think you will enjoy this slideshow review of the training Luna has conducted over the last three months, in Tokyo & Nagoya. 



Think you have what it takes to become a Cambridge English speaking examiner? Get in touch.

Providing for EFL Special Needs - examiner training, Nagoya

Focusing on the small print

My examiners were guinea pigs for a refreshed format of meeting today. I was extremely nervous before hand, as I have relied on tried and tested format & materials which I inherited since becoming a Team Leader. I have realised that this does not make the best of our precious time together, apart from maintaining their ability to assess adequately & practice reading the scripts. Both of these are very important, make no mistake: they are the key aspects of the actual examining job i.e. Deliver the speaking test to script, and assess the candidates accurately.

But, in the broader scheme of things, my examiners are grown ups. They have already shown me in training that they are up to the task. If they did not, they would not have been approved by Cambridge ESOL as examiners, and would not be on Luna's team – it’s very simple!

Kim, Corazon & Bonnie

Nowadays, examiners have access to the most recent videos of candidates to polish their assessment skills on. We can still dip into videos if we need to – in fact we do, but with a much more detailed analysis that is not assessment driven. Instead, we can focus much more on the interlocutor’s role, which impacts on the candidates’ performance/perception so strongly. We can pull the wings off the script and put it back together again, figure out which level it is. We can dissect the assessment criteria and put it back together again, without any ‘spare’ pieces. We can add to our examiners’ teaching toolkits and actually put meaning into another line on their CVs.

I want to thank my Nagoya/Gifu team today for not noticing the change of emphasis today – or at least not making a big deal out of it and asking me eg “Why did Naomi only get a 2 for Pronunciation?”

Instead, we achieved:

Focus on lip-reading

·        Ability to manage the delivery of speaking tests to sight-impaired/blind candidates.

·        Ability to enable hearing-impaired/deaf candidates to take their listening tests through lip reading

·        Monitoring peer performance in detail, fine-tune own performance

·        Tightened timing, material handling, rubric

·        Weaned Jim off over-reliance on videos

 Thank you team for travelling into the teeth of Typhoon Roke and for giving up your National Holiday/World Pirate Day, and for all of your Facebook concern for my missing pint of Guinness! You are all very much legit Cambridge ESOL examiners now, and I am looking forward to you examining soon. Find us some candidates and venues if you can too?!

Exactly the kind of people you want examining Young Learners!

On the job training - experienced EFL teachers in Nagoya

I had the pleasure of training at Happy English Club in Nagoya on Sunday. This is where we were supposed to have been training back in April, except no one told Sean (the owner). So, it was nice to actually meet him this time and a relief to find his door open and my recruits already waiting for me.

It is always interesting visiting another (foreign-owned) language school, as there are always things to learn – décor, layout, classroom organisation, materials (I am an avid bookshelf spy!) & vibe (even if the place is empty, you can get a feel for how things might be). I reckon HEC must be well-organised & child/learning centred. Certainly not one of the cowboys.

Anyway, we used their lovely Apple TV to get acquainted with our levels (First Certificate and Advanced) and to establish good interlocutor practice wrt handling materials, sticking to the script, timing, use of back up questions against allowing a lull to prompt more from candidates, non-verbal communication, intervention. In the past, examiners have been handed the materials ‘cold’, and expected to be able to ‘become’ an examiner magically. Even the experienced teachers find this difficult to achieve, as they have no template upon which to base their behaviour. After all, teachers often feel their classroom role is to provide a safety net/scaffold for their students, and assist in the progression of a discourse…which is an instinct we are trying to ‘pause’ while examining. Closest analogy I can think of is getting England rugby players to provide quick ball to the backs, when they actually produce dinosaur eggs.

These days, examiners are able to access the relevant levels to refresh their assessment online, on demand. It is important in training to have examiners discuss their application of the assessment criteria to candidate performances…plumping for the right number can be a seat of the pants estimate. I insist my examiners produce samples/examples from the videos to back up their assertions as to performance (‘live’ they do not need to do this). They need to be able to ‘place’ these examples within Cambridge’s frames of reference and adopt ‘Cambridge’ speak to negotiate with peers. The hardest thing teachers find with the assessment scales is that they are fully ‘can do’ orientated, so they are driven to focus on what the candidates are able to do/attempting to do, rather than picking up errors/mistakes and cataloguing what they can’t do. So, no “couldn’t use that tense properly”, “didn’t take turns”, “mangled a relative clause” or “has a really strong accent”.

My trainees today did everything asked of them, and impressed me with their willingness to take on new directions. I am very confident that they will be firing on all cylinders in December when I expect them to be in action in Nagoya & Matsumoto – lucky candidates, and lucky JP004.

• If you want to get more info about becoming an examiner, contact Jim by email (or just leave a comment on this posting) & check ELT Calendar.
• If you want to enter your students for any exams go to http://www.luna-jp004.jp
• If you want info about the exams/leaflets, email luna.jp004@gmail.com

Examiner training dates announced

I am delighted to be able to announce that we have been able to confirm all dates & venues for training at all levels of Cambridge ESOL examinations this autumn. Training will be conducted by Jim, in his capacity as 'Team Leader' for Luna International (JP004).

Young Learners - Starters, Movers and Flyers:

• Okayama - Sept 23
• Osaka - Oct 8
• Tokyo - Oct 16

Lower Main Suite - KET (Key - A2) and PET (Preliminary - B1):

• Okayama - Sept 24
• Osaka - Oct 9
• Tokyo - Oct 15

Upper Main Suite - FCE (First - B2), CAE (Advanced - C1) and CPE (Proficiency - C2)

• Tokyo - Sept 17
• Nagoya - Sept 18

In order to qualify to participate,  experienced English teachers should be in full time employment and be a university graduate/EFL certified. You should be available to examine, be reliable and display sound interpersonal skills. Non-native speakers are welcome to apply, but do need to demonstrate a good working use of English appropriate for the level to be trained for. Anyone interested in taking part should get in touch with Jim by email and request a Nomination form by submitting their CV.

Testing children - a day in "How to"

 On Sunday I was in the delightful company of some very dedicated teachers of children, for an entire day of teacher talk and child-focused assessment. I reckon I can tell within five minutes of practicing with materials/script if a trainee is going to be a good examiner or not...it's all about how they can/can't chew gum and walk at the same time - in this case read a script accurately and manipulate a few flashcards.

OK, so that sounds easy, doesn't it?!

Without a lot of classroom experience, a teacher as examiner will fumble the cards every time, guaranteed. It is crucial that examiners get into a good routine, so that they are able to maintain their teacherly, cheerful, encouraging personality with the (young, nervous, non-native) candidate. The candidate does not need to see the strings the examiner is pulling, but be put into a relaxing, smooth, flowing little mini-lesson. Remember the child's name & use it; don't repeat answers (so take off the 'teacher hat') or make judgmental comments; don't panic or speak too fast; smile, nod, keep your elbows in etc.

Every new examiner comes to training expecting to be shown how to assess; few actually realise the key role of the examiner is to actually set up the candidate to perform. "The script, Michael, it's all in the script" (with apologies to Kenny Everett). In YLE, particularly Starters, candidates are most likely taking their very first genuine English test - certainly the first one with an 'unknown' person assessing their speaking. This is truly intimidating, isn't it? A good examiner will have a child in and out of the examining room an a wave of positive vibes and chuffed with "Can do" vibes. And why not? Seriously, why shouldn't a child enjoy showing off their skills?

So a large part of a regular morning, for me, training new YLE examiners is a bit of boot camp - stripping back the teachers' habits and tics until we get to polished rubric delivery. Nothing more, nothing less. Pictures in the right place, at the right time. Heads up focus on candidate, know what you are going to do next. Have the back up question at your finger tips if necessary, and use it appropriately. If you are not looking at the candidate, you will miss their facial reactions to questions. As an experienced teacher, these are the signs we recognise day in, day out, about perception/reception. This is what our examiners bring to the table.

The 'other half' of the examiner's role is the assessment bit. Importantly, examiners must get into the routine of couching their assessment, comments, interpretations of performances to Cambridge ESOL's assessment scales.

"I think that boy had a bad accent" or "That girl was so sweet", "That boy couldn't say 'elephant' " or "That girl wasn't very good"....and similar reactions to sample videos have no place in our "Can do" analysis. Candidates are not penalised for mistakes they are making if they try to extend an answer, they are not penalised for offering a different answer than the one scripted (which is merely a suggested answer), they are not penalised for 'sounding French' or not 'looking as cute as the Italian girl' etc.

On Sunday my new team coped with the ridiculous situation where the school we were expecting to conduct training at was locked up. The school was completely unaware of the plan. Not good. Thankfully, after a subway ride to Lesley Ito's school in the city and a late start, we did  eventually manage to tackle our three levels (Starters, Movers & Flyers). Thank you all for keeping the faith, and for accepting the cramped facilities for viewing the DVDs - Kim was half in the fridge! I was very happy with my new team's performance...they took in what they were asked to do, and accepted my (mostly) constructive tips! Experience will out, and today we had a fine talent pool to draw from.

Well done Kim, Bonnie, Alex, Andrew, Cora and Lesley. Thank you all for making your journeys and for being flexible; thank you Lesley for taking us in and for lighting the YLE flame in Nagoya. Who's next?!

Trainspotting

MosBurger's waiting room!

Platform three at Matsumoto station, just before eleven o'clock in the morning is the place to be!

We bundled up very warmly, and toddled off across the road to stand at the bus stop - just as the freezing rain started to come down. Brrr. The kids piled into MosBurger's heated entrance while Jim kept his eye up the road to Asama onsen.

We jumped onto the back seats and enjoyed the warm ride into the city centre, passing a number of our familiar landmarks along the way - mobile phone shop, hardware store, supermarket, cranes & diggers.

Back seat gang

We took the escalators up to the concourse, and the lift down to the platforms. We found Super Azusa & Shinano trains arriving from Shinjuku & Nagoya, as well as local trains on other platforms; we waved at them as they left, then welcomed the trains going the other way as well. The driver waved to us from his perch on a Super Azusa; so did the guard as the last carriage shot past on the way to Tokyo. Brilliant!

E351 series Super Azusa - platform 2

We saw one train going through a giant trainwash, and saw lots of others (we counted twelve) waiting or being shunted around. Sota knew all the trains' names, as well as all the Thomas ones. Eleanor and Hina were keen to stay behind the yellow line! Eleanor got a stunner off the ticket barrier - walloped shut in her face because Jim had the wrong ticket. Oops - not funny for Eleanor, as it sent her flying & was a real surprise...her nose is still red like Rudolph's :(

Chilling on platform 3!

Snack time in the warmth of the bus station (we saw a spotty bus on the way back from the station - Kevin says it had chicken pox?!) where there were lots of old ladies! We had time to kill so we popped up to the seventh floor in the lift and jumped on the escalators all the way down - no window shopping! Back seat gang again back to Luna - Sota fell asleep it was so nice & cosy.

Spotty bus spotted!

A great morning's trainspotting - beats learning the alphabet :)

Kyoto - Examiner Training

A dozen of the nation's finest EFL teachers gathered in Kyoto today to participate in Cambridge ESOL Oral Examiner (OE) training.

Today's attendees had already been tasked with a certain amount of pre-training which meant we were able to get cracking at a decent pace. I have found that providing recruits with as much info as possible beforehand saves a lot of aggro on the day, as examiners have a lot to process/manage/do, and digesting a 50+ page booklet at the same time has proved to be too much in the past. I love Dropbox!

We gathered from Okayama, Osaka, Nagoya, Matsumoto (our Tana) as well as locals based in Kyoto & Shiga.In all  would say there was over 150 years of English teaching experience in the room; quite a lot of experienced examiners (other levels) too. Great to see motivated and capable teachers pushing themselves professionally and being open to guidance/a bit of tweaking even with all that experience. It is rare that we teachers are challenged to justify our opinions and have a common framework with which to discuss student/candidate performances.Very few teachers (in Japan) are experienced enough/qualified to deliver & assess these levels (CEFR B2/C1).

Personally it was great to see OEs I have previously trained at other levels (YLE, KET, PET) in three different cities (Okayama, Kobe, Nagoya) get down to business very much "on the same page". I was even happier to hear myself quoted as OEs collaborated during the day on rubric delivery (interlocuting) & assessment. I find it very rewarding personally to see & hear teachers/trainers I respect 're-tweeting' my suggestions/sharing their experiences moulded in consistent "Cambridge-speak".

I tried a few new things before & during this session, which I hope added value. I have given up reading commentaries to the room; the 'mana from heaven' approach falls on barren ground too often :)  Today I asked trainees to assess performances alone & then discuss their scores together, before giving them commentaries without scores to fine tune their ideas against the analytical criteria. This stops everyone arguing with me! At the end of the day, here is Cambridge's mark. "Move your scoring to this benchmark!"

Tomorrow the Himalaya of EFL - CPE... The absolute pinnacle of a student's ambitions. Very rare air at this level.

The statues in Nagoya

I was born in Tokyo, then I moved to Nagoya at five years old. Now, my hometown is Nagoya. Nagoya is a very comfortable place to live. I love Nagoya.

There are many statues in Nagoya. For example, Kiyomasa Kato's statue. He was a Japanese daimyō of the Azuchi-Momoyama and Edo era. He was born in 1562. He was born in Nagoya.

Then, there are Shachihokos. They are orca dolls. They are on the roof of Nagoya castle.They are gold. We call them "Kin-Shachi" in Japanese. They are a symbol of Nagoya.

Then there is the Nana-chan doll. Nana-chan was a girl, born in 1973. She was from Switzerland. She is a mascot of the Meitetsu department store. She is very tall - 610 centimeters. She stands in front of Meitetsu department store. She often wears clothes. She is a smart dresser. 

by　Seiji

OE Team bonding in Nagoya

OE Team bonding
Originally uploaded by ijiwaru jimbo

Over the weekend I was asked to train a new group of Oral Examiners at Mejio University in Nagoya....and I was delighted to do so.

I think it is clear that everyone had a good time, and got on very well together, even though many were meeting each other for the first time on Saturday morning. By Sunday afternoon, organiser Naoki was confident that the ladies would catch him!

Training follows a fairly standard procedure, which I'll not bore you with again. I will say that I always enjoy listening to professional teachers applying their unique classroom experiences to the materials & videos. There is always something new to consider and to use positively, and generally of benefit to all present (not just for examining, but in terms of professional development).

These workshops are also very good settings for teachers to make new professional contacts. It is pretty easy after two days to figure out whose opinion you would like to have on certain issues, whose advice you trust etc. It is unusual for teachers to have this opportunity without having to make a presentation, and then the dynamic is quite different. Here, a sense of 'all in this together' is reassuring non-threatening, as everyone is learning something new and having to reappraise their own performances quickly.

I had a good weekend, then. Busy, hard-work, but very enjoyable. Well done attendees and thanks very much indeed for your patience and professional attitude. Look forward to seeing you in action in March.