Today is Thursday - must be CPE

This is my third day invigilating and supervising Cambridge ESOL exams in Tokyo. Once again we are grateful for the facilities available to us at ILC.

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On Tuesday I was curious to realise that all the FCE candidates were very careful drivers - all had gold licences! I was trying to figure out how old everyone was, but I still get confused on Showa & Heisei years. Don't you? I was not at all impressed when the nationalist nutters started blaring their 'patriotic' music & insults at the Prime Minister and the Diet...it's rude to shout, especially when some people have got better things to do, like taking a serious examination. I the evening, I had a nice meal with an old colleague in a Turkish restaurant. I think the Raki was a bit strong, but the food was great!

Wednesday is CAE day, and I recognised several candidates from last year. We had a chat after their written papers had finished to figure out if they were optimistic about passing this time. Obviously, I can't comment, but it is a nice way to warm up and get in the mood for the speaking test - not easy if you have been silently concentrating, reading and writing all day.
One candidate had travelled all the way from Okayama to sit the exam. That's dedication! I had an interesting evening banging heads on the low ceiling of a Spanish restaurant with my hard-working examiners. Fantastic spare ribs and cold cerveza.

So Thursday is CPE day - the really really creme de la creme of English examinations! I take my hat off to anyone attempting this level, and suggest a lot of native speakers would not pass. How many people actually write with paper and pen much these days? The writing paper alone have candidates scribbling like fury for two whole hours. Once our admin is all taken care of, I hope to test the Wychwood ales in the Hobgoblin locally, and maybe an Old Speckled Hen or two as well. No, I shan't be on my own. Meeting up with another old friend of mine to chat about IT solutions for Web 2.0 learning. I really hope he doesn't buy any Tequila!

I wonder if my regular students missed me this week? Thanks Magnus & Jai for covering.

Logan's Choice

Logan's Choice is a crime fiction of murder. Jenny Logan wan an inspector in the Edinburgh.

In the middle of the night, she got the phone. That was te news of murder. Alex Maclennan was killed. Then she reasoned who killed Alex Maclennan, his wife?, his brother in law?, manager of restaurant??

I was able to read smoothly unexpectedly. Because I like the crime fiction same as last the Space Fiction, too.

The murder was *********!!He was manager of Maclennan's restaurant. He was a joint manager, but it was a crime by what it was not able to be given an enough pay for.

I did not know whom was murder, Ian Ross or Donald Johnstone. Therefore I tell them, "Mr. Fraser saw someone climbing into Alex's bathroom.". Then we waited to come murderer and catched him. ******** was catched by Logan.

I like this book, because I like the crime fiction. This story was clear and easily read for me.

Gallavanting around

It's been a bit busy last few weekends for me - I think my family are starting to forget what I look like.

About a month ago I was catching up with my old mate Julian from Barnsley. He has just moved back to Osaka & we explored the old part of town with another mate, having a great meal in a famous but local Korean restaurant. Unfortunately, the food poisoning I got wasn't worth it, but anyway, it's been a while since I have been to Osaka - always exciting and vibrant, and quite different to Tokyo.

The weekend after that, I went to the annual JALT (Japan Association of Language Teachers) conference, this year held near Yoyogi Park. The conference is never exactly exciting, but for me it is a great chance to catch up with a lot of people in the same place, and talk "shop". I managed to find some old Cambridge examiners who want to get back into examining, and interviewed a couple of prospective new ones. I went to a few workshops, picked up some new tricks and remembered some old ones, listened to the good & the great. In between, busy networking. Here you can see my mates from OUP - nearest is Koichi who is a Matsumoto boy, working hard! The OUP was party was good fun, and I met a couple of extremely interesting people.

The first weekend in November I flew up to Sapporo to train a bunch of new examiners. this meant taking two days off work at Luna & cancelling classes, which I hate doing - sorry guys. It was one degree above freezing when I arrived, and snowing - I nearly came straight back! I trained a small group of new examiners for YLE on Saturday, then met the main group of existing OEs on Sunday. Training continued then for KET on Sunday afternoon; PET on Monday morning and a big co-ordination for both that afternoon. A very full schedule and no time for souvenir shopping - I nearly missed the plane back (again) as it was. Literally got back home, changed clothes and came to Luna & taught 4 classes straight. Of course, I did manage to find a pub and watch the football on Saturday, with my Kiwi mate Peter & his lovely wife Yoko, who owns a very nice little school in Sapporo. (The very same pub I was in on June 16th 2002, before the England v Argentina game in the World Cup!)

And this last weekend was another away fixture. I stupidly planned a meeting for Sunday before I could actually get there on the first train, so I got the train down on Saturday evening and found myself in Nakano (instead of Shinjuku). Fortunately, I had my subway map with me & got to Akasaka in time to meet Tall Tim for a curry. We then sampled Whychwood & Old Speckled Hen in the Hobgoblin while we watched Liverpool beat Bolton. Training a brand new group of OEs for FCE was a challenge, as I wanted to improve on the style I was shown. With a bit of help we managed to get my PC hooked up to a projector and could save a lot of time/argument while watching candidate samples on DVD. I was also able to show the new online system to the trainees 'live', which made life a lot easier.

So if I haven't been able to check this blog too much lately I apologise - I haven't been 'here' enough. I have also been a bit behind on my inbox - hope you can appreciate why now! The next few weekends? Let's just say I'm only half way through a very busy season!