It's pouring and a little chilly in Tokyo today and I'm making the most of a glorious day off indoors. A late rise, an hours yoga, a small breakfast, alternating with hot drinks - cups of coffee and then of tea and then of coffee again, accompanied by various tasty snacks including rice crackers and aero bars. And I've been photoshopping all afternoon. I have demolished the current backlog of folders and have a list of blog posts I want to make, and damn I am feeling EFFICIENT!

This is a post I've really been meaning to do for a very long time. I teach 13 private lessons a week, and two days at a high school, and 5 nights at a factory English conversation school. I've been very fortunate in that every single one of my private students is a wonderful person, and I can honestly say that they have helped me keep my sanity in this mad time of overwork and stress by being good friends and people who make me laugh. I wanted you to meet some of them.

I also wanted to make a little list of how to get private students and what internet sites are the most useful in finding material for your students. I get lots of email from site visitors, these emails fall into 2 groups: 1) photography, 2) japan and how to live and work here. So hopefully this will help some of you who fall into the second category.

The picture above is of Aiko. This is where it all started: She was my first private student and was introduced to me through my flatmate, Haruna. She is as busy as me - probably even busier. She and Haruna often work so hard that they sleep at their office. She's a Promotions Planner in a busy Shibuya PR and Promotions company. She's an English beginner and doesn't get much time to study but somehow manages to make it to class every Saturday noon with a smile on her tired face. She's off to Los Vegas next week for a 10 day holiday with her fiance. She has been really helpful in helping me find more students - I now teach her fiance, Kotaro, and her hairdresser....

This is Aiko's (and now mine too) hairdresser, Misaki. I love Misaki - she is the most unique and independent Japanese woman I have ever met. She has travelled lots, including a salsa tour of Cuba with a couple of her girlfriends. I went out with her and her friends to a Bengali party night in Sangenjaya a few months ago and had a great time. She and her sister own their hair salon in Ebisu so she is crazy busy too. She's 34 and just got married in April, to a wonderful man - Shigeto.

This is Shigeto. He makes film and TV commercials, and is very good at it. He just got back from shooting a wine ad in LA where one of the cast members was one of the original ape's in Planet of the Apes. The old guy gave Shige an autographed photo on the last day of shooting and he brought it in to the lesson to show me. My lessons with him are unlike any other lessons. We don't really have any formal structure - we talk about film and photography. We both love old French cinema, like Godard and so our lessons are more like a pair of excited film students having a coffee together. I teach him English film terms. He's lucky I was a film student for 4 years. I think he'd be bored as hell with standard lessons cause he has such an abstract mind, always shooting off in tangents. He's a great multi-tasker.

This is Naoya. I use a folder with a big sunflower for his lesson plans because he is just a big gorgeous human sunflower. We spend most of our lessons laughing. He is a great student and has made serious inroads into English Conversation in the 3 months we've been having lesson together. He's a systems engineer, single, lives with his Mum and drinks way too much more than once a week. His drinking exploits crack me up, and his honesty sometimes makes me weep.

The lovely Ako is a CGI artist for a big games company in Omoto-sando. She is studying English for the singular purpose of finding a job in Hollywood so she can work on feature films. Unbelievably diligent, she has a brilliant mind and works way too hard, just like everyone else in Tokyo. She bought this Yukata online and wore it to heaps of festivals this summer. Our lessons are usually late on Saturday afternoon, and she's often off to some festival with her friends straight after class.

Sayaka is my youngest private student at the age of 19, and is a professional jazz dancer and ballerina. She is 6 foot tall and all limbs and eye lashes. She comes from a creative and wealthy family and is astonishly sophisticated for a 19 year old. She is rehearsing for 2 professional performances at the moment, on top of her daily lessons and private practices, which means that most days she dances anywhere from 5 to 10 hours a day. Her feet are huge, and all misshapen and she has a hard time finding shoes in this land of tiny bodies and feet. I am going to watch her perfom in her first really big production, "Can't stop Dancin'" in Shibuya in late November.

This photo is from my High Schools morning assembly, and my kids are the grade 10's (first year high school here) - in the far third of this group of kids. I haven't been game to take photos there much, mainly because it's a pretty serious school and it's a pretty busy schedule when I am there. Teaching in a High School in Tokyo is always interesting. For the last few weeks we've been rehearsing a scene from "Charmed" which the students had to perform in their groups in front of the class. I had to miss the actual performances (clashing schedules) but it's all on film and I will be marking their performances. Some of the kids really got into it and it was a great way to get them speaking English in a fun, cool and refreshing way.

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How to get private students and school contracts in Tokyo:

I got my High School contract through JETS, they are always sending me work.

Most of my private students came from 7act. I also got a few from Y-D-S, and the rest all through friends, so make sure you talk up your need for students to everyone you know.

Other agencies (although I did not find them useful) include
My Sensei
Find a Teacher
121 Sensei
Senseibank
Global Chat
Go-Girls (Women only)
Bayside English

A great resource site is
One Stop English, and folks, that's all I have time for right now. Sorry....

If anyone has any other useful links, please leave them in the comments section for this page.