Japan's Independent Network of English Schools

Just as a follow up to Peter’s newsletter request, I thought it might be a good idea to elicit the challenges facing the smaller market/city school operators. Please note, the following tips may not apply entirely for schools operating in larger markets but on close review they do provide food for thought for all administrators. Over the past four years, our awareness of and attention to these four tips has been the catalyst behind our steady growth within our local market of Niigata.

Tip 1: longevity and activity within a community is vital, both for a school, its operators and staff.
Successful independent school operators (at least in Niigata) spend/have spent years building a solid rapport within our slightly xenophobic community. For those considering opening a business in a conservative regional town/city, do your homework carefully and establish various links to the community prior to opening or soon after. Obvious examples include your kids’ kindergartens, schools and places of former employment, but also consider NPO’s and volunteer work, as well as neighbourhood and sporting groups.

Tip 2: don’t get ‘too’ caught up in additional employment.
A number of self-funded, family-operated schools’ managers seem too intent to hire somebody to teach for them while they seek higher income opportunities in tertiary education or the business world. The results – great networking opportunities are often offset by a difficulty in finding a steady stream of new students because customers can’t associate a teaching philosophy or methodology with that school and its ownership. With me being the face of the business and the day-to-day instructor, we have experienced steady growth and excellent word-of-mouth figures. Not to mention how this has helped to balance the books in our favour!

Tip 3: consider a niche market, don’t just do the same old thing as everybody else (i.e. teaching kids).
Competition is fierce, irrespective of market size and location. Amazingly, many school operators seem happy to copy their rivals pricing, product and promotion policies and expect similar results. Just because English has become a regular subject in elementary school doesn’t guarantee overnight success. We have only 11 elementary aged students in a student population of 75, so carefully consider your product list and possible niche market for your community.

Tip 4: don’t neglect the web, and don’t throw away money on flashy print advertising.
After an initial advertising burst across various mediums, we soon realised how vital word-of-mouth and a good website is in a small, conservative market. This is our fourth year of operation and only do print ads once or twice a year. Along with the use of social media, JINES and other registry, our user-friendly, functional website attracts search engine hits that keep our name on the lips of prospective customers. Word of mouth, as we learned, is entirely up to us – but by offering a flexible product list and adhering to a sincere, family-oriented approach we have stimulated loads of positive gossip about our business.

No matter your location or market size, we hope that something valuable can be taken from the above tips. After two initial tough years, we feel extremely confident in our ability to analyse and position ourselves within the English school market here in Niigata. We don’t envy the challenges you face in bigger cities, and wish you all the best of luck. We welcome any feedback or comments you may have. Finally, if JINES members require a highly-skilled bilingual website designer, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Paul & Yuka Johnson
Johnson English Service – Niigata City
www.jesenglish.org

Through the Jines network of international schools we have managed to arrange a very cheap teacher training program for Japanese teachers of English in Dublin, Ireland.

This 7-night (8-day) program has been specifically developed for the up-coming changes in Japanese schools regarding English language instruction.

The program dates are March 26 ~ April 2, 2011

The minimum number for this program to proceed is 10 participants and it is important to note that no overheads or additional charges have been added to the course price. This is to ensure we provide the cheapest possible price to the teachers directly. And we feel this program does provide excellent value for the Japanese teacher.

The closing date for this program to proceed is February 25, 2011.

There is a program information flier attached. This is currently in English and soon will be available in Japanese.

Teacher Training Program 2011 – CES

If you have a school like mine that is limited for space you always have to ask how you can handle a Christmas party. 30~40 screaming kids and their parents all crushed into a space that is fine for a small eikaiwa class, but a Christmas party???

Well maybe the answer lies with your local city council. Many city councils have specialised halls and rooms for meetings etc. In fact my local city hall has a range of rooms available for hire which can handle sizes from 10 ~ 150 guests and the great thing is they are actually quite cheap to rent.

This year we will again hire a room which can cater for about 60 people and bring our own food, drinks, music and games.

At ¥6,000 for 5-hours on Sunday afternoon I consider this a pretty wise investment. And at least our school doesn’t get trashed in the process.

Good Luck!

Recently I read the article ‘Japan teachers may get English training in U.S.’ from the Daily Yomiuri Online.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T101010001858.htm

I would be interested to know if any of you have Japanese teachers planning to study abroad this February 2011. I have had a few requests and am looking to put together a group of 10 Japanese Teachers for ESL and classroom methodology training in Dublin, Ireland for about 7~10 days.

If we can get a group of 10 together we can save some considerable costs in tuition, accommodation and airfares.

No doubt by now we have all heard about David Paul’s bankruptcy.

No matter what your views are on David, this is a sad day for him and his family, as well as all the students, teachers and staff that were associated with his network of schools. It is never good when something like this happens and I sincerely wish him all the best of luck for the future.

But for most of us the real question is how ETJ will move forward from here? I have also been an ETJ member for many, many years and although I was not a very active member I appreciated the service it brought for teachers. Lets hope it continues strong into the future.

Peter

Well, it has taken a lot of hard work from Brian, Systems Manager at Jines but it has all come together with the new Jines iPhone App.

It is available now at the Apple App Store and is a free download. Just search for jines.

This our first version of the app and it is really to see how everybody feels about it and to see what it looks like. As such we will be releasing a new version of the app in the New Year and this will give us time to receive opinions and suggestions on how it should progress.

So in the meantime if you have any ideas, or have seen something on another app which you feel could enhance ours, please feel free to add your ideas here on the Jines blog.

Peter

The e-mail with a story about going to an elementary school to observe: “Your local Elementary School” gave me an idea that we could try here. The other day I saw an answer on a school test: What’s wrong with you? I explained to the students that it should be “What’s wrong?” and that “What’s wrong with you?” depending on which word is stressed has a negative meaning. They were shocked and glad that I cleared that up. I then asked my adults about this, and they said that they had always learned and now use: What’s wrong with you? Maybe we could have a thread that points out these mistakes so we can all use them in our classes. It would make us more relevant and students would be less likely to quit because English will be a regular class in 5/6th grades next fiscal year.

Does anyone know of a good course (abroad) for for Japanese teachers of English to attend?
I have one Japanese Elementary school teacher who wants to do something in their break next February but is not too sure on where or what to do.
I cannot be too long as far as time is concerned.
Any advice appreciated.
RI

I have been asked by Sean O’Hagan at e-benkyo if I could provide some more information on the data projector and its usage in my school. I hope this helps.

After long hours trawling through the internet we settled on an Acer X1130P. Many reasons for this.

Price. It came in at about ¥39,000 including delivery. So not too expensive.
Power. It is bright enough (very good) with the school lights on. LED sounded great but I was not sold on their illumination power with the lights on. In the dark, no problems.
Format. It is not too technical with its controls and easily connects with my MacBook. PC’s are also easy to use with this machine.

There are many websites wich have inetractive games and which are heaps of fun for the kids. I just project these up on the white board and give the kids white board markers. They can then write on the white board and once they have finished, depending on the game, you can then press enter and have the answers revealed. To start again just clean the white board.

Sean has also asked for some photo’s which I will try and get around to taking. I will then place them here on the blog.

Hope this has helped.

Although I did mention the topics below in the previous blog entry ‘Can we make money out of study abroad?’ I have had some emails asking more specific questions. So I will try and answer them here for all of us.

What do you mean the student can save $220?

The agreement JINES has with QIBA offers any student enrolling into QIBA, for a short or long term course, will receive a waiver on their registration fee and thus save $220 which they would normally have to pay.

Does this apply to international other institutions with JINES?

No it doesn’t. But we are endeavouring to establish similar such arrangements with all our international institutions so our students who travel abroad can at least save a little money on what can often be a very expensive exercise.

Are there other discounts for students who use this method of enrolment?

Yes there are and we will constantly be announcing more opportunities as they are signed. Just contact me, Taeko <kashiwagi@jines.jp>, in English or Japanese for further information.