Happy Chinese New Year, and updates

It's the 5th week of January and we are having some days free of classes, some replacements from previous weeks and some replacements for future days in February which clash with Chinese New Year.

Yes, it's a strange week and I'm glad to have a great boss who keeps me on track!

We wish a Happy New Year to all of our Chinese students and their parents, and all former students and their parents. Hoping you have a plentiful celebration and a prosperous year ahead!

We are looking forward to continue improving and teaching English during 2013, with new exercises and topics for speaking and writing activities. We have already had a very interesting time speaking about aliens last week.

By way of announcement, we are opening up a new class, which will be held on Wednesday at 4-6pm. There are 12 spaces available on a first-come, first-served basis. This class is due to start in March 2013.

We are off for a short stay at a hotel in Kuantan tomorrow. I hope that you will have an increased desire to study English and make the necessary changes for improvement this year, beginning right NOW!

Alien invasion!

Are there aliens out there? Would they ever discover earth? What would they look like?

This week we are asking our students the following questions: "What would aliens do if they came to earth? How would we communicate with them?"

The children have the opportunity to think creatively on a topic where there is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer. They are only limited by their imagination and creativity of thought.

After some preparation time, our students then have the task of standing at the front of the class and sharing their ideas, thoughts and opinions about a possible alien invasion.

We have had a variety of different ideas mentioned; some said aliens will destroy us and the earth, others think that aliens would help us repair things that have been destroyed and be a tourist attraction to certain places!

Perhaps there are no aliens at all out there. I suggested to my classes that maybe there are other 'earths' with other humans like us, somewhere out there.

I hope I've got you thinking!

Remember: Think in English, Speak in English

Night at the Museum

A warm welcome to our blog today, and let me express my gratitude for your visit here. I hope your English is improving in "leaps and bounds" and that you are steadily increasing in confidence.

I'm sure most of us have been to a museum before. I remember going with my parents to a selection of museums in Leicester city centre when I was a young boy. I was fascinated with the dinosaur remains, as well as learning about a man with huge feet!

Here in Kuantan we attended a 'torture' exhibition at the local museum. It was a little too scary for the young children, and left me feeling nervous too!

A scene from the torture exhibition at the Kuantan Arts Museum

What do you think a museum would be like at night after everybody has gone home and the doors are locked, lights switched off?

Would it be dark, quiet, and rather scary to walk around? Or do you imagine things coming to life in the museum when nobody is there? What if you were trapped inside a museum through the night? What would you do?

All these questions come to life in the movie "Night at the Museum" which we are watching with our students this week for their listening test.

A man stumbles across the job of Night Watchman at a local history museum when he quickly discovers that history literally comes to life!

I hope our students enjoy their entertaining listening test this month!

Learning English with The 5 Key Points

Here's our new video explaining "The 5 Key Points". Hope you enjoy it!