Fumiaki-san is one of my adult students. He comes whenever he can, as he's very busy, but his keen interest in English and his perseverence make him a joy to teach.

He has his own blog, which he faithfully keeps everyday; http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/fumiaki_sasaki38

In his class we cover so many different aspects of English.
We read numerous books, he has had his favorites (The Firm) and his not so favorites (1984) but currently we have switched to movies. We did study John Grisham's 'The Runaway Jury' last year and now we have switched to an all movie mode studying the nuances of the English language through Mission Impossible 1. It's amazing how simple the story becomes when you actually sit down to teach it, the scenes are short enough for a 90 minute lesson, we can cover a 8-10 minute scene every week. We look at different nuances between words that are used versus the ones he already knows, but his interest lies mostly in the interesting phrases that are used in the movies. They differ so much from books in the language they use that despite books being more descriptive, the movies have the language which I think is much more effective for studying conversation. Not to say that extensive reading is not important; it is, just that movies have a different language about them and the language that is used can be used to teach things like collocations, concepts like overgeneralization and just plain natural ways of saying things.

The next movie we will do in conjunction with the book 'Snow falling on cedars'. We are about halfway through MI1, but we'll finish it within the next few months.

Thank you Fumiaki-san. I really enjoy our lessons!

Mark