How are you today? I was walking to Hario from my apartment a few minutes ago. It’s very hot today and a woman that I passed offered me a bag with ice cubes to cool me down. It was a surprising and very kind offer. Japan is full of kind people.

We teach many students at Hario, from pre-kindergarten age to retired folks. I enjoy teaching every student and every class. Today I’d like to talk about and celebrate the achievements of some of them.

As you may know, we teach the PLS system to our elementary school classes. It’s a seven year, 10 rank program that takes students from complete beginners to quite advanced and challenging English across the 4 skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. It’s actually very difficult for a student to pass all 10 ranks. First, you usually need to start in the last year of kindergarten to have enough time. Then, you need to come continuously for 7 years. You also need to make good progress throughout that time to pass each rank. It helps if you have consistency because the better the teacher knows the system and the students, the faster they can progress. Actually, Hario has never had a student pass all 10 ranks of the PLS system. At least, that was the case until last month. One of my classes passed the 1st rank last month. They are 4 smart, hard working girls with great attitudes and work ethics who have kept studying with us for years and years and years. Of the 7 years it took to pass the PLS system, I taught them for more than 5 of those years. It’s been a privilege to watch them grow up and change from shy, beginner students to confident, highly capable speakers of English. Great job and congratulations. I’m sure they will continue to study at Hario for years to come as they work hard towards different goals like higher levels of the Eiken test.

I also want to share about one of my high school students. She recently passed the Eiken Pre-1st rank. Only a few Hario students have ever passed this test. For some context, passing the 2nd rank of the Eiken tests exempts you from many university entrance English tests, so it’s more difficult than any university entry requirement. I know from trying and failing a similar level test in Japanese how difficult it is to pass. She passed the paper test in January but failed the interview test by one point. After that, we practiced the interviews every week in class and she passed comfortably this July. Again, this is down to years of hard work and commitment and the right attitude. Congratulations. This week is her last week at Hario before she concentrates on university entrance exams so she can train to be a doctor in the future. Good bye and good luck.

All of our students make progress and achieve lots of things, related to English or otherwise. I wanted to share and celebrate a couple of notable cases today.

Thanks for reading,

Kevin