News

The English Farm is introducing our newest course: Speaking Test Strategies.

It is an update on our popular GBC course, and has been expanded and revised. There are new practices, more effective strategies and a greater focus on implementing the ideas in each lesson.

This course is the result of teaching the GBC course in thousands of lessons, finding what works and refining and perfecting each point. The Speaking Test Strategies course will replace the GBC course. 

The English Farm is excited to launch our updated lesson scheduling system.

With a clean, user-friendly interface, you should find it easier to book lessons and check your schedule. However, the best part of our new system is behind the scenes—the system is fully customised, so it enables us to update and adapt to our future needs. That means, the more we learn about how the scheduling system is used, the better we can make it for our students and teachers.

We are pleased to announce that our new booking system is close to completion. You can expect it to be rolled out very soon.

The updated system will be a significant improvement, but it means a new user interface, so it may be necessary for you to take a few minutes to familiarise yourself with the new system.

A news release similar to this one will be published during rollout, so at that time, it’s highly recommended that you take time to explore the system.

The English Farm has a new textbook series. The books are called "Speakout". There are three levels: intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced. This course will improve your casual, daily communication skills. 

Hi,

Some of you have been affected by a bug in the homework system. The result is that sometimes you are double charged for submitting homework. 

Unfortunately, we still cannot find the cause of this issue. Hopefully, we will discover the cause soon. In the meantime, we have created an audit system to check if you have been double-charged and to refund missing points. We will use this system frequently to ensure that points are corrected.

I am sorry for any inconvenience that this might cause you. 

Best,

Matthew

Hello everyone,

I am going to be in Tokyo next week, and I'd really like to meet you. If you have time I will be at a place called Two Rooms in Aoyama at the bar from 20:00 on Saturday the 10th of June.

Hope to see you there!

Matthew

Hi,

Tickets for our first offline event, a GBC seminar in Akasaka on June 7, are on sale now. Please buy your ticket from this page:

https://theenglishfarm.com/gbc-seminar-june-7-2017

​The seminar will be presented by Jeremy. Yumi, Sara and I will be there, as well as our Tokyo staff, Kiyoko and Tsuneo.

Tickets are limited and this event is only for English Farm students. There are only 15 tickets, so space is limited. Each ticket allows you to bring a friend for free.

See you there!
Matthew

Thanks for your continued support of The English Farm.

We would like to announce that The English Farm will be holding an offline G.B.C. seminar in Tokyo in June.

Date: June 7th (Wednesday), 19:00 - 21:00
Venue: Akasaka Conference Centre
Price: ¥5,000
Presenter: Jeremy
Assistants: Sara, Yumi, Kiyoko, Tsuneo and Matthew

Tickets will go on sale next week. Places are limited and are only available for students of The English Farm. 

Hello everyone,

We did a big update to The English Farm core on Friday. It seems that there are some new bugs in the system.

If you have any trouble with the system, please reply to this message and let me know.

I am sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you.

Best wishes,

Matthew

Do you need an experienced teacher who has lived in Japan and has an HR background? Try a lesson with Emma!

Hello,

We would like to announce our new attendance policy. This policy is effective from today.

To be marked present for a lesson, students must:

1. attend a minimum of ten minutes of their class; and
2. talk (voice or video) with their teacher on Skype.

The following do not count as attending the lesson:

Hi everyone,

We have had three wonderful new teachers start with The English Farm recently. I'd like to introduce you to them. Please take a moment to read their profiles. When you get a chance, reserve a lesson with each new teacher. You'll learn new and interesting things from them, and it will give you more choices and flexibility in your schedule.

A new teacher has joined us this month, Matt Vivian. Matt is a New Zealander, and lives in Auckland. He is available 7 days a week in the mornings and at lunchtime:

• Monday 5:00-10:00; 12:00-14:00
• Tuesday 5:00-10:00; 12:00-14:00
• Wednesday 5:00-10:00; 12:00-14:00
• Thursday 5:00-10:00; 12:00-14:00
• Friday 5:00-10:00
• Saturday 6:00-12:00
• Sunday 6:00-12:00

(Times shown in Japan time.)

Matt has a lot of different work experience, and promises honest and engaging lessons!

This is Matthew from The English Farm.

The beta version of the new booking system is now ready. We will soon send you a message to notify you that you have lesson points. The system looks like this:
 

As a beta, we expect that there will be some parts that are not functioning smoothly, or don't look so pretty. We ask for your patience and understanding with this, and apologise in advance for any inconvenience this causes you.

Hello,

Many students have a course deadline of November 30th. For this reason, all teachers schedules are full until the end of November as these students finish their courses.

We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Best regards,
Matthew

Hello,

Please remember that we are updating our booking system. December schedules are not yet open. You will be able to reserve your December lessons soon. We will announce it when the system is ready.

We are sorry for the trouble.

Best,
Matthew

A new teacher has joined us recently! His name is Kevin. You can see his profile here:

http://theenglishfarm.com/users/kevin-windell

Kevin is from the UK. He has more than 30 years of experience. He lives in Greece, so that means he can teach you at night on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday Friday or Saturday. He's an expert in G.B.C. You should check out some of his sample answers to G.B.C. questions here:

Matthew's schedule is now open from September 5th. He is also available from the 22nd to the 24th of August. Because of the time difference between New Zealand and Japan, he will not be able to teach at night (Japan time) anymore.

We have a new teacher starting this week! Her name is Betty. You can see her profile here:

http://theenglishfarm.com/users/betty

Betty is from the UK. She is a very experienced teacher, and has been teaching GBC for about 5 years. She lives in the Canary Islands, Spain. That means she is available at night in Japan. She will be working Monday to Thursday.

Welcome, Betty!

We have made a change to the reservation system. Before you could book a lesson up to 2 hours in advance. We have now reduced this to 30 minutes. This will make it easier for you to reserve a lesson on the same day. We hope that it will make it easy for you to take classes and improve your English faster.