"Anne of Green Gables" - L.M.Montgomery

As you know “Anne of Green Gables” is a Canadian story. I really recommend that you read it while you are in Canada if you have never read it before. Anne is a very energetic, self-sufficient, honest, and strong girl. She changes the lives of Matthew and Marilla and many other people because they admired her special character. It is a wonderful book as it was very thrilling to see what Anne would do next. I want to go to Prince Edward Island to meet Anne and to compare the story to the real lifestyle and nature of the island. I have read it in Japanese, where it is known as “Akage no Anne”.
Anne’s character inspired me to be a stronger girl, and to try to make a difference in other people’s lives.

by Yoko Fukasawa

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"Alice in Wonderland" - Lewis Carroll

I enjoyed this book a lot. I could read all the stories around two hours, because it is written with very easy English, the story is fantastic and I’ve read it for a few times when I was a child.
We can find many English culture through it; they have a tea party with tea and bread-and-butter, there are rose garden, many cakes and tarts. When I read the book, I felt like having tea and cakes for some times! Also lots of strange things happened in the story; Alice changed her high smaller or bigger all the time. I hope if I could change mine myself as I want!
If people who like the story that includes adventure or fantasy, or have any interests in England you should read this book. I’m sure that you’ll get involved in it!

by Miho Ogawa

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"The Pelican Brief" - John Grisham

Ok, seriously, how can you recognize each character out of more than 25 people in a book?

It took me sooooo looooong to finish this book. Because I had to take notes to remember who the hell each character is!

...Anyway, I will recommend you to take notes about each character in this story if you have only an ordinary brain ability to memorize.

As for the story, it is ok - I mean, the scale of the story is huge. But I really think this story didn't need to be so complicated.

Well, I should write something good about the book... I am sure you will get confidence in reading English books after finishing this book.

If you like a challenge, just read it...!

by Tsumugi

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"The Client" - John Grisham

It is a story which you can read and understand easily. The boy who is the main character in this story is extremely clever as if he is not just a kid.

You can see the movie of the story as well, though I have not seen that yet.

It is always good that the story you are reading or seeing ends happily when you just want to entertain yourself. (Oops, sorry, I told you that the ending would be happy...)

This book is one of such easy entertaining books.

by Tsumugi

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The dog with 3 heads

(The story is made by 6 people in TESOL class. Nobody knew what the story would be like...)

The dog with 3 heads winked at me and started running toward me.

The dog talked to me and said,
"I’m hungry, I want to eat you."

I was shocked and started running away, but the dog was running very fast and I was almost caught by the dog.

I, however, was hungry as well. I was starving and my stomach said,
"Look at the dog, his heads look like very yummy like three Big-Macs."
The voice inside my stomach was repetitive.
The dog seemed to read my mind and said,

"I’m tired of being alive, you can eat me if you want, but keep in mind. If you eat me, you will have three heads like me."
I hesitated a little and answered,
"My dream is having three heads, it’s my pleasure! I’ll eat you!"
"Be my guest."

I walked around town, talking to myself, each head listening and then talking to the other 2 heads. I realized that my heads had different feelings. One head was excited, another was afraid, another was very happy. I felt confused and wanted to put all of my heads together.

I squeezed them hard together, and suddenly found myself in Macdonald squeezing a Big Mac in my hands.
"I'd prefer a hot dog," was my next thought.


By Ali, Kumi, Tsumugi, Yohei, Hye sung, Sunny

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Boy meets girl

(The story is made by 6 people in TESOL class. Nobody knew what the story would be like...)

One day, I woke up in my room and had breakfast, then I got out of the apartment.....but, nobody was there outside as if I was the only one in the world.

"What happened ?"
"Why am I alone here?"

I walked on the street and saw some people, but they didn’t look like people.
When I spoke to them, they didn’t answer me. They were not people. I thought I was in the other planet.

I tried to find people here. I saw a girl and I said,
"how did you get here?"
She answered,
"I don’t know, but I know I’m here to meet you."

"What? To meet me?"
"Yes, and we have to make a family. We are the only two humans here in this planet. We need to make a human world here."
"Wait, what I want to do is just going home."

"I know, but I have no idea how to get back to the earth. Why don’t we stay here together? You are so attractive. What is your name by the way?"
"I’m Yohei, and you?"
"My name is Paris Hilton Sunny."
"Oh boy, I thought you were in jail."
"Yeah, exactly, I was about to get into jail, but suddenly I got here, here is much better than jail because I am here with you, Yohei."

"Oh, my goodness. You are nice, but I don’t wanna be with someone who was arrested."
Then, I walked around and found a Mercedes, but part of the car was broken and the car seemed to have space that only one person could barely get in, so I said,
"I’m sorry that I have to leave you here because your license is invalid. See you, bye!"


By Yohei, Hye Sung, Ali, Kumi, Tsumugi, Sunny

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"Seven" - Anthony Bruno

I enjoyed this book very much. It might be because I have seen its movie before and the book reminded me of the scenes as I read. The movie is very famous starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman.

Because of the level of English in this book, I understood the story more than when I saw the movie. One of the benefits of reading books is that you can stop reading and go back whenever you want to to understand the story well.

This is a well made suspense story.



by Tsumugi

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"The Rainmaker" - John Grisham

I enjoyed the story very much. It is not a simple story and you might need to know some American legal systems. But once you understand the systems, you will be able to enjoy the exciting story.

There is also a movie in the same title starring Matt Damon with Claire Danes, Danny DeVito and other famous actors.

The author is famous for legal stories, such as "The Firm"-Tom Cruise in the movie, "The Client"-Susan Sarandon and "The Pelican Brief"-Julia Roberts.



by Tsumugi

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What the 3 most important qualities of a successful teacher are

Teaching something to students is quite challenging and worthwhile, however, not always enjoyable or satisfactory. Sometimes, it is hard to teach students, so I would like to suggest 3 important qualities that a successful teacher has; knowing how to get students to be motivated, flexibility, and fairness.

In order to teach students efficiently, teachers are required to get students to be motivated. I consider that how to get students to be motivated is one of the most important skills teachers have to acquire. The students who are highly motivated to learn are genius. They absorb anything quickly and efficiently. They can find the best way to learn for them automatically because they are so fascinated and similarly enjoying learning. This is the first quality of a successful teacher.

For the second quality, teachers have to be flexible. Even teachers sometimes make a mistake, however, it might be difficult for teachers to admit their mistakes because some teachers may believe that teachers are not supposed to make any mistakes. They are so afraid of making a mistake and try to justify what they did when they made a mistake, but the point is making a mistake is so bad? No, no one can be perfect. Teachers can grow up through a bunch of mistakes as students do. The more flexible teachers are, the more free students are to challenge what they want to do. Thus, teachers should be flexible toward students and themselves as well. Flexibility is the second quality of a successful teacher.

Lastly, the third quality of a successful teacher, which is basic but primary, is fairness. Students are so intuitive and sensitive. Favouritism, discrimination, prejudice, bias, students can easily catch those kinds of things and it directly influences their behaviours, attitudes, and more importantly, their personalities. Besides, teachers have a limited amount of time to interact with each student, so teachers have to treat students fairly all the time and ought to value each student’s idea.

In conclusion, the most important 3 qualities of a successful teacher are knowing how to get students to be motivated, flexibility, and fairness. Students are invaluable diamonds unpolished. Teachers have to polish those carefully using 3 tools and find a shine that they have inside. I believe that is what a successful teacher does.

by Yohei

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"The Black Cat and Other Stories" - Edgar Allan Poe

This book includes four different short stories. All of the stories are horror. The author is famous for horror stories.

I found that the stories in this book are not so scary because of the level of English. But it made me want to read the original books to know the author's expression.

Additionally, there was an author named "Edogawa Rampo" in Japan. He named himself after Edgar Allan Poe and he also wrote horror and mystery stories. I also want to read his books in English.



by Tsumugi

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"Treasure Island" - Robert Louis Stevenson

Have you ever dreamed of “ Treasure map” ?
I have made it with my friends when I was a little girl. It reminds me of feeling how excited I was….even I didn’t have any real treasure like everybody wants.

A young boy who has been living quietly by the sea…..His name is Jim Hawkins.
One day , he got a “Treasure map” . He found out that it was Captain Flint’s who was the richest pirate in the West Indies. He got some companies and they left Bristol where they lived. Jim thought everything was going to be fine.

But they were getting split and finally started fighting and killing each other for Treasure. I know the people sometimes lose their moral principles from greed. It is very sad but if you were there…..What would you do? Did you give them your map if you are the person who had a map? I don’t know….I am human, so I might have fought with them if I have a chance to be rich. I also don’t want to die. If I don’t fight with them, I will be killed by them.

He was young boy, but fortunately for him, he was a man of high courage. He had never scared and given up. In addition, he still had a few friends who he could believe and fight together. They were always calm, smart, and patient. I am sure it helped him a lot. The key found a Treasure was a guy who lived in Treasure Island. I didn’t expect that. Nobody knows who and what is going to help us.

A human can be change anytime. I believe there is no bad person like never been able to be change.
I Just think this is how human is. We can’t live alone. I am very glad that they came back to home town with friends and…..” Treasure ”.

If you read “ TRESURE ISLAND”,
I hope you find your own Treasure in your life!!


by Misato Mizota

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My life in Vancouver

Why do I like Vancouver?

What I like about Vancouver is People. The people who live here are generally nice to us. Just because they have come from other counties as well. Therefore, they understand us. That makes me think Vancouver is one of the best place to learn English.


What things do I dislike about Vancouver?

There is one thing I really don’t like. It’s rain. Vancouver has lots of rain in winter. I’m a kind of person who loves outdoors and stuff. Staying home and watch TV all day makes me sick. I’ve seen many visitors left Vancouver because they couldn’t take it. The reason why I could take it is because of summer. Everything is very nice in summer. It is too good to leave.


What is good to be in Vancouver?

If you come to Vancouver as a student or who has tried to have great experience which you never had, this would be a right place for you. People here are gatherd from all over the world. You can see people walking on street and they all have different looks, from face to outfit. And you never know where they are from unless you got a talk with them, though you could guess. What I’m trying to tell is that Vancouver is like the epitome of the world. You could have friends all over the world once for all and have valuable experience without going far away.


What I have done in Vancouver?

I’ve studied at ESL school. I’ve finished school little bit too short, however, I could study myself at least. I have no sense of saving money so that my money was running out. So, I found a place where I could work and make money. Although, I was little bit serious about improving my English, I was also interested in Japanese restaurant. No hard to get used to work there. I’ve worked for 10 month there. That was good time for me. People say “Why Japanese restaurant?” Yeah, understandable. Just because I simply had no time to consider it. Still, working at Japanese restaurant could be good experience depending on what you do. If you try to get anything at every moment, you never waste time. Every moment will come back to you as a good experience. That’s what I talk about.


What is important to live abroad?

I think there would be some differences depending on where you’re from to answer this question. Anyway, what I recommend you to do is try to maintain yourself. I realized that people here are much more independent than Japanese in physical. If you live in Japan, you would feel very comfortable and convenient. You could have any kind of service there and satisfied even if it’s midnight, I would say, No problem. You don’t need to make lunch or dinner. Bathrooms, clocks, vending machines, hospitals, convenience store, There are everywhere. I still encounter the situation that I feel inconvenient. Just because I’m depending on something. Although you can’t live by all alone for sure, let’s think about your life for a change.


by Yusuke

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What skill is required for good classroom management

Important points for good classroom management are decisions and actions. The actions are what is done in the classroom. The decisions are about whether to do these actions. Any moments you feel that you’d better change something in the class, you’ll have several options and you’ll have to choose one action that you believe is the best way for the class and students so they can study more comfortably. Having plenty of options that you can implement and choosing a proper action in the bunch of options are very important for a good teacher and those skills make students believe you and build a good relationship between students and teachers.

What we shouldn’t do in teaching speaking is to have students have a conversation without giving them any specific topic and frame. In order to improve students’ speaking skills, of course we have to get students to speak English and to communicate with other students using English. It is a good way to do some activities to have students communicate with each other with fun so they can speak English for a long time without getting bored, however, what if students have no specific topic or frame? They’ll be confused and have no idea about what they need to further talk about. That situation could make teachers lose students’ credit because students always want to feel that they are protected by teachers.

One good way to teach listening class is to use the ‘big to small’ task sequence. This method will work well for many standard course book and classroom recordings. According to this method, we start listening class with easy and general questions, then we ask students more detailed questions. If we ask students some difficult, detailed questions from the beginning, students will lose their confidence since those questions might be too difficult to answer for some students. First, we need to build students’ confidence with a couple of easy questions and then, we have students challenge some difficult questions. This will be effective for listening class.

Lastly, I’d like to mention what the advantages are to use magazines or newspapers as teaching materials. One advantage is that magazines and newspapers are quite familiar to us in real life, so students can learn real issues in English from those materials. Another advantage is that newspaper consists of a lot of categories; sports, politics, gossip, job advertisement, real estate information, comics, etc. Besides, those are usually including a lot of pictures, so Teachers can easily make many activities from newspaper although teachers have to choose appropriate issues as teaching materials for students.

by Yohei

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How do you enjoy your food-life?

Do you know how many restaurants there are in Vancouver, especially in Downtown? The number of restaurant in Downtown is practically uncountable because there are so many restaurants here. You must want to try every restaurant in downtown, but our stomach and time are limited, so we’d like to introduce some restaurants you should go at least one. Let’s see some restaurants from the view of both the cost and the quality (taste).

Everyone here wants enjoy their food-life since there are a lot of cuisine in Vancouver, but we have to think about the cost of the food when we eat out. Not many people have plenty of disposable money, so we’d like to introduce Korean food to readers because we believe Korean food is undoubtedly cost-effective. Besides, having Korean food is quite enjoyable because we usually share several Korean meals when we go to a Korean restaurant with friends. Our favourite Korean restaurants are Ap-Jung and Nolbu those are located in Downtown and they offer a variety of Korean food; potato soup, dduck bok ki, and ji ji mi.

But sometimes you might want to spend some more money to have a fancy meal. We also want to recommend two cafés which have good quality in the taste with decent prices. One is “The Elbow Room Café” which has plenty kinks of flavoured pancakes and breakfast menu. Fortunately, the potion of each dish is quite big! The other is “Sciué(shoe-eh)-Italian bakery cafe “. At lunch time, you see a long line in front of their pizza booth. They also have paninis and plenty of coffee menu, and we strongly recommend their home-made tiramisu. These cafes are also located in Downtown.

These restaurants sound good to you? We hope that these restaurants we mentioned will satisfy you and your stomach and then, you must be able to study English harder with a lot of energy!!
Please check in out!! & enjoy your life!!


by Tsumugi, Kumu, Yohei

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ATC Alaya International Training Centre

Welcome to our blog, created by ATC students and staff for your enjoyment!

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