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Projects Beyond the Classroom in 2024
Rainbow Bridges is involved in more than helping our students learn English in the classroom, at home, and at events. Here are some other things the school has been doing during the last year.
Kyushu ELT Convention
Biscut (Tristan) has continued to be active in professional development for English teachers as head of ETJ Fukuoka and a member of Language Teaching Professionals. During the second half of 2024 we spent a lot of time preparing for a major event for English teachers created by these organizations, the Kyushu English Language Teaching Convention.
Held on February 23, at Seinan Gakuin University, it was the largest gathering of English speakers in Kyushu. Rainbow Bridges students participated in running the on-site cafe that provided breakfast and lunch for over a hundred international people.
Our part in preparation for the event included obtaining permission and cooperation from the university for use of the venue, recruiting local teachers to give presentations, vetting presentations, advertising the event, recruiting volunteers (teachers as well as Rainbow Bridges students and parents), preparing our own presentations, setting up and cleaning up the display hall, receiving and sending deliveries for materials displays, purchasing, transporting, and preparing the food and drink for the cafe, managing the reception area, managing the finances, and running the cafe.
New Textbook Edition Development Team
Biscut has been working as part of a support team for the development of the third edition of David Paul’s series Finding Out, the text for elementary schools students that Biscut has used since 1999, even before the founding of Rainbow Bridges in 2005.
My discovery of this incredible series and the child-centered philosophy behind it is the main reason I became an educator and decided to make Japan my home. It is a thrilling experience and a huge honor for me to consult on the new edition with the author.
—Biscut
The new series will be called Finding Out Interactive and we’ll begin using it after its publication in late 2025.
Further Education and Career Counseling
Our goals for students include long-term support as they grow up, continue their education, and venture into the adult world.
This year we helped students enter a private Canadian high school and then with admission into one of the world’s highest-ranked international boarding schools, located in Switzerland, for fall of 2025. We are also expanding our homestay programs to include attending overseas schools and farm stay adventures.
Discovering Nature in English
Some of our community may already know that Biscut is especially interested in nature and photography. Over the years he has photographed his travels, events, and producing articles and videos about Japan for international audiences, but since the pandemic he has become more focused on nature.
He has studied and photographed many hundreds of species in Kyushu, Honshu, Hokkaido, and Okinawa as well as overseas locations like the Amazon, Southern Africa, and North America and is active in online scientific and educational nature forums like iNaturalist.
As he regularly makes day trips around Fukuoka and often camps, he would welcome any students interested in nature to join him for special small-group outings. Send us a message and we’ll create a new event!
You can view some of Biscut’s nature photography on Instagram, where he’s currently posting photos from a recent trip to Botswana.
Looking Forward
With the end of the school year, we’re preparing for and looking forward to new classes and programs coming in the spring. It’ll be our 20th year. Building a lasting community has been our greatest joy, and we are planning a celebration on the weekend of July 12-13!
We are here for our community now and, even for families with children no longer taking lessons, we hope to be of service years into the future. We not only have English classes, events, and books, but also offer homestays, study abroad, career counseling, and language services. It’s free to talk to us about your needs and interests and we always welcome chances to reconnect years down the line.
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