Living close to the mountains in Hinohara, in the West of Tokyo, is one of the things which has kept me in Japan for the last 25 years. Japan has such amazing nature, it is hard to resist, including the forests, waterfalls, wild animals (I haven't seen any bears, yet!!) and small mountain villages. Any opportunity I get, I escape to the mountains to chill out and get some time to think, and I frequently spend a lot of time thinking about how I can help my students to achieve their target scores in the IELTS exam, particularly in the speaking and writing sections.

Many students in Japan have 3 main difficulties:

• thinking of ideas to talk or write about.
• a lack of vocabulary
• using a range of grammatical structures.

Typically, in junior high school and high school, students spend a lot of time studying grammar, but don't get much opportunity to use it, and as a result of concentrating so much on grammar, have a lack of vocabulary.

I have spent several years developing materials that will help students to:

• develop ideas to talk or write about on topics commonly used in the IELTS exam.
• use a wider range of vocabulary or grammar.

These days, I mainly teach online, using Cafetalk, and this allows me to provide very personalised lessons at times when it is most convenient for students.

If you are struggling to achieve your target score, please send me a message and let me know how I can help you. If you have any hiking stories to tell me, that would be a bonus, but it isn't essential.