About me

Hi, I’m Neil. I’ve been an English teacher in the UK and Japan for about 25 years. I have been in my current post at Okayama University since 2004. I have a Master’s Degree in Teaching English from Aston University in the UK (1997) and an Ed.D from Exeter University, also in the UK (2004).

I love teaching face to face in the classroom but I also think online courses and materials are a brilliant way to try and put ideas and thoughts across to students who can learn at their own pace and in their own time. It is not easy to learn another language – as I know from my struggles with Japanese – but online opportunities can make it a lot of fun and be very motivating. Here is my YouTube channel where I have posted many student-oriented videos.

My partner, Keiko Sakui, and I have also published five online English on the Udemy platform: Academic Reports in English; Presentations in English; Successful Meetings in English; Small Talk in English; and Articles in Two Weeks. It has been an amazing learning curve to get to grips with video and audio recording, animation, green screen and so on. It is very rewarding when students sign up – so far we have nearly 800 from 35 countries.

The photo above was taken near my house in Kobe, Japan. I am very lucky to live close to mountains where I frequently go walking – as well as waterfalls there are a lot of wild boars and snakes around which keep you on your toes!