Wow! Here comes Setsuden-mushi.! Chapter 5 Parents of Setsuden-mushi 5.2 Profile of the Father of Setsuden-mushi 5.2.3 Founding an English language school and becoming an Eiken interviewer
As I described earlier, I stopped working for Toyobo Co. Ltd. in 1976 in response to voluntary retirement request from the company, when the Takatsuki Research Center, which I had worked for several years, was integrated into the Kata Research Center. And after a few days after that I was in a student dormitory at San Diego State University in the United States.
The reason I went straight to the U.S. soon after leaving TOYOBO was to actually check my own English language skills in the English-speaking country. My language skills were necessary for my company's chemical research work, and I had been brushing up on my favorite English language skills through NHK TV and radio programs while I was still working there, but I wanted to see how much useful my skills would be in the university classes and to get further skills if needed. I enrolled in a short-term study course at San Diego State University for those purposes.
As a result, I was able to complete the English linguistics and related subjects with all As at SDSU, which was thanks to nearly 10 years of self-study in Japan. Although it was only for a short period of six months, what I actually saw and experienced there in a foreign country helped me a lot in my career development after I left the company of TOYOBO to be self-employed in Japan.
In principle, it is my rule to take English qualification tests only once, and I took TOEIC and United Nations English Proficiency Test (UN Eiken) although I encourage all students to take the exams repeatedly.
I established K.E.C., an English cram school in April of 1977 in the year I returned from San Diego, U.S.A. While teaching English to pass their entrance examinations successfully, mainly to junior high and high school students, I also ran English conversation classes. And I also started and opened our free English Conversation Study Club for the general adult in the local community.
I had only about 15 students in the first year of teaching English, not making a profit enough. But some classes still vivid in my memory are the one that lasted three years with only two junior high school girls and the class of only two junior high school for 3 years using little or no Japanese. The classes in those days had less than 10 students, and it is still impressive that a Bank of Japan employee and a Minolta representative in the U.K. left my cram school.
From the very beginning of my departure from the salaried life, I had a business model based on translation and interpretation, but there were few business requests for translation and interpretation in a rural town of Onomichi I restarted to live, to someone with no business track record. However, as I mentioned earlier, the cram school business boomed more than I had expected in the first few years thanks to the many 2nd baby boomers, and I was able to lay the foundation for my life plan a few years after I left the company. The business was more successful than expected in the first few years since the start of the cram school business.
The combination of the English language, the growing number of baby boomers, and the fact that I was only 30 years old, contributed to the success of the business.
I felt that business requires something in demand, an objective environment for it, and the ability to execute it with integrity and vigor.
At the time of writing this book, I had served as an Eiken second interview test examiner for more than 25 years, and I further used this experience to found the "Eiken 1st graders’ Network in Japan" in 2014.
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