Gem School

Kagawa and Ehime, Shikoku, Japan

About Gem School

Gem School was founded by Miyuki Goda in 1981. Before starting the school, Miyuki worked in the education field and was intrigued by English education. Miyuki has a passion for kids learning English and having fun at the same time.

Or our website!

https://www.gemschool.com/

LOCATION

Gem School is located on the smallest of the four main islands of Japan called Shikoku, in the prefectures of Kagawa and Ehime. There are Gem School locations in Saijo, Niihama, Shikokuchuo, Toyohama, Kanonji, Marugame, Utazu, Sakaide, Kokubunji, Ichinomiya, Takamatsu, and Yashima, with more locations opening in the future.

School Name

Miyuki chose Gem School as the name for the school to emphasize the real mission and goal of the company. While learning English is the main outcome and revenue for the company, it’s main purpose and goal is that the students become better assets and better citizens to society. Gems start out as rocks that are unattractive, but through the process of polishing and cleaning they become very bright and beautiful. This is the goal of Gem School’s students—that they become precious gems to society.

Gem School Characters

At Gem School, you will notice a group of recurring characters, named Miru, Kiku, and Yuu. You may have noticed based on their features that these names are related to the Japanese words 見る (look), 聞く (listen), and 言う (say), 読む (read), 書く (write). There is a special reason for this. These characters represent the best way to absorb learning a language in the classroom. The first, Miru, means "to look", in this case, observing the teacher, particularly the movements of the mouth, in the way words are formed. The second, Kiku, means "to listen", which is key to to learn how words are sounded out, especially words with tricky spelling. Last, Yuu, which means "to say", encouraging students to repeat any words and phrases uttered by the teacher, in order to practice usage and fluency. If you can follow these three ideas, you are one step further to learning English!