Avoid - The New Village in Sannomiya (Japan)

[Goldfish]

In the light of my personal experience, and interestingly in the experience of 3 or 4 other previous unfortunates posted on various sites around the Net, I genuinely feel it is my duty to post a clear warning regarding the New Village in Kobe City and its owner/managers Brian and Sakura Miller.

I won't write for long because it has been said elsewhere and probably much more eloquently than I could.

Brian Miller - a self-inflated individual who seems to consider himself some sort of guru. His email address is bilinguru@hotmail.com, yet he is neither bi-lingual nor any particular expert on education or language. A difficult person to work with who makes the most outrageous claims about his background.
Sakura Miller - Extremely rude and socially unskilled.

The Students - Many very pleasant students, but they clearly want a low key loosely organized experience. Mostly about personality rather and not about the quality of the learning experience.
Basically the themes (if thats the right word) at The New Village are poorly thought through and as said elsewhere, no textbooks and no supporting structure of any use at all really. So, the additional work required to create 5 or 6 90 minute lessons per week really justifies a premium rate but of course the pay is below par as are the surroundings, facilities and management.

[brian miller]

To All;

Avoid paying attention to posters - like Goldfish - who post one message criticizing a school. Goldfish is Ian Clark - who posts under a large number of pseudonymns on this and other forums pretending to be from China, Scotland, Canada and more. He is actually from England and worked at The New Village for a few month before being dismissed. Search this forum for links about The New Village and you will understand that this guy is simply a disgruntled ex-employee who has a serious axe to grind. He loathes everything about the ESL industry and thinks he sits above it. He has been banned under most of his aliases, but continues to re-register to spread his venom.

Brian Miller
Director
The New Village

[brian miller]

Here are the links to other posts regarding this

Connexions and Ian Clark

The New Village (Kobe)

Brian Miller