＜Seven reasons why F2F is chosen by word of mouth＞
「Promise an improvement in your English skill」
Firstly, this is the motto of Face to Face English School.
The reason people study English in the Philippines depends on students. Even if you enjoyed your stay, or you made many friends there, but if the goal of “improving your English skills” is not achieved, it can’t be said that your study trip in the Philippines was a success.
The mission of Face to Face English School is to “Support students thoroughly those who are serious about improving their English skill “.
If you want to have a nice beach vacation or have a luxurious one with excellent accommodation and new facility like a 5-star hotel during your the Philippines language study trip, you should choose another school.
We believe that the best reason to study language in the Philippines is
「Learn English inexpensively, fast and efficiently」
Even if it is cheap but the teacher’s quality is low, then there is no point to go to The Philippines to study.
We are aiming to be a school where students can achieve maximum results with minimum expense.
Now, we will show 7 reasons why F2F is chosen based on students’ reviews. It is a little bit long but you can get to know our school’s history here. It deserves to be read!
＜New!＞ Brochure of Face to Face English School（2017） Download here（2MB）
１．A school where you live communally with your English teachers
We have heard many reviews from students who have studied English in the Philippines, such as “The one-on-one based lessons were very effective, but I spoke mother-tongue more often outside classes”.
Regardless of the school run by Japanese or the school run by Korean, other than classes, same nationality students get together and speak their mother-tongue. It is the reality of studying English in The Philippines.Though you want to study English eagerly, but you can’t have enough time to speak it during your free time, you still don’t get what the value of studying English overseas.
We considered this, so we adopted an innovative approach to “live communally with English teachers” in order for students to be able use English anytime they want even at night time and on holidays.
When learning English in Europe or America, one of the attractions is “homestay” at a host family’s home.
Here in F2F, we offer an opportunity to use English 24 hours, at any time by making a system where “Students live communally with English teachers”.
Though there are several schools adopted a “Boarding teachers” system in The Philippines, we think there are no other schools which have as many boarding English teachers than F2F.
F2F has 6 dormitories with a capacity of 23 students. We also have 12 boarding teachers (and 9 other teachers who are non-boarding). It means a total of 12 boarding teachers to 23 students (the ratio is 1 teacher to 2 students) and you can enjoy speaking English freely with them anytime and anywhere.
(*Every month of July, we increase Taiwanese students, so the number of students is more than 23.)
To tell the truth, from a managerial point of view, it is impossible to have so many teachers to live in dormitories. To accommodate more students in the dormitories is more profitable. However, what F2F is aiming for is not just about “Profit” but to provide “The best environment for improving English-speaking skill”.
It is true that large schools have strict management systems so that there is a wall between teachers and students.
But Face to Face English School is aiming for a school specializing in an at home atmosphere, sticking to a small group system.
In addition to lessons at school, students live together with the teachers, and they often hang out together going to shopping malls, coffee shops, small excursions and on holidays. What we feature in the school is teachers and students have a very close relationship.
We have what call “communication with teachers” COP (Chill-Out Policy) and encourage students and teachers to do so. Trying EOP (English Only Policy) is also very effective, but we think students have an environment where you can talk with teachers anytime and anywhere is more effective for improving their English skill.
◎Free Night Class (Free entry)
（１）EOP Night
Open every Thursday from 7:30 pm
A gathering with “Japanese(Korena, Taiwanese etc) language prohibition” (EOP) in the dormitory
（２）English Saloon
Open every Tuesday from 7:30 pm
Feel free to gather and enjoy chatting with teachers
◎Activity (Free to join)
（１）Afternoon tea / Watch movies
Enjoy tea / snacks and watch movies with teachers
（２）Eating out / Going out
Going out with teachers / dining out and have coffee.
（３）Excursion (day trip, one-night trip)
This is an excursion usually organized by the teachers. Going to the beach or mount climbing(hiking)
（４）Study Tour
Visiting churches and charities
２．Native English teachers are employed
One of the features of the school is having the number of native English speakers employed.
Though staying in The Philippines, students can be exposed to authentic American English and learn expressions and pronunciation used by native speakers. That is one of the F2F’s strengths.
In addition, they are Filipinos, however some teachers (called Semi native English teachers) who grew up in the same environment as native speakers are employed in our school. Their pronunciation and intonation are the same as native teachers.
We provide one on one lessons with Native and Semi-Native teachers every week (swapped in rotation). *No additional fee required
In other words, if you take 6 hours of one on one lessons, 5 hours with Filipino teachers and 1 hour with a Native or Semi-Native teacher as rotation.
Through this method, you can learn both Filipino English and Native English thoroughly, it is a perfect training method to improve English skills.
(*The numbers of native / semi-native teachers varies depending on the time. 4 teachers are employed currently in 2017)
◎Introducing a teacher (Amber)
She is a mixture of American and Filipino who grew up in an English only environment. Also, she is good at American slang and speaks with a perfect American accent.
◎Introducing a teacher (Amy)
She grew up in America from when she was a teenager, has worked in American enterprises (aircraft company, hotel, accounting firm). She is also an green card holder and speaks perfect American English.
３．Friendly and highly qualified Filipino teachers
F2F has highly qualified Filipino teachers. Many Filipino teachers come to take job interviews every month, but only one or two people pass the resume review and job interview process from more than 50 applicants. After passing the interview, they spend a week for the trial tests in a practical form, and we check their teaching skills, attitudes and personality thoroughly. Filipino teachers are chosen after these process, they can be said to be highly qualified teachers.
Large schools generally hire a large number of temporary teachers without good conditions during the peak season and terminate their contract as soon as the off season.
Since the official language in The Philippines is English, everybody can speak English, but there is a clear difference between part time English teacher and those who are full-timers.We can’t say the level of the temporary teachers is high enough.
we hire teachers as regular employees after they pass the trial period in principle. Also, we pay them a salary which is 1.5 times higher than the standard basis in around area. Besides, we offer an attractive benefit package and provide them dormitories, meals and WiFi for free. These are our investments to acquire “highly qualified teachers”.
The reason why we are eager to hire “highly qualified Filipino teachers”, is that we know “Improvement of English skill is highly related to the teacher’s competence.”
Of course, though it is obvious that the effort of the students themselves is essential, the existence of great teachers who motivate and support students anytime is necessary to improve their English skills.
Since our motto is “Promise to improve your English skill”, we make effort to hire highly qualified English teachers to improve our students English skills to the maximum level.
Overall, the features of Face to Face English School is that “Students take lessons” from highly qualified Filipino teachers with true meaning and “Students can live together with such English teachers”.
４．Flexible Curriculum (Fully customizable)
Face to Face English School doesn’t have a fixed curriculum. Firstly, student’s requests are top priority.
“Want to improve English listening.”
“Want to raise your TOEIC score by 300 points or more.”
“Want to work overseas.”
Each student has their own “aim for English study”. We think that it is inefficient to force a uniform curriculum and textbooks and to ignore those students’ different aims.
Because of that, we make each student’s original curriculum while listening carefully to their requests.
We show a sample curriculum of a student having 7 lessens as follows.
◎ Situation Speaking × 1 hour
※ English conversation depends on the occasions such as hotels, hospitals, restaurants
◎ Q & A Speaking × 1 hour
※ English conversation to increase the response speed
◎ Topic Speaking × 1 hour
※ English conversation that expresses opinions on a certain topic
◎ Writing × 1 hour
※ How to write an essay, diary, e-mail etc
◎ Grammar × 1 hour
◎ Pronunciation × 1 hour
※ How to pronounce a word, learn about American Accent etc
◎ Vocabulary class × 1 hour
※ A lesson to learn common vocabulary in daily life
◎ Group class × 1 hour
We create these individual curriculums. Of course, if students are beginners, we create curriculums with general English speaking as a main. Besides, if students need text books, we support choosing suitable text books for them. Also, we sometime use other original materials.
５．Delicious meals made by an exclusive chef
The meals that Face to Face English School provides are basically Philippine cuisine. Commonly, lots of chicken, pork and eggs are used in Philippine cuisine and they match well with Japanese people’s taste. Many students give good reviews for the school meals.
Depending on person, there are various preference of foods for example “dislike spicy foods”, “dislike vegetables or meat” and “love noodle”, at Face to Face English School, we try to fix meals avoiding strong flavor (too spicy, too sweet and etc.) to match most people’s taste, and arrange meat, vegetables and fruits in a well-balanced manner.
*On celebratory occasions, the chef fully demonstrates their skills and make special dishes like following.
Our dormitories are basically houses, the advantage of houses is that they can share others the living room, the dining area and the kitchen.
Usually most students stay in their own private room, but as our dormitories are houses, students and teachers can cook together. We have good reviews about that from our students.
６．Very attentive service
Face to Face English School values our students’ satisfaction.
School is for “studying”, so we educate people who are basically students. But on the other hand, they are our customers, too. So, we are trying to provide an excellent service to them without forgetting about this.
（１）Internet
Many language schools in the Philippines have weak internet connections. Even large schools receive complaints about the speed of the internet in different room locations and the internet traffic due to the busy line connections at night.
As Face to Face English School thinks “Internet is very important to study English”, we value the speed of the internet lines. We have set up several high speeds WiFi systems in students’ dormitories.
General lines don’t have enough speed yet in The Philippines, but we introduced business lines which have enough performance and speed to use comfortably. (You can browse videos such as YouTube as well as do net research.)
（２）Cable TV (CIGNAL)
We set up large screen TVs in living rooms and are connected to Cable TV. Programs on more than 50 channels are available to watch 24 hours and mostly in English. You can watch any English programs such as news, documentary, drama, animation and sports. Students appreciate it because it is not only helpful for students’ listening skill, but a good communication tool for students and teachers.
（３）4 Japanese staffs and 1 Taiwanese staff (live in Taiwan) are listed in the school
There are 4 Japanese staff (1 Taiwanese staff) in Face to Face English School except for the owner himself. It is very rare to have 4 staff in such a small school.These Japanese staffs stay in students’ dormitory together, so you can ask questions and for their help when having trouble anytime.
They even help you happily for general things such as “going to the post office” and “booking for a flight”.
*Japanese Staffs as of May 2017: Unique and friendly staffs in their late 20s to early 30s
*Taiwanese Staff : students can inquire how to apply Face to Face English School in Taiwanese.
（５）Nurse is in the school, Doctor visiting service
Face to Face English School has many English teachers qualified as nurses because there is a course of medical English conversation. some boarding teachers have nurse qualifications. Also, the Japanese owner is qualified as a psychologist, social worker, nurse, and has worked in the medical industry for a long time, so if the student fall sick, these qualified people will support you. There is a large general hospital (Tagaytay Medical Center) near the school, so we can accompany students to the hospital.
７．Stick to reasonable fees
As mentioned above, Face to Face English School is pursuing the quality of teachers, meals, curriculum and enrichment of services. Tagaytay City itself is very safe, cool, quiet and also a truly attractive place.
We have pursued not only to hire highly qualified teachers but to set “reasonable fees”.
1 week ranges from 41,000 yen(about 360 USD) ,4 weeks ranges from 135,000 yen(about 1,200 USD). We will support you to improve your English skills “affordably, quickly and effectively” while we have long-stay discounts and various other campaigns occasionally
In general, it is impossible to have such highly qualified teachers with many native teachers and 12 boarding teachers, as well as to provide meals by private chef and other services with this price. But we don’t spend much on advertising fees (Agencies and net advertisements), so we have devoted those fees into the student’s study environment.
＜Summary＞
Many schools have been established in The Philippines in the recent boom in studying English there. (mostly Korean capital schools).
At Face to Face English School, the owner himself has often observed other language schools in The Philippines, and he has followed good examples and god rid of bad practices, and tries to improve everything to become a unique school.
“I am glad I have chosen Face to Face English School”
We are aiming for our students to comment like this, and It is our great encouragement that so many people come back as “repeaters”.
Those who want to be able to speak English for whatever, those who need high scores in English qualification examination, those who consider overseas employment, and not only individuals but corporations such as those who consider holding in house training to improve employees’ English skills and those who want employees to learn business English because they have many opportunities to use English at work…
Please inquire about anything you want to ask concerning English at Face to Face English School.
Those who are new to visit The Philippines to study English may have “anxiety and concern”, but we believe if you take your first step with a positive mind, studying in The Philippines will be “your big assets”.
We are looking forward to seeing all of you.
