About us
Our Purpose
Rainbow Bridges
We inspire curiosity in students, help them find happiness in growing and learning through communication in English, and enable them to connect positively to the global community—all in a manner conducive to them becoming lifelong active learners.
Our mission
Rainbow Bridges is an English language school that provides an educational environment that inspires in students curiosity about the international world and fosters their passion for learning and communicating.
An Unusual English School
Rainbow Bridges English Academy is rare in that it was founded by two Americans—native speakers of English and dedicated teachers—who wanted to give back to the people of Japan and create an adventurous community of learning.
Vision
By developing open-minded, active learners who can thrive in English-language environments independent of the school, with lifelong positive attitudes towards challenges and the abilities to engage them, Rainbow Bridges builds a more sustainable, peaceful, and progressive world, one person at a time.
Core Values
We make English like a series of puzzles – a world of personal discovery.
In a controlled environment, our teachers set up achievable and interesting step-by-step language targets in an appropriate sequence for maximum learning efficiency. When English makes sense and children progress in skill, their motivation, confidence and self-esteem increase and this encourages active learning.
Starting with interaction with the teacher, then through stories and interactions with other teachers and members of our international community, we help children develop awareness and appreciation of other cultures, languages and peoples.
By meeting achievable and worthwhile challenges students find personal success in learning. This helps students develop a love of thinking, wondering, questioning, discovery, and meeting challenges with creativity.
Core Competencies
- Providing guided and structured access to the international community and the world.
- Making learning English personal, achievable, and engaging.
- Making the study of English fun and empowering by using a 4-skill, cumulative, student-centered, communicative, achievable questioning approach to language learning
- Understanding how a foreign language is mastered—not only speaking ability (eikaiwa) and not only understanding about English from within Japanese (public school system).
- Creating a fun "need" for students to learn English—they learn because they want to.
- Creating an environment for every individual child to find happiness in growing and learning through communication in English.
- Ability to recognize students as individuals with unique combinations of talents, skill sets, characters and personalities.
- Understanding the psychological, emotional process of learning.
- Developing open-mindedness in combination with critical thinking skills.
- Recognition of the state of rapid change in the 21st century that will require new skills to succeed in the decades to come that are beyond what was necessary for previous generations of educated people to be successful.
