Jim Forsyth - The Study Abroad Coordinator/School Owner

Q. First of all, can you give us a brief description of your main area of employment and how you got into this field?

I am the owner of OPM - Overseas Program Management, involved in sending students for study-abroad, internships, working holiday programs, and homestay holidays. OPM also runs a school, JAOL - Japan Academy Of Language. I taught at YMCA, 2 private high schools, and privately in Hiroshima from 1991 to 1994, returned to Australia for a year off in 1995 (passed through Kobe the day before the Hanshin earthquake), then taught again in 1996 at Red Cross Nursing Senmon Gakkou, and a high school.

Seeing that many students were going on study tours and to formal courses abroad, I started my own business in April 1997.


What are your personal and business values? Influences?

Sachiko and I have 8 children, a daughter, then 7 sons. To let them become bilingual plus bicultural, we are trying to shuffle them between schools here and in Australia. Short stints from around 10 or 11, a half-year during junior high school, then all of high school, in Australia. The eldest, our 16- year-old daughter, is home now for Christmas break, then returns in late January for her last 2 years.

I saw language education as a business chance, and see business as a chance to give my large family an education. Perhaps I'll have to groom some of them to carry on the company after we eventually retire to the pristine sands of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.

My interest in Japan started early, as my father had 2 years in Iwakuni and Kure, with the Occupation Forces, in 1946-47. He kept albums of Box Brownie photos, and had 33 rpm gramophone records of music that no other kids at my school had. Cool, before the days of "cool, man".


What would you say are the main requirements to succeed in this field?


With the study-abroad side, being a foreigner is an asset, because I rarely can't get to see a high school Principal, even without an appointment. They are just too polite to turn me away from the school's reception office. As for counselling individuals, it helps greatly to have been to the school we are recommending, met the staff there, and be (or sound) familiar with that city, or area.


Describe a typical working day.


With our high schooler abroad, we only have 7 boys at home! The junior high schoolers are soccer crazy, and leave home by 7.00 usually, for early training. They will have to suffer this over-training until their turn comes to escape to the home country. Our local primary school is 100 metres away, so the next 2 are on their way by 7.50. We take the youngest 3 to child-care by 9.00, and get to our downtown office and school by 10.00. The OPM office and JAOL school are located opposite Hiroshima's Peace Park, on Peace Boulevard. My wife tries to be home by 6pm, and I return between 8 and 11 pm, depending on classes.

On the 1st, 3rd and 5th Saturdays of every month, we have a Toastmasters Club meeting. I started the corporate Toastmasters Club in July 2005, OPM Toastmasters club, No. 730290. It is the first official club in a school in Japan! Though it's primarily for staff and upper-level students, it's also open to the community. The un-official motto of the club would be, "Become more Able with your English Ability". We started with 23 members and are already up to 35, so it's been something of a success.

Toastmasters, for most Japanese members, is a matter of 'putting your English to use', or a cheaper brush-up than taking translation lessons... Even for the native-speakers, most of us don't need to give speeches in our usual routines. The 2 minute impromptu sessions are the most challenging, as nearly everyone can benefit from practice in 'thinking on their feet'.
Teachers though, 'speak' to an audience every class, so have less trouble with stage-fright. It's surprising still, to hear the number of pauses, or 'fillers', that are uttered by even the seemingly un-tongue-tied.

On Sundays I most often do two, but sometimes up to six, weddings as a Minister at a hotel's 'chapel'.

Do you see yourself staying in this field or perhaps making a move in the future?

As our youngest is still only a year and nine months, we'll most likely be working for eons yet. If the elder children become interested in taking over the business, that may allow us to convert to beachside hunters-and-gatherers (fishing and vegie patch retirees).

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