|
|
|
|||
 Printable Lesson Plans Genki English CDs:  Volume 1  Volume 2  Volume 3  Volume 4  Volume 5  Volume 6   New CD Vol. 7   MP3 Songs |
Take any problem in the World and it's invariably caused ( or made worse)
by a lack of education. Too many kids hate school because it's too boring.
The aim of Genki Learning is to have all subjects in all countries taught
in a fun, engaging and effective way. There are already a few million kids
benefiting from this, and even a whole country where the government has
put it in all their schools. But there's still a long way to go!
While I'm on the road you'll hear about my travels & workshops, and
when I'm doing studio work I'll keep you up to date with ideas, updates
to the site and some of my favourite teaching resources. So if you want
to find out what's it's like behind the scenes or how & why I do what
I do or even if you're just nosey or a bit bored, have a read.
I'll update the diary as often as I can, so keep coming back. And of course
whilst I'm away, the office staff are always ready to send off your CD orders just as soon as you send them in!
Subscribe in an RSS reader -
Previous Entries are here
Again I take one day off and the next day it takes me till after lunchtime to catch up with my emails! Mind you I’m not complaining, I got some really interesting emails today from all over the place.
On the last day of the month I also do my spring cleaning of the site and do little bits of updating. So I cleaned up the main pages, added in the Shop page in Japanese and also updated the “page for parents“. I also checked out everything was OK on the site as far as the search engines are concerned ( that’s always a tough job, but necessary otherwise people would never find the site), and also updated the internal search engine on the site - check it out at the top of the page!
Lots of people have also been asking about Easter stuff, I don’t have anything myself ( it always falls on the Spring holidays!) but Jeremy at ESLKidStuff has put a great page up. There was also a great article on the ELTnews today about how 90% of JHS and SHS English Teachers failed their English tests!
OK, it’s now 6:30 PM, so I’m going to make some tea and then get cracking with the phonics CDs!
Yesterday didn’t quite work out as planned as I spent most of the day doing admin stuff. Mrs Abe ( the lady who deals with our orders) took a ( very rare ) day of so I was in charge of the phones. That is actually quite good as the schools that ring are nearly always wanting help and are so grateful when I take time to have a chat to them. It’s also nice to hear schools who’ve previously ordered CDs wanting to buy some more. In fact one school had bought a set way back in 2000 on the tour, and was now ringing to order 9 more sets! Very nice!
So in the evening I did eventually get some music work done and had lots of inspiration to come up with one new song and a whole set of production for another one - yeah cool!
Oh, yeah, and Tuesday was my day off.
Ok, I’m actually writing this this morning, so this is how I want the day to turn out….
First I drink lots of coffee and whilst listening to MTV do all my mail and admin work ( already done this!). Hopefully it will be warm enough to work in a T-shirt and enjoy the nice weather ( OK on this one as well).
So then I’ll sit down at the keyboards and just play some funky tunes!!!!! Let’s see how it goes….
Today was back to doing the Phonics songs. But…. I couldn’t get anything done!! It was back to sitting down, playing the keys, pressing the buttons but nothing came out!! What a contrast to Friday!!! Wow, it’s amazing the difference. I wonder if the cloudy weather had anything to do with it?
So back to a few old techniques for getting ideas, by looking at other people’s songs. And it’s all in the hook. Just one note moved here or there makes the magic! For example the Black Eyed Peas song, all it is is four chords, F / C / Dm / Bb - the trick is that the C chord is a C/E to give a descending bassline. It is magic isn’t it! I also had a listen to the Kids English CD, wow, there are some really good songs on there, I wish they’d release it as an album!
Today I popped into the set to produce a recording session for another CD project I have, this time to help junior high school kids. It’s not quite genki, but it is something that really, really helped me learning languages so it could be really good!
Today was great, I got two songs written and recording, first time, first take. Fantastic!!! Great, oh just imagine if everyday went as well as today! So for the first time in ages I could relax in the evening knowing I’d done a great day’s work!
Subscribe to this blog
BUY CDs
