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 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!
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It’s the beginning of the so-called “Golden Week” holidays in Japan, one of only 3 times in the year that Japanese people actually take a day off, and go and spend it in a traffic jam. I was planning on taking the day off as well, but I had a listen to the phonics CD and realised that the “n” song I recorded on Tuesday sounds horrible!! It needs redoing. So I wasn’t too happy. But never mind. So I went out fishing to put me in a better mood.
For a while now I’ve noticed that the website keeps getting slower! It’s basically because of the way the site was designed, for machines of 3 years ago. So I have been planning to update the structure, but with over 500 pages of content it’s a big, big job. But there is also a more serious problem with some newer browsers, where the menu takes up the top half of the screen and leaves all the content at the bottom. This is something I couldn’t leave, so started on the mammoth task of recoding all the pages. So that took all day just to do half the site! But hopefully it will mean things are a lot faster in future!
Then at 6 o’clock I got a call from one of my publishers in Tokyo, who had popped down to Fukuoka for the day. That was cool because there are tons of new ideas I wanted to chat about. So it was out for the dinner at the fantastic live seafood place I went to last year. It’s so much fun having to keep your dinner from running off the table!
Recorded the “j” and “n” songs for the phonics CD.
Monday’s my day off, so today went off to Beppu. There are some fantastic things there, like red hot spring pools and mud geysers - pretty cool stuff! Then off to the new Aquarium in Oita, there were some pretty funky things there as well, including a “Wani Kame”, which looks for all the world like a meter long dinosaur! Mind you to say this place was supposed to be educational, the English on the signs and stuff was just terrible, and more often than not just wrong!
But it is true, Japanese people do wonder round aquariums saying “Oh, I bet that tastes lovely!!”.
Then back home in the pouring rain!
Being on the road is a completely different feeling to working all the time in one place, very strange!
Today I had lunch with one of the top Elementary School English teachers in Kyushu, which was great just to have a normal chat, and to also chat about all the developments and things that are going on at the moment.
Then it was back to work on the Phonics CDs. After the response yesterday, I’m really looking forward to getting the CD released!
Usually the bookstore gigs are all about getting up early, lots of running around and fretting about time slots. Today I walked into the Osaka Nellies’ office at 11 o’clock and they were like “Hello, yeah we’ve got loads of time” and were totally relaxed! Which was just as well because everything went fine. Oxford University Press had a presentation first, which was pretty good, mind you their kids videos cost 10,000 yen each!! The GE DVD at 4,000 is well cheap in comparison! My presentation was cool. There were lots of kids there, which I figured would be really difficult as usually that means I can’t do any explanations. But as it turned out they already knew the songs and were great, listening when I talked to the teachers, then singing very loudly and saying “Tanoshii!!!” at all the right points! (Always good for impressing other teachers of how good the songs are!) The teachers also went mad over the new phonics songs. “Want some stuff to get your kids good at speaking?” , hmmm maybe, “Want some songs for learning letters?” OH, YES PLEASE!!! Very strange the priorities some teachers have! But they really did into the songs, even better than the study groups last year. Could be a big hit! Then a quick meeting about the Genki English show and seminars in Osaka in June, I’ll put lots of details on the website to make this into a massive event! Then on the shinkansen back to Fukuoka.
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