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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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OK, how to motivate 70 teachers at 10 AM on a Sunday? A challenge. Especially when I find out there is no projector. And there are also a load of kids. But…. as luck would have it these were the kids who always turn up in Nagoya, and they were great, even better than the adults! They know the stuff so were quite cool when I was doing the explaining and motivation stuff for the adults, then everyone got really genki for the songs, cool! As usual with the CD5 workshops I started off with “When, when, when” then into “Under the Sea” ( which was after all a request from these teachers last month!) and “Where is Mr Monkey?” which again was really popular. I always thought prepositions were quite easy to teach, but apparently not!
The best bit of the day? Completely selling out of Superpacks, Card Games and Classroom English CDs! The strangest bit of the day? The presenters for one of the Japanese publishers, who claims to make things that are fun for elementary school, asking me how to make their new book and CD seem interesting!!! I know a lot of these presenters actually teach using Genki English rather than what they sell at workshops, but asking me how to make their books and songs fun is pushing things a bit far!!
It was a long, but good day, with many teachers asking really good questions ( which is the main thing ) and the kids who were great ( which is the fun bit). I really should start a school!
But I’m shattered, and tomorrow is all go again for round two of the JET Programme conferences!
As the title says, computer work, shinkansen, a nice dinner in the Outback Steakhouse, bumped into a couple of JETs, checked out the music festival, and crashed in a capsule hotel because again all the other hotels were full! I am so going to appreciate my Okinawa hotel next week!
Bed at 3 then out to brave the Tokyo subway system at 9, fun fun! But it was worth it as I popped in to see the British Council, mainly to chat about the exchange projects. We were going to have a chat the other week, but things got a bit too busy. Today though it seems like there’s a million and one things we can help each other out with, so that could be really good.
Then afterwards I was feeling the effects of not having done any exercise for a week, so decided to walk back to my hotel via the Imperial Palace. Tokyo doesn’t really have any “must see” attractions, but it was quite nice to get out of the smog and traffic and into the moats and woodlands. I popped over to see the Budokan ( well, if I’m talking about doing a gig there, I should check it out!), and also walked up to see Yasukuni Jinjya to see what all the fuss is about. ( It’s the shrine where the war dead, including the war criminals are enshrined, and the Prime Minister still, unbelievably, visits on a regular basis).
Then a bit more work on the oyako eigo series ( there’s a demo online - it’s not finished nor checked though so don’t tell anyone about it just yet!).
Recently I’ve really been feeling the big gap between bookstore gigs which last 50 minutes and have a broad range of teachers, and the real professional development workshops in which you really see a progression as the teachers improve. Financially as well, the free bookstore gigs attract good teachers, but also the ones who just want a free English lesson and never buy anything - and somebody has to pay for the room, the flights, the hotels etc!
So along with Maruzen in Nihonbashi and Macmillan Language House, today we’ve put together a full on 6 hour professional development programme for Saturday August 27th. There’ll be a fee on the day of 12,000 yen which means there’ll be no selling, and just ideas, techniques, tons and tons of games and basically improving your skills. It should be really, really good, and will be a great way to move up from the “English Teaching as a hobby”, to real learning where the kids have oodles of fun, AND get good! The day’s workshop will be in Japanese and I’ll have more details on the site soon.
I chose MLH to join up with today because they have a lot of really good material that joins on nicely from Genki English, for example the Finding Out phonics series for when the kids have got a handle on the GE themes, and the new Springboard readers series. Which I think may become the new “officially recommended” readers series, basically because the amount of FREE SUPPORT material is just amazing! Have a look at the new page I’ve put on the site for “Making Reading Fun“, there are not just mp3 files for all the books, but worksheets and teachers guides that have soooo many cool ideas, all for free ( I guess they’d appreciate it if you bought a few sets of books though!)
Then in the evening after a few beers I was up till 3 working on the new “Oyako Eigo” programme, which has cool phrases for parents to use with their kids ( written by my Mum!). It’s a big request and if I can figure out the budgets correctly, I’m hoping to have it free on the website.
Spent the morning running around changing hotels, then over to Shibuya to have a chat about organising an adults eikaiwa show using the Genki English songs and games. I might as well put the wheels in motion whilst the idea is still fresh! Shibuya is the Japanese city of fashion and has some pretty cool stuff, including funky Darth Vader adverts for mobile phones!
I also downloaded the very useful Konfabulator today, which is now free!
Things just seem to be on a roll at the moment. Today’s workshops were just brilliant. I had no idea how many people would turn up, and I wouldn’t have thought that many of them even knew Genki English, but the the room was overflowing, with people standing at the back and taking up just about every piece of floor space there was. Content wise I just stripped down the Recontracting Conference presentation and put in as many of the hints and tips that I could remember that I wished I’d had when I started. I also did a quick tour of the website ( e.g. games, videos + katakana )and everybody was just lapping things up. The second session was just as good and I don’t think I’ve had so fun a couple of hours in ages. Japan doesn’t know what’s hit it this year as these are the genkiest bunch of JETs I’ve ever seen!! I didn’t bother to record the gig today as I wasn’t even sure if it would work, but they were perfect. Let’s hope next week is just as good!
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