2005 October | Genki English

Oct

Genki English on iTunes! Please help!

by Richard

I’ve got a favour to ask! Most teachers already know about GenkiEnglish, but in order to keep things going I really need the average person on the street to know about it. The idea being as we’ll sell more CDs, the prices will come down, everyone will speak great English and I can get back to making you lots of new materials rather than spending my time promoting the site.

So how can you help? Well, the Apple iTunes store today added the Genki English adults songs to its free podcast list! If enough people subscribe to it ( it’s free after all), then hopefully it will get to the top of the podcast download list and get lots of attention! So please tell your friends and older students to have a look, and be part of something very exciting! Please.

NEW: if you have iTunes installed you can now simply click on this link:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=81273681&s=143462&i=1048985

To find the podcast, go to the Music Store section of iTunes, then do a search for GenkiEnglish (without the space), and select podcast. You’ll then be able to download it for free. I’ve also included Japanese explanations of each song, so it is actually a really good resource. Students can also find it by searching for “英会話” ( eikaiwa). So please have a listen and try and download it! If you don’t have the iTunes software, you can download it for free from the Apple website at http://www.itunes.com

I try not to ask too much of the Genki English readers, but I’d really appreciate the help on this one. Thanks!

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267

Oct

New B&W Minicards Book!

by Richard

I’m very happy today that I can announce a new Genki English book! There’s always a delay between finishing a project and actually getting it out there, and sometimes the shine wears off in the meantime. So today I went and had another look at the real printed Black & White Minicards book, and it’s like Christmas morning again! I love this book!

Last year when we reprinted the CD4 worksheet book the printers came up with the most amazing glossy paper for it. Ever since, I’ve been wanting to produce something to go in the Superpack that would give it a visual boost, as you can’t really hear the CDs in a bookstore. The thing is that colour was out as it was too expensive, and trials of the kids workbooks failed as teachers were paying too much attention to them at the expense of the kids actually talking, and it took till this Summer for the penny to drop and think of doing the mini cards as a real life black and white book! So now it’s really easy ( and cheap!) for you to do copies for all your kids to play with.

It took a lot of time over Summer putting it together as I basically had to re-do a lot of the artwork in order to make it into an outline form, rather than greyscale, so that kids can easily colour it in. One advantage of this though is that I also redid the A4 cards which you can download from the site. They are all now funkied up, especially the weather cards! And as Genki English is distributed in lots of different ways these days, I also couldn’t mention the new book on the website until everyone’s stocks were updated. So if you bought a Superpack or 5 CD Set this month you probably got this book for free anyway! For everyone else, you can purchase it online or get it for free with the Superpack ( remember to ask your school to pay!) or 5 CD Set. The larger Maruzen bookstores should also be carrying it, so you can get it without post and packing ( but you might have to order it!).

And the other thing I can announce is that we are now shipping even funkier new Superpack cases, with a groovy carrying handle to make it easy to carry around, and the inside has been redesigned to make it easier to get to the CDs and books. With all the stuff in there now it really does feel like a SUPERpack, and is worth every penny of the 24,000 yen.

Right, so it’s back now to making the next set of surprise materials!

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268

Oct

Okayama - Back to being Genki and English is easy!

by Richard

Today was really cool, it was the first time this year that instead of a “demo lesson” I actually did a full on Genki English show!! The whole idea of these shows was, if you only have one time in a school ( which I used to have when I used to volunteer at schools that didn’t have JETs), then how can you get the most out of the hour? And what I came up with was getting them confident and teaching them some basic phrases they can use straight away, that the Japanese teachers can then review and build on.

And today for the first time I also did the show with the CD software and a projector, and it worked great. It’s so nice being able to go at things 100% at the kids pace, rather than having to hold back so the teachers can follow! And it worked great, they plowed through the Warm Up, got all the confidence points straight away, did Rock, Paper, Scissors, then were shouting out to try again when I “failed” them on the Left & Right song. In Rock, Paper, Scissors we do the “Losing just means try again” point, then in “left and right” I tell them they weren’t as good as the last school and they go crazy wanting to prove they can do it even better! And the improvement is really unbelievable. Then “What’s your name?” to finish.

The PTA and also reporters where there ( and my Mum who came to watch!), and the best thing was seeing the kids who before the show looked in shock when my Mum spoke to them, but then afterwards were running up to her to say “Nice to meet you!” and having the older kids doing janken in English amongst themselves. That’s a nice days work.

But then to make sure things continue the teachers have to follow up. Several of the teachers attended my workshops in Summer, and today was to get the skeptics on board! But they were great, I got them teaching themselves in groups, and the best things was I didn’t need to do the “English is easy” speech, they came out with it themselves. “There is some tough English, but what we have to teach here is quite doable”. Nice. Start off in the shallow end and gradually work your way out to sea. So a great day, and then they took us out for dinner to a fantastic restaurant with all you can eat freshly baked bread!

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256

Oct

Ehime is just fantastic!

by Richard

You know when the weather’s right Japan can be a fabulous place with so many world class things to do. A friend of mine is getting married soon so my Mum has popped over to Japan for the ceremony. This weekend we took her round some of the sites in Ehime, which are just great. From left to right we have the Horse Festival in Kikuma town, the Danjiri Festival in Saijo ( where massive “portable” temples battle in the river to stop the god returning to it’s temple), and the amazing Shimanami Kaido bridge as seen from the top of “Old Turtle Mountain” on Oshima island. Even things like the Asakura Towel Museum, which sounds the most boring thing on the planet, is actually really, really good and certainly worth a visit! When the weather’s right, Shikoku is the place to be!

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257

Oct

Osaka - new animals cards

by Richard

It’s that tricky time of year when it’s warm, but I can’t quite get away with wearing shorts all the time. So it looks like it’s a suit for this particular trip, which is just one day as I’m heading back home to Ehime tomorrow, for the first time since April! ( April? March? I can’t remember!)

I also had a request for A4 versions of the extra animals on the card game, so here they are http://genkienglish.net/animals2.htm The card game has proved really popular, but it throws some teachers when they don’t know the names of all the animals, which is a little strange really as you don’t actually need the animal names to play the game, it’s just supposed to be for doing numbers. Anyway, enjoy the new pictures!

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258

Oct

New A4 “How are you?” Cards & School Plays

by Richard

Had a good day today, got lots of computer work done, and had time to answer lots of really good emails. A couple of things that came through were about doing plays in schools and a request for A4 versions of the How are you? Game cards e.g. Wet, Thirsty etc. You know it would never have dawned on me to make A4 ones, so it was good to get the feedback. They are now up on the site on the How are you? Game page. They’re also in the B&W Minicards book, by the way!

Right, I’m off to make dinner for my girlfriend because tomorrow I’m on the road again!

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259

Genki English on iTunes! Please help!

New B&W Minicards Book!

Okayama - Back to being Genki and English is easy!

Ehime is just fantastic!

Osaka - new animals cards

New A4 “How are you?” Cards & School Plays

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