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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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Previous Entries are here
One good thing about being away is that my phone doesn’t work. I still spend a couple of hours each day doing email, but when I got off the plane last night within 10 minutes my phone was ringing!
As it happens though there’s some really good news. Long term readers may remember the “Kids English” set of books, videos and CDs for younger kids. Well, we’ve just managed to work out a new system where we can offer Genki English readers the package directly, and at a very nice price. The number we have is limited, but if you are interested, have a look at the “Kids English” page.
Recently many schools have been looking at picture books in lessons ( I love the Apricot ones!), and the Kids English ones are great because they each have a video that teaches the target language, basically in the Genki English style, but with real actors. This could be really useful for elementary school teachers, as well as parents.
Today was also a really, really cool day. Out for a very nice Sunday lunch, with some very cool people. Then a great tour around all the local sites, including a massive big Buddha and a fizzy hot spring - I kid you not!
I was also chatting with one of the teachers there and making a website for learning Korea sounds very possible. To be honest I haven’t had as much success with the Pimsleur series for learning Korean as I though I would. But it does seem simple enough, you just need the right way to go about it. So just like the “How to speak Japanese” site at genkijapan.net, hopefully there’ll be a “How to speak Korean” site soon, and I’ll test it by using it on myself!
Today was the main reason for popping over to Korea, two Genki English workshops at the KOTESOL Symposium. Korea is much further along than Japan, but still runs into the same sorts of problems, i.e. how to get the kids having fun whilst still progressing with their lessons. Hence the workshops went down great. Everyone seemed terrified at first, but a quick run through one of the songs and everyone was acting just as crazy as your average 7 year old.
Content wise it was basic songs ( What’s your name?, How old are you?, Where are you going?, I can do it!, Thank you ) with some basic games ( such as Mingle, Harry Potter, Leapfrog ) to illustrate the main points which are the Genki English rules, and the ways of motivating the kids, i.e. it was pretty much similar to the online workshop. It’s amazing how many MAs and Phds there are in Korea, and most people seemed to have a very good knowledge of TESL, so it was cool to not have to explain why the songs work, but to just do them. Except for the Leapfrog game which tanked because I forgot to do the Rock, Paper, Scissors song first, sorry about that!! It would have been cool to talk about the online Phonics games, but the net was down in the room (actually in Japan I don’t think I’ve ever had a room that was even supposed to be online!). Phonics seems to be huge over here though, probably to combat the “Konglish” syndrome, which is similar to what we have in Japan with the non-English alphabets interfering with pronunciation.
It was great to present to teachers who were so eager to help out and participate, and it will be really good if we could work out a full day workshop next year.
Then afterwards everyone was invited out to a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, which was lovely, and I got to chat to loads of people. Then out on the town for lots of great chats about new ideas, waiters who do the Tom Cruise cocktail juggling, and one of the best Saturday nights out I’ve had in ages!
Korea Rocks!
It’s travel time again! As usual I was in “computer-work-mode” before I set off and wasn’t wanting to set off, but once I did it’s all very exciting. It’s my 3rd trip to Korea ( 2nd this year!), but I hadn’t been to Seoul Station before ( great food and very friendly people), and now I’m updating the blog in the city of Cheonan, which seems very strange in that they have this super high tech station right in the middle of the paddy fields!
But the hotel is fantastic! Just headed off to the Hot Spring, and now I’m popping out for some more lovely Korean food!
In between packing for Korea tomorrow, today was spent putting yet more video on the Japanese version of the site. Today’s two are probably the most important as they are the two most popular problems that Japanese teachers have when teaching by themselves; what English to teach, and what to do about pronunciation. They are quite easy to solve, and the videos basically go through how I built up the Genki English lesson plans, and then showing how to use the GE software to get around the pronunciation problem by just pressing a button on a computer to play each word or phrase. Very simple, but I’ve done the workshop so many times it’s now full of jokes to keep the teachers on track for the 5 minutes it takes to explain each one! Because that’s the key really, just taking away their fear. For most of us it’s pretty obvious how to learn and teach the basics, but it takes a certain leap of faith to have the courage to try it for the first time, so that’s what I try and provide with this videos.
I need to get a Japanese calendar for my computer as I completely forgot today was a national holiday ( I use konfabulator at the moment). I had planned to book my December flights and upgrade my computer, but the travel agents were shut and the Tenjin computer stores were packed. So instead I edited up more video for the Japanese version of the site. It is quite fun really, and the teachers in some of the workshops are just so funny. So the new ones that are uploaded are Warming Up, Teaching Songs ( with How are you?), English is Easy and my self introduction. I also got the Japanese version of the “What do you want for Christmas?” song uploaded.
Then I realised I’m off to Korea in two days and I’ve got a done of stuff to do before then!
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