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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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I’m always on the look out for new and interesting material to introduce to people. Basically the more good stuff I can recommend, the less I have to make myself!
Whilst I was over in Korea last year there was a very popular presentation by a group of guys called English Tiger. I thought their stuff would work really well in Japan, especially for private English teachers who teach in small groups. But their website is only in Korean! So we’ve worked out a nice package of games which are now on the Genki English site. Have a look: : English Tiger’s Board Games & Card Games
Right, now it’s time to send off the February newsletter!
One of the ( many ) slogans I have at Genki English is “Not tested on animals. Tested on kids”. Basically as soon as I put an idea up on the site thousands of teachers use it and I get a lot of feedback on what works and what doesn’t.
I’ve been thinking though that it’d be cool to try and get more feedback on things before they actually go on the site. Most of the stuff I test out before hand with lots of kids, but when other teachers get hold of the materials they often have even better ideas on how to use them, and in some cases, such as the new CD 1 remix, the materials actually work better in a slightly different version.
I was thinking that the new forum could be a great way to try out demo versions of some of the new projects, so we can try out a few experimental type things without the risk of them going on the main site just yet. You can give your input on how you’d like them to be before they get on the site and of course you get to try out new materials before anybody else. As an avid computer user I don’t usually like “beta” or test phase products, but it can be really fulfilling to see a new feature make it into a finished project.
So if you’d like to join in, I’ve put one such project on the “wishlist” section of the forum. Let me know what you think!
The last picture book proved really successful, so here’s a new one - “I love vegetables”
The cool part of the book is, of course, the twist at the end. This time it fits in very nicely with the upcoming Valentine’s Day. It’s not going to work for all your kids, but for the ones who are into this type of thing it’s bound to get a chorus of “ahhhh”s and make you a very popular teacher! It certainly has every time I’ve tried it out.
The nice thing about these books is that I can use them to introduce new language that is difficult to do in song form. So here we have vegetables and Do you like…?. Having separate International and U.S. printed versions also gets over the zucchini / courgette and eggplant / aubergine problem. This way you can choose the ones you want, or even do both. Very nice.
I’ve also collated the various Valentine’s Day games and things onto one “What to do on Valentine’s?” page and there are a couple of new games on the Readers Games’ Page.
Sorry for not keeping the blog up to date this week, 2 days were spent reinstalling my computer, 2 days full of cold and the rest of the time on secret projects!
Stay tuned next week for some very nice updates to go along with the February newsletter.
The Teachers TV website has put up two videos of how MFL ( modern foreign languages) are taught in UK schools. As you can see the situation is very much similar to those in Japan.
The most useful aspect of the videos is that the reactions the UK teachers are having is exactly the same as Japanese classroom teachers. If you don’t speak Japanese it can sometimes be tricky to get a sense for what they are thinking, but here you can really pick up on the sense of nervousness and need of the teachers for someone to just help them out and more importantly show them where they are going wrong or right.
Over here this role is filled by ASTs or Advanced Skills Teachers. They are used in a similar way to ALTs in Japan - just that the government doesn’t leave the training up to Genki English! The way the AST deals with the classroom teachers is a good role model for elementary school ALTs.
There’s also one more video called “Activity Based Learning“. It wouldn’t seem to be the most exciting thing on the planet, and a few of the ideas are considered a little old fashioned, but you can see how kids do indeed get a great deal from language classes and are really focussed on the lesson - or maybe this is the influence of the TV cameras?? ; )
Last week I updated several of the CD1,2&3 worksheets as the printed book needed reprinting. Today I uploaded them on to the site so people who previously bought the CD set can get hold of them.
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