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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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There’s no doubt that speakers of English in Sweden are much, much more advanced than in many other countries. The question is why?
The answer most people give is TV. It does seem that unlike the FIGS countries (France, Italy, Germany and Spain) and larger Asian countries that there is less localisation of programmes and also, admittedly just from a quick glance, less banal quiz show type programmes. From the brief time I flicked on the TV, all I saw were subtitled English programmes and movies. And of course if you are a kid you are simply going to learn the English rather then read the subtitles.
This is similar to the reasoning behind “extensive reading” in Asian countries, just give the kids lots and lots of input. Although from my experience TV seems much more effective.
Travel and study abroad are also often mentioned. Especially as Swedes tend to mix more easily and tend not to cling together to fellow nationals as many other peoples do.
Plus there are things like the similarity of the alphabet and common words in both languages. But this is also the case for the FIGS countries where the level of English is generally much lower.
I also think there are a couple of other things in play.
One is how even the advanced speakers in Sweden are always learning. We all know that fear of making mistakes is a big problem with many adult learners. But here people would just guess a word then ask if it was right. It usually was of course, but they weren’t afraid to just try and risk getting it wrong. Every time they do make a mistake they do learn a new word. Even the most fluent speakers were doing this all the time.
Plus of course there’s also the fact that just about everything is advanced in Sweden. Design, social thinking, parenting, everything points to it being one of the most advanced societies on Earth so speaking English is maybe just a small part of that!
One of the main things I feel is the self fulfilling prophesy that as so many people do speak English, everyone just sees it as something normal.
Before Roger Bannister ran the 4 minute mile everyone thought it was impossible, immediately afterwards it seemed everyone was doing it. The same applies here, the kids learn English because it’s just something you do. Whereas in many other countries, especially Asia, non-English speaking experts fill the screens with tales of how impossible English is to learn. Here one Grandfather told me “yeah, kids just listen a lot then one day start speaking”.
President Kennedy got America to the moon not because they knew how to do it, but because they didn’t know it couldn’t be done.
Any thoughts? Please share them on the forum…
So that was my first visit to Sweden. Well, unless you count the time I was invited by a Swedish Princess to the Swedish island on the Switzerland/German border. But that’s a different story…
For most of today I was actually held up in my hotel trying to catch up on my emails, they don’t half build up after a week.
Now I’m just about to catch my $10 flight to Liverpool, which I guess sounds just as cool as Stockholm and don’t you just love the prices of Europe’s cheap air tickets. Then I’m heading off to see my Mum and hopefully getting my vaccinations and visa for India’s workshops next month!
This week I took my day off looking around Stockholm. It is a very, very nice European capital city. I also chose the right time of the year, it was warm but not hot and just right for a walk around town.
I’m staying in the Rica Hotel which has the most amazing location, right next to the fresh fruit and vegetable market. Unlike many European markets it looked like it was out of a picture book, everything was impeccably displayed and smelt amazing.
Then a walk down the long, pedestrianised main shopping street (it’s a great place if you need to do some shopping). And into the old town of Gamla Stan. This is the picturesque heart of the city, and is really, really nice.
I arrived just in time to see the Swedish Changing of the Guard, which was cool and also had a look round the shops in all the cobbled back streets.
Mind you at one point I turned a corner and was in China! There were hundreds and hundreds of Chinese students waving massive Chinese flags to promote the Olympics right outside the parliament building. The Swedish ceremonial soldiers did look a little out-of-place and quite “quaint” compared with the dynamism of the Chinese swarm of people.
Then a little more looking around the harbours and things. Admittedly any city looks nice in the sunshine, but I really like Stockholm. Southern Europe could also learn a thing or two about how to keep a city clean, it looks like everyone was taking a pride in the city.
If you like photography the old town is very photogenic.
Ryanair and other low cost airlines run flights here and I would imagine it would look amazing at Christmas time!
I don’t think I’ve ever had such a long day for a while. Luckily a good night’s sleep set me up for ….
6:30 AM Business Network International Breakfast
Business brain on and a posh breakfast, Great to see everyone so positive and helpful, and they quickly learnt how to use the word “Genki”. I even had someone ask me for a workshop!
9:00 AM First Demo Lesson of the Day
3 and 4 year olds, usually a tough age group to teach. But Good Morning, Left & Right and Do you like..? ( including the game) went perfectly. Amazing.
10:00 AM Second Demo Class 9 and 10 year olds.
Again another age group that can go either way, good or bad, especially in Europe where cheekiness reaches heights unheard of in Asia. But no worries, these were a perfect class, asking tons of questions, being very impressed with my photos of Japan, Hong Kong etc. and they did brilliantly on the What’s your name? and I can do it songs. As this is Sweden, by the time the kids get to this age half the class are fluent and half the class are very good. So rather than the English, the main aim was the same as in native English speaking countries, namely confidence (including eye contact) and the Genki English rules of “I can do it!” and “Try again!
10:45 AM Third Demo Class 7 & 8 year olds
Always the easiest age to teach and apart from a couple of rowdy-ish boys they were perfect as well, with How old are you? + mingle, Under the Sea + Nemo Game (which isn’t pronounced the same in Swedish, but the kids picked up on it eventually!)
11:45 AM Recruitment at the local university
We set up a stall at the local university to try and recruit students to be trained as teachers for the programme. Plus we managed to grab a sandwich to eat.
And we probably should have left it there. But we didn’t and….
2:30 PM Fourth Demo Class - total disaster!
You wouldn’t believe it would you, after 3 perfect lessons. These were 5 and 6 year olds who are usually really easy classes, but they also brought in the 4 and 5 year olds from this morning. Things started OK-ish with Good Morning. Then I figured I’d try something a little more advanced with the new “I like animals” song. And they just didn’t get it! In the song the teacher says “I like kangaroos” and the kids reply “kangaroos?”. But they were so stuck in “repeat after me” mode that that’s all they did! This morning they were fine, but not here. And this was the most important class with parents, a video camera and other teachers there…. So we cut that song short and moved on to something super, super easy i.e. How are you? and the How are you? Monster game. And that didn’t work that will either - which is a first.
So it just goes to show that what I wrote yesterday is so true, some lessons just never go to plan. The 3 classes this morning were honestly perfect, I could have videod them as model classes. But hey, you win some you lose some.
So…
3:30 PM Checking Emails
5:00 PM A BBQ in the Sweden Forest
This was pretty cool. Swedish people may pay a lot of taxes but they do live very, very well. April in the snow covered mountains with the forest behind and the frozen river in front might seem like December, but with a fire burning away and very nice people to talk to it was really, really nice.
9:00 PM Flight to Stockholm
Amazingly efficient. The Arlanda Express to Stockholm is probably the best airport shuttle I’ve been on and the hotel checking was as smooth as good be.
12:30 AM Writing the blog
12: 45 AM I’m off to bed. Good night.
Yes, I just found out today that the town I’m in is Swedish Lapland. Which does sound very cool. Apparently they have more snowmobiles than cars up here, as well as ice roads across the sea and the famous Ice Hotel nearby.
I’m up here because Northern Languages are introducing after school clubs based on Genki English. This evening we had a taster session for parents, and a few teachers. After a little warming up even the usually serious (as I’m told!) Swedish parents were singing the Genki Disco Warm Up, How are you? and the Thank You song and playing the How are you? Monster game and were happily smiling away. I couldn’t explain as much as I usually do for parents workshops, but they seemed to get what it was all about.
The rest of the day had been going through the GE curriculum with Melinda, the owner of Northern Languages. With all the materials spread out across the site it can be difficult to figure out exactly how to make a full programme out of Genki English and Melinda was having this problem.
Probably the easiest thing to do in that situation is to download the Lesson Plans Book and follow the order and suggested games that are in there. Once you’ve done each lesson a couple of times you can also have a look at each theme’s page to get some more ideas that may work better (or worse!) in different situations. The Online Video Workshop is also a must.
Flexibility is a big part of things, for however well we plan, lessons involving kids hardly ever turn out like we imagined. (And I find this out tomorrow!)
After catching the opera last night (it was good to see Tosca in Rome), it was up early and on the flights to northern Sweden.
And I must say I am very impressed! It may be because I’ve just spent the last month in wonderful but graffiti ridden Italy, but Sweden is just so clean, fresh, friendly and efficient. I always thought the best new airports were in Asia, but Arlanda got my bags out really quick, got the new ones checked in super fast and they even have award winning food.
Then it was the trip up north. I don’t think I’ve ever been this north before (see the map!) I’ve been assured it’s not quite in the arctic circle, but looking out from the plane the sea was frozen! But even up here everything is clean, very nicely designed and everyone is very, very friendly.
Tomorrow should be good.
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