Gestures for Days & School Subjects

Thanks to everyone who came to the huge workshop this weekend! Β Unfortunately the university didn’t have permission to post the videos online, but here are a couple from last week’s workshop in Fukuoka.

The first is how to teach the “No Saturday?” mix of the Days of the Week song. The basic ideas is that you just jump as you sing the days, then “forget” the last one, so the kids shout out “Saturday!” Β  Younger kids really do think you’ve forgotten, and the older kids do it like here where it’s more like a pretend game! Β Using the “Sorry?” really makes a huge difference!

(Usually kids don’t repeat the “yeah!” they usually just Β shout out the “Saturday!”)

The next one is for the School Subjects song. As is usual with new songs, I just have some rough ideas for you, then as it gets used more I’m sure someone will come up with some much better ideas!

Here the teachers thought of their own gestures, which always helps make the English the students’ own thing!

(It’s also generally not a good idea to have students clap along with the music, it just makes it hard to hear and everyone eventually falls out of time. Β Gestures are always much better!)

If you are in Tokyo this weekend do come along to the Final Tokyo Ninja Bootcamp of the year, there are still a couple of places Β left (as of today) and you’ll leave with a ton more energy and some amazing new ideas!

Richard Graham

Hello, I'm Richard Graham. When I was a kid I found school to be sooooo boring... So I transformed my way of teaching. I listened to what the kids were really wanting to say and taught it in ways they really wanted to learn. The results were magical. Now I help teachers just like you teach amazing lessons and double your incomes!