Update: This offer has now finished! But you can now purchase vol. 13 or join in with the VIP beta test of the latest lessons!
It’s 2013 so that means I’m hard at work on Genki English vol. 13!
Lots of very cool stationery, pronouns, past tense and phonics lessons will hopefully be coming your way soon.
But …. as it’s going to take a little while to get all the software done, in the spirit of “better to get it out there than stuck on my hard drive” VIP Members can download all the mp3 songs along with a very nice selection of picture cards and flash cards for free right now.
If you’re not a VIP member yet, can get your Download Pack and you join us too.
But BE QUICK, once vol. 13 gets officially released these will be all paid for downloads – and the Download Pack will go up in price!
Enjoy and do let me know what you think in the comments!
Be genki,
Richard
P.S. The winner of last month’s comment competition was ….. Deena! If you’d like to win a Genki English CD of your choice just keep commenting on the blog, the more you comment the more chances you have of being picked out as the winner. And actually, you can’t buy the Genki English CDs anymore, this is the only way to get the one you want! 🙂 Will it be you this month?
Hi Richard,
Otsukaresama!
Wow!
I really like the dinosaur song.
Now, question:
Does this all mean, that you are open to any more requests of topics and songs? Or are you already set with what’s going to be on there?
If A: Where to put up requests? Which direction would you like this 13 to go?
I look forward to listening to these songs today after work. Let me just say, not only my students, but my kids love your songs as well!!! At the moment, I am doing a winter theme with the baby monkey song and I introduced the thank you song at the end of the class, and everyone in my family, even my wife who happened to overhear it, had those songs spinning around our heads all day!!!
I have a couple of comments. I love May I Borrow Your…. Second, I love being able to have Whose is it? in iBooks on the iPad. What else is there for iPad?
I also have a third comment. If you remember me, you probably remember that I have “different” ideas about how things should be done. I know that it is late to mention this, but I will anyway. (I may have mentioned it to you before, but I don’t think so. I mention it every chance I get in case anyone “bites.”) My husband is Japanese. He is really fast at this times tables. He told me that that is because of the way he was taught to memorize them. I don’t know if this is typically the Japanese way or if this was just his Japanese teacher’s way. Anyway, he learned the times tables without the words “times” and “equals.” So 1 1 1, 1 2 2, 2 2 4, 9 9 81 (or maybe it was 9 9 8 1, I never asked). I’d love to see times tables set to music this way. I feel that they would really click for a lot of kids that way, would be easier to memorize (I know this would work for me). It seems to me that putting in the “times” and “equal” words makes them harder to memorize because so many different numbers follow those words. It could be 2 x 6 = 4 or anything and because 6 does follow x in some places and 4 does follow = in some places. But, although the first 2 can be followed by something other than 2, 2 2 is always followed by 4 and 2 6 is followed by something else (and so on). My older mathematically gifted son was very slow at memorizing his times tables. I’m sure he didn’t really know them at least until he was 13 and taking College Algebra. That’s why I got interested in ways to teach them. I feel that, if everybody didn’t try to teach the same things in the same ways all of the time, there would be better fits for some of our kids, both gifted, typical, and special needs. Maybe this way would make learning the times tables easier for all kids and maybe not, but I’m sure it would make learning them easier for some. There are way too many versions of the times tables songs already, and yours works the same way they all do (the easy to forget way); I’d like to see you set yours apart from the pack and do something different. Maybe you could ask some of the Japanese teachers you work with if they teach the times tables the “American” way or if they teach them the way my husband learned them in Japan in the early 60s.
Thanks everyone for the comments!
@Stephen: Cool!
@Margit: These are just the ones that are furthest along and nearest completion, always open to new requests, and you can put them up here if you like!
@Janice: Didn’t get many biters for ipad versions so that’s the only one I’ve done (so far!) Interesting thoughts about the times tables, *lots* of things to think about in that space – doing maths materials is *way* more complex than language ones! 🙂
Richard, I’m surprised the iPad versions aren’t popular (yet)–just wait. Over here in the U.S., iPads in education, especially special education, is the hottest thing. And your songs and videos begin to fill in a niche that no one else that I know of in special education is even competing to fill. Materials available for special education have huge gaps in them. I don’t know how many special education teachers/parents in the US even know you exist, but they all should be using your products for kids who need help with language. Your products are great for helping kids make the leap from vocabulary to phrases and sentences–in a musical way (and using a musical way really helps some kids). Math doesn’t lend itself to musical interpretation in quite the same way language does; I think you are very limited in what you can accomplish in that area. But, here is another math idea I sometimes think about. Along with the idea I mentioned on the times tables, what about using a specific musical note for each number. 2 2 4 might be B B D (or whatever; I don’t know anything about music). This may be my own original idea, but it was inspired by a girl I saw on YouTube or read about or something somewhere many years ago. (I occasionally try to do a search to find the information but with no success.) As I remember the story, a girl created a spelling program for her sister (who I think had autism or maybe Down syndrome). Each letter of the alphabet had its own note. Her sister learned to memorize her spelling words because she found musical note sequencing easy to learn. Something like that. Consistent notes or sounds to represent specific numbers might add another aspect to help in memorization.
I can see you using sounds instead of notes, something silly!
Hi Richard!
Thank you for your great job!
All songs are nice and also are the flashcards.
I’m happy to use them at my lessons!
Hi Janice!
As for difficulties with remembering the timestables kids have nowerdays, we also have them here in Russia, although there are no ‘times’ and ‘equals’ words there.
I think the reason for that is the enormous information scope kids have to learn at school everyday.
40 years ago schoolchildren had much more time as for learning the timestables, as for practicing their handwriting. And what is more important there were no digital devices then.
Modern kids believe what is easy to find (e.g. with the help of iPad) is no need to remember.
But remembering things is essential for people. We can help modern kids remember something only involving their all sences (like computers do). And this is exactly what Richard does 🙂
By the way, my daughter also didn’t know the timestables before she was a teenager, she added numbers all the time. But then as I see it she got bored doing it that way and make herself learn the timestabels.
Maybe, it’s the same what your son did? 🙂
Best regards,
Julia
I agree with Janice,
I have also learnt my times tables as a kid without the “times” and the “equals” and it sticks better:ie.
six eights are forty-eight, six nines are fifty-four
Love the other Songs in vol 13.
I would love to see you extend the Family side to include: uncle, aunt, Cousin maybe even godparent etc
Maybe for younger Kids a Topic on the “Playground” ie swing, slide, sea saw, sand pit, climbing Frame. Anything that gets Kids outside and in the fresh air as opposed to on the Wii and Computer.
Keep up the excellent work Richard. You are unbelieveable.
Janice,
I agree with you NOT to teach only one way!
I agree with Richard, that it is much more complex to consider and create math materials.
The timetables your husband learned is not old fashioned, it is the Japanese style, all kids learn here.
I agree that, though it’s tough while learning it, they become really fast and most 2nd latest 3rd graders are much faster answering a math problem, than me, going 4,8,12,16,20…
but this may be because they are just doing all the time now and I am hardly at all.
But I think it depends on what you want: just memorization, or picturing and understanding? If you’d see the kids in second grade here at school do their timetables, backwards and forward, you can be impressed or shocked. My Japanese is good, and I usually don’T have any problems with speed either, but this is a bit like some prayers in church, or …well, you really just can follow it after tough training.
Well, look here what it looks like, even for those not understanding the language you will agree that this is VERY fast!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aG0n0u4T64
Richard,
I am still not too happy teaching the very important adjectives. Of course I’m using “I have a question” and ” Good not bad”. The kids like the games we play, but I always think it would be great to have something more exciting, more story like, or more conversational.
One phrase that’s pretty often used, I think is
“… is too …” Actually I used it a lot and thought the kids had understood but the other day I had them translate and they think it means “very”.
So, just playing with ideas:
This pencil is too short, I need/want/…a long one.(or: Do you have a long one? etc)
My car is too old. I’d like to get a new one.
etc, etc.
Hi Richard,
these are great – especially the dinosaur one is a great start to the past tense!!! Thanks.
As usual, I have to add my request for iPad versions and for flashcards without writing on them.
I wish you a healthy and happy 2013 and am looking forward to more wonderful Genki English.
Oh, well~and if could somehow get you into making a “Little Red Riding Hood” theme, like “The Gingerbread man”=or of course any other traditional story would be fine~ but I think it would be thrilling to have a story on the next coming out as well, even if it takes a bit time.
Margit,
Picturing and understanding math is critical, of course, but probably isn’t something you would want to teach kids in a language other than their own, so, yes, in the case of Genki English, I’m just thinking of memorization. Memorization of the times tables in Engish isn’t even important, but doing so should help create vocal fluidity when it comes to using numbers in English, so there is a purpose to having the times tables be part of Genki English. Of course, skip counting works well for that too (and lends itself to more fun songs I’ve noticed). Memorizing the times tables, even if set to music, is boring to a lot of kids as Julia pointed out. Working at memorizing anything can be boring, so thinking of ways to make the process easier and more fun can sure make it more motivating. (Although there is a lot to be said for learning to discipline yourself and just memorize them whether you like it or not, as Julia pointed out, our kids just need to know so much more now, just to get by, than they previously did, so I say that they can use all the help they can get.) That’s what’s so nice about Genki English; it makes the process easier and more fun by engaging multiple senses, and the more learning that can happen that way the better. My older son has a pretty good memory; he’s not lazy, but he likes to analyze rather than memorize. Geometry was child’s play; algebra wasn’t hard. Calculus was easy and fun, and linear algebra was absurdly easy. Then, when he hit differential equations his junior year of high school, he made a D. He repeated it the next fall and brought his grade up to a C. Why was it hard? Too much boring memorization, and he was to tempted to spend his time instead on the many more complex and intriguing studies which he came across. I nagged him some, but, really, I totally understood how he felt; I don’t want to be bored either.
Anyway, there might be some advantage to having Japanese kids learn the times tables in English in exactly the same way they are learning them in Japanese (just set to music), so Margit or someone, can you explain exactly how it works in Japanese. Is it 2 6 12 or 2 6 1 2 or 2 6s are 12 (as in the way Martina learned)? I know it is complicated by Japanese number forms that don’t exist in English, but it seems the process could be basically the same in both languages. Margit, I did listen to the video, but, even though I have a basic knowledge of Japanese numbers, I couldn’t catch how he was doing it because he was going so fast, and he was pretty quiet! I’m thinking that you could take a lot of the pain out of memorizing the tables by just playing the songs in the background and not paying attention. But, if you heard someone say 2 6, you would automatically think 12 because 12 would just sound right and nothing else would. To know how to come up with multiplication answers quickly , you have to bypass any logical thinking; it just needs to feel right.
Expanding on what Martina had to say about extending the Family vocabulary, I’d like to suggest that you can extent the relationship vocabulary in general. There are so many ways to explain, Who is that? My best friend, her best friend, his best friend, my brother’s best friend, my sister’s friend, a friend,a friend of a friend, their friend, a family friend, an acquaintance, someone I met at xxx, just someone I’ve seen around school, a kid in my class (or in my xxx class). And so on. Of course, you would need a much more organized list than I created above! This need to explain relationships is very important in conversation; it always comes up and not just in relation to family members.
Janice,
answering your question isn’t easy.
As you probably know there are many readings and expressions of numbers in Japanese, depending on what follows.
The timetables is like a poem.
For example, if you would really pronounce the numbers as they are usually read, it would be:
ICHI NI ga(=)NI or
1 2 = 2
SAN ROKU ga JUHACHI
3 6 =18
but in the timetables it is
ININgaNI
SABUROKU JUHACHI
and the (interesting)thing is that kids if they see 3X6, in most cases can’T come up with the answer quickly, so they have to sound it out as
SABUROKU JUHACHI (this word is only used for the timetables)
I think we can discuss about this a lot, and it depends on the purpose of it all. I’d also like to have some more material from GE for numbers, bigger numbers. Numbers are very essential.
But my English students would hate their lessons if I would have to do timetables in English.
Just imagining myself~being on an almost native level of Japanese~to remember the Japanese timetables? NO thank you! I have three kids, and they’ve all gone through it, and I worked a lot with them to practice with them. But saying SABUROKU JUHACHI just doesn’t help me at all in calculation or other math facts.
Just let me take the chance to recommend a few books to anyone interested:
“Learning to love math” by Judy Willis
same author:”How your child learns best”
“How the brain learns to read” by David A,Sousa
These books are great for any teacher, but if you have to deal a lot with special needs and learning difficulties I think they should be on the shelf.
Does anyone play the classic board game Guess Who in their classroom? The game has pictures of a number of people with different characteristics. One player has the answer to which of these people is the right one. The other players take turns asking questions about who it is. The player with the answer tells them if they are correct or not. For instance, a player may ask if they wear glasses. If the answer is no, all of the images of people with glasses are turned down. If the answer is yes, all of the people without glasses are turned down. Since there is a well-defined and fairly small list of questions that can be asked, it is well suited to teaching language. The questions involve hair color, gender, glasses or not, nose size maybe, just a few things like that. By a process of elimination, the player who first finds the right person is the winner. This is a game you can easily purchase, at least here in the US. I even found several online versions by Googling. (I thought of this game when Margit mentioned adjectives.)
If your kids love Guess Who, and, if you want to go through the trouble of making your own game, you can use this concept for other vocabulary. For instance, I once made a version based on family relationships and personal pronouns for use in a sign language class I taught to my kids and their friends. We had been studying family relation terms, the words “boy” and “girl” and the personal pronouns “he” and “she.” I gave all of the people on the gameboard names and had four generations that inter-married. I started with three couples; for the second generation, I put one or two kids for each couple and their spouses (who were not related to anyone else on the board). In the third generation, everyone married someone from one of the other two family lines (same generation), and they were on the gameboard twice, under their parents and next to their spouses (who were under their own parents). The fourth generation was only kids so no spouses, and they were on the gameboard twice, once under each of their parents. I think I got that right. Everyone had a short name so that the kids could easily use fingerspelling to ask questions about them. “Is she a girl?” YES “Is she Gabi’s daughter?” NO “Is she Gabi’s granddaughter?” YES Is she Rob’s daughter? NO Is she Sue’s daughter? YES Is she Ava? NO She is Ali! Of course it can go up or down in the generations. “Is she Sue’s Grandmother?” You can expand on the vocabulary by using words like wife, husband, daughter-in-law, and so on. You could even make it “illegal” to ask about certain relationships on a specific playing of the game in order to get the kids to expand their vocabulary instead of being able to lean on the use of the same terms over and over. (For instance, you can’t ask son and daughter, but you can ask son-in law or daughter-in-law grandparent or cousin.) To make the questions more complicated, my game could also include questions relating to color. Does he have red (or black or blond or brown) hair? Is her skirt yellow? Is his shirt red? Of course, a lot of logical thought had to go into arranging these people and into dressing them and coloring their hair, but, once that was done, it was great for language practice, both receptive and expressive, and it helped the kids become more fluent.
OK Margit, I’ll explain my purpose for bringing up the issue of times tables songs. There is a glut of times tables songs in English. And there now seem to be plenty of skip counting songs out there too. If I was to suggest that Richard do one or the other though, I’d suggest the skip counting songs for exactly the reason you mentioned: your English students would hate their lessons if you would have to do timetables in English. I’d suggest skip counting songs instead because skip counting lends itself to songs that are more fun, but it still gives practice in saying the numbers and can help kids think about multiples in English, and it includes practice in saying some of the higher numbers you are interested in covering but in a less boring and rigid way than by just introducing them by counting. But Richard did the opposite of what I would have suggested; he created yet another series of times tables songs. There is only so much you can do to make that fun; it’s not Richard that is boring, it’s the times tables. So, can he make it more fun, or more useful, or more unique? So I’m just trying to brainstorm on alternatives he can consider. He has a unique product in Genki English. Should he continue with the times tables songs as is? Should he forget it since it has been done in English so many times before? Or is there something he can do that is unique like the rest of what he creates? My idea on how to arrange the number words in the times tables is probably only relevant to the Japanese English-learner if it can be done in a similar-enough way to the way they are already learning the times tables so that there is some mental connection there. I see that that may not be possible now that I know more about it, but it may be possible. Can Richard create poetry out of the times tables? I won’t say no; he is very creative after all, but I’m not sure that even he can do it. But doing the times tables in this different way would be unique in the English-speaking world which might really be useful for us, but I guess this is not his market anyway. So I’d like to see what he creates in the area of math(s) be either uniquely interesting or uniquely helpful if not both. Richard, I think you need to give a lot of though to what you can do with math, and I’m just trying to get some kind of brainstorming going on this issue. Let’s have your teachers identify how they think the non-native English speaker can benefit from Genki English math songs. What do they need? They don’t need to memorize the times tables in English, or do they? But they do need to become fluent in the auditory aspect of English numbers. (I know there are Japanese ways to write numbers, but aren’t all Japanese students also fluent in Arabic numerals too? Am I wrong to assume that their math is typically done with the Arabic symbols just like ours is?) So thinking of the times tables in Japanese and visualizing them on paper and making use of them probably don’t need to involve English even if you are living in the English speaking world or going to an English university. Using numbers when speaking English is what needs to come fluidly, right? If he can identify exactly what teachers are trying to accomplish when it comes to numbers in English, this will give Richard more ideas as to how to make those things happen.
Thanks for the book suggestions, Margit. I’ve read quite a few on learning styles, but none in recent years, so I’m really ready to read a new one, and I’ve added “How Your Child Learns Best” to my Amazon shopping cart. (As I recall, “How Your Child is Smart” by Dawna Markowva was one of my favorites.) It’s been a while since I’ve read anything on teaching math to young children, but there are some great resources out there. The book I read most recently on teaching math was the Woodbine House book “Teaching Math to People with Down Syndrome and Other Hands-On Learners: Basic Survival Skills” (Book 1), but it didn’t really give me what I was looking for. I have a close friend with dyscalculia who doesn’t have autism (but leans in that direction) and who is a visual thinker like most people with autism are thought to be. She is a very “different” thinker and gives me quite a bit of insight into the visual mind, and, whenever she finds something related to math that clicks with her, she makes sure to mention it to me.
Janice,
thanks a lot for explaining.
Now I understand your main issue~to create something new and not an improvisation of something we have already.
This is in fact a good point.
I can see now that you chose the Japanese timetable (it’s called KUKU for 9 9) as an example for something new and not necessarily the way it needs to be.
Thanks also for the book recommendation as well.
I also do agree and hope that GE will become more common with teachers of special needs or kids with learning difficulties, native speakers and non. I use it with all my special need students as L2 and they get much more from it than only the language.
Not to say, that I am have the idea , if GE would be used as a standard in Kindergarten, the number of LD might go down.
Janice, I think you should share the Forum,.
Though it’s the same way of brainstorming it’s a pity as it is hard to find important past comments on here.
Hi Janice! Hi Margit!
Dear colleagues! I’ve followed your discussion with great interest and even with strain.
Janice,
I must admitt that I understimated the depth of your question first. Now I see that you’re guided by very serious considerations.
I agree that everything we do in the classroom must be meaningful and purposeful.
Actually times tables or any other problems with numbers at English lessons are not for learning counting as itself (as I see it), but for better learning English number words. So far as Multiple Intelligence Theory says that all people have eight mental capacities we as teachers should stimulate all of them in our kids to develop their intellectual potential.
As for learning the TIMES TABLES, I have to say, I’ve never thought about how to learn them in a different way, not the way I learnt them as a schoolgirl. We simply have to remember them and recite like poems. Unfortunately nowerdays schollchildren don’t spend much time learning times tables and poems as well.
But although we know about different learning styles and ways of motivation, the success of learning depends mainly on the learners themselves. And even primary schoolchildren must be taught to be responsable for their learning. I believe, that a conscious learner can help himself to learn everything. But how can we help our kids become conscious – that’s the question.
I agree with you Margit: there is much more in GenkiEnglish as simply English.
Thank you both colleagues for the books recommendations.
My best wishes to you,
Julia
Happy to see that another CD is about to be released… “my” children will be very excited to hear the news!
Some topic suggestions: daily routines (with do, does, doesn´t, don´t), was/were, something with healthy lifestyle (maybe as giving advice – you should /shouldn´t)…
…sure to be among the first people to buy it!
Wow, great comments and lots of insights into teaching multiplication. Well, times tables may have been done to death, but Richard’s Genki English song kicks all of them to the curve 🙂 By pure coincidence, my oldest son is learning the times tables in Japan at the moment, and even though he has to practice them every night, he says them so fast I can’t even check if he’s right or not!!! In saying that, my wife leaves me for dead when it comes to even the most simple arithmetic. Might have something to do with the fact that as soon as I started junior high school, I was given a calculator, and have never done math manually ever again!!! Let’s just say that the calculator app on my phone gets quite a workout!!!
I would totally dig more Genki English iPad or android apps out there. Richard, I definitely think you should consider apps for Android as well, especially with your popularity in developing countries. At the moment I am trying to introduce technology into my lessons to enhance my lessons, and more Genki English apps would be great!
As an aside, multiplication learning is usually based on rote learning, and is an auditory way of learning. However, what I find interesting about multiplication is that even though it is taught using auditory teaching methods, you do not have to say all the preceding times table values to get to the one you need. For example, an example of auditory learning is the months of the year;
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
And that has twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year.
In order for me to find out how many days are in February, I have to say all of the preceding lines to get to that part. However, with multiplication, you just get to what you need: 5 times 5 is 25. Haven’t really thought about why this is before, but this thread got me thinking….
Hi Stephen!
As for learning styles (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic), here are some cool links for those who are learning or teaching times tables:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuPVIFF-z9M
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/385234/cool_9_times_table_trick/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZs1MFhF9i8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LvE8936-Ks
Enjoy,
Julia
I really liked the dinosaur song too. It might be an interesting review for the kids if it were recorded in the present tense as well. The lyrics seem to work–at least in my head.
I really liked baby dino song!It’s really effective! Thank you soooo much for this tool!!!
I`d like to echo previous comments concerning apps for the ipad, I think that would be great. Also, it would be fantastic if the songs were available for download on iTunes too. I would love the option to cherry pick individual songs which would be most useful for me rather than buying the whole CD.
I totally agree regarding the iPad apps, not only for the songs bit also the entire programm! The amount of families with iPads has grown exponentially lately and I’m sure they would download the lessons one by one or an entire set of 5 let’s say, that they could choose. There are illimited possibilities!!!
Another suggestion regarding the phantastic May I Borrow song: why not record the same song with Can You Lend Me as an alternative? In German we use the same words for both, so even adults never know which one to use in English.
I tried it yesterday, gave a group of wild boys who say they don’t like singing some toy microphones and they turned into rock stars and asked to sing it over and over!! For the Of Course part, they went wild! It was so much fun and the parents who were waiting outside were really impressed that I got them to sing that way! Thanks Richard! 🙂