After the snow of Ukraine last week, and after new workshops this year in Vietnam, it was one more brand new country this week with the amazing island of Cyprus.

And with loads of fantastic Genki English fans, teacher trainers and even a Tony Robbins graduate in the audience, it was a fantastic experience.

You girls were all amazing and here’s some of what we did …..

• We started with a Genki English review with Disco Warm Up  Ninja Tip:  In future lessons review all the lessons you’ve done
• Pair work hand signal – and especially all you CELTA graduates, remember TTT – Teacher Talking Time 🙂
• A little of my self introduction with Terracotta Army in China (would you like that job?),  classroom sizes in India  and students in Tanzania.
• L+1 and how much English to use in class – for you girls be particularly careful of saying really easy words in Greek.  If the kids know the word, you only ever use it in English from now on. Anything more complex of course is in Greek.
• Open Loops, the silent period and “English showers.”  – fine for everyday, not once a week.

Genki English Lesson Plan: 

1. Warm Up / Review ( 5 to 10 minutes)
2. Input with the computer and song ( 15 to 20 minutes)
3. Output with the classroom game ( 15 to 20 minutes)

• We tried with the What’s your name? song, but in German! – pronunciation comes from the computer,  listening several times to different intonations.
• And the stopwatch circle game for output.

 

• Plus Genki English Rule No.1 “I can do it!” plus Rule No. 2 “Losing means “Try Again!”

 

After the coffee break we did a mini Mastermind Session.

6 Minutes x 6 People on your greatest challenge in teaching, with the Genki Gram messages.  Always positive answers, always constructive.

One of the best ones was one of the teachers said “You have to love your students more.”     The reply was “I tried that!”   So we switched the thinking,  don’t be defensive, just let it in, explore what happens.   The next answer was “I have to love them more.”

That’s the way you take your school to the next level.

I wrote quite a few comments on these on the Kiev Workshop write up so do check those out.

Then in the next session we went through ….

• Facebook Superhero Videos: To show parents what you are doing.  Do you go to the school with just boring event details? Or the one with dozens of videos of the kids really speaking – and being passionate about what they are speaking about?
• A full stop means “4 seconds” pause.
• The kids learn to listen and support ALL their classmates.
• Let the kids’ natural words and creativity shine – that’s what the parents will see on your Facebook page.
• For advanced (i.e. brave) teachers:  Bill Gates’ flipped classroom and tech learning – your own branded Genki English software.
• Top 100 words in English and top 25 verbs in English.
• And we finished with a super gratitude session with What are you thankful for?

Ninja Tip: Just like Superhero,   What are you thankful for? also makes for great Facebook videos in November, and for December it’s “What would you like for Christmas?”  – again the other kids’ supporting words, sounds and claps are just as an important part of the videos!

On Day 2 I said I’d lock the door at 10 to make sure everyone got there on time.   And of course my car was late 🙂

And even more of course, I have to take responsibility.   Respect is never given to teachers anymore, we have to earn it.   And if we lose it like I did today, we have to work extra hard to earn it back. 🙂 Hence all the extra comments and things I’m adding in here!

• We started off with as much as I could of my “How to Double or Triple Your Income” business course, there are plenty of text articles here or for those of you who are really serious, check out my School Owners Coaching Program.  It’s not open at the moment ( “be unavailable” remember 🙂 ) But keep an eye on the blog for when I next open it!
• We played the “Telephone Game”  – practice it regularly so that you never have to sell.  You simply talk to the parents, get the emotional connection and they want to come.  No matter what your price.   (And remember the positive mindset from yesterday.   Don’t be defensive, just let it in and explore what happens 🙂 )
• And we also talked about Mairo Vergara in Brazil,  Michel Thomas, and Gwen Lee – the 500k a year teacher.

 

After the break we did some more song / game pairs:

• How are you? with the monster game.
• The pronouns song & dinosaur game – instantly we have multiplied the amount of phrases we can say from 16 to 128 – no textbook needed!
• Finally we finished with Summer Sports and how to use gestures to teach the past tense in 5 minutes
• Add gestures to as much as you can to make the grammar so easy.
• Plus we started the 5 W Questions, remember lifestyle first, then let’s fit the teaching around it – with the tips from this morning the income will take care of itself.

And then in the final session we finished with:

 

•  Genki Phonics – Genki Phonics was designed to take the same root as the best UK systems, hence getting the amazing results of increasing reading age by up to 2 years,  but make them for non-native speakers  i.e. only using the vocab they already know.   Plus you only need one sheet of A4 instead of boxes of materials (that easily get lost 🙂 )
• Phonics (and all reading and writing) only comes *after* the kids can speak.   Ninja Tip:  Do you get dressed and then get in the shower?

 

• See the Phonics Page for all the sounds and gestures.  And those of you who have the Teacher’s Set you have full access to the phonics program too.

 

• You girls were pretty good at all the sounds,  just be careful of the short vowels – make them really, really short with the help of the gestures e.g. i
• And make sure there is no “uh” sound at the end of the sounds e.g. it’s not “suh”  but “s”  and not “Tuh” but a very short “t”     Let the kids make the sounds and keep getting them to try them until you hear they are correct.

And we finished with a super quick Discipline Run Down with all the discipline tricks we’ve learn this weekend.

And a special bonus run down of Life Ki Do techniques  – yes, that’s the same “ki” as “genki”    It means “energy”  And genki means fun, exciting and full of life!

And the advanced Genki English Better than the best of the best

So that was pretty fantastic.  

Even in the heat, and even with very, very long days you girls made it to the end and went through enormous transformations.

Saturday was all about breaking down everything we thought we knew,  like the seedling breaking out from it’s shell,  and hopefully Sunday was building you up, showing you the tools, goals and especially mind set to make a huge difference for your students.

So in your courses do Genki English first.

Get the kids to be awesome speakers.  With no textbook.

Then do Genki Phonics to get them reading.

And then you can move on to teach what you are really passionate to teach,  be that textbooks or creative writing or robotics or whatever you wish.

And the exams?

And then you use the exams to measure how far you’ve come.

Just like karate, the exams aren’t the goal,  your goal is to aim for the moon.  The exams just show you when you’ve got there.

Cherish the friends you’ve made this weekend, work together, mastermind regularly and you’ll take English education in your schools, and whole island,  to a whole new level!

You can do it!

Be genki,

Richard

P.S. I’m in Larnaca for an extra week doing computer work, so if any of you want to meet up for a coffee and chat, give me a shout on Facebook Messenger,  it’s always nice to take a quick break away from the computer.   And I think maybe there might be a dinner on Thursday, check with Maria. 🙂