Hello,

Everyone has different preferences and combinations of how they learn.

* We all need to hear the new words.

* Most of us need to see it.   (With flashcards, not writing just yet)

* And many of us need to feel it. (With gestures and actions)

So the more of these we can introduce in class the more students we’ll have getting full marks and speaking fluently.

So that’s why we start as lesson 1 with the Genki Disco Warm Up. 

All we do is to give the students commands and get them to do them whilst saying them back to you!

Start off with the obvious like

*Stand up
*Sit down
* Hands up  (I do this like cops & robbers with both arms – the kids love it!)
*Hands down

Then add in some “success education” hints like

* Bow

Why bow?  Because whenever someone bows the people watching smile
or applause! It’s a great motivation boost for kids.

Here’s a quick run through of how to do with explanations …

And here’s a video of me with my real classes

(Here I speak their language so it’s much easier to do,  so whilst it’s always best to learn their language you can get by as long as you try and learn a little each day.  And yes, I learnt Genki Japanese in exactly the same way as I teach my students Genki English, so you can see it works for adults too 🙂 )

Be genki,

Richard

P.S.  I say “kids” in these messages a lot because helping kids enjoy and succeed at school is my main aim.   But nearly all of this you can use with all your age groups.  In fact this technique I used in my TEDx talk to a huge response!