Although we take it for granted, telling the time is quite a tricky task.  Especially when we have so many ways of doing it in English.

So it’s always best to split it into chunks in separate lessons.   This is how we do it:

1. What time is it? Part 1 with numbers + o’clock (and the Mr Wolf game!  This is also the reason why the genki numbers lesson goes from 1 to 12 instead of just 1 to 10)
2. What time is it? Part 2 with 1 0h 5, 2:10, 3:15 etc.  

You can of course do them one after another or split them up amongst other themes if it gets a bit tough for the students ( there’s a big cognitive load with these!)

And then once the students have mastered those, and they are the most important to learn first, then you can try the tricky one, ¼ past, ½ past etc.!

This theme is still in testing so you can try it out above and let us know how your students get on with it.  (Right click for full screen!)

Once we’ve got all your feedback, made any changes and got it upto the 99% success rate we’ll then add it to the Teacher’s Set  and full curriculum. 

The Lesson Plan is really easy (just like all the other Genki English themes!)

1. Warm up with a Review of everything you’ve done so far.
2. Input: Teach the new language using the “words” & “song” section of the software above.  Get the kids to make the arm movements to make it easier to remember.  Then everyone sings along in a big, huge voice to get the new language firmly stuck in their muscle memory.
3. Output:  Practice the language using a genki game (there are lots of genki time games you can use on the What time is it? Part 2 page!)

You can check out Virginie’s students doing the song here!

Plus if you are flipping your classroom you can assign the software as homework the week before so everyone comes to class already knowing the new language, whatever their ability, and then you spend more class time using it in the games and checking any mistakes!

Do let me know what your students think of the lesson,  sometimes we hit a home run and the kids love it straight away.  And sometimes like with the Superhero song we have to go backwards and forwards a few times to get the right version!