Today was really cool, it was the first time this year that instead of a “demo lesson” I actually did a full on Genki English show!! The whole idea of these shows was, if you only have one time in a school ( which I used to have when I used to volunteer at schools that didn’t have JETs), then how can you get the most out of the hour? And what I came up with was getting them confident and teaching them some basic phrases they can use straight away, that the Japanese teachers can then review and build on.

And today for the first time I also did the show with the CD software and a projector, and it worked great. It’s so nice being able to go at things 100% at the kids pace, rather than having to hold back so the teachers can follow! And it worked great, they plowed through the Warm Up, got all the confidence points straight away, did Rock, Paper, Scissors, then were shouting out to try again when I “failed” them on the Left & Right song. In Rock, Paper, Scissors we do the “Losing just means try again” point, then in “left and right” I tell them they weren’t as good as the last school and they go crazy wanting to prove they can do it even better! And the improvement is really unbelievable. Then “What’s your name?” to finish.

The PTA and also reporters where there ( and my Mum who came to watch!), and the best thing was seeing the kids who before the show looked in shock when my Mum spoke to them, but then afterwards were running up to her to say “Nice to meet you!” and having the older kids doing janken in English amongst themselves. That’s a nice days work.

But then to make sure things continue the teachers have to follow up. Several of the teachers attended my workshops in Summer, and today was to get the skeptics on board! But they were great, I got them teaching themselves in groups, and the best things was I didn’t need to do the “English is easy” speech, they came out with it themselves. “There is some tough English, but what we have to teach here is quite doable”. Nice. Start off in the shallow end and gradually work your way out to sea. So a great day, and then they took us out for dinner to a fantastic restaurant with all you can eat freshly baked bread!