Amaaaazzzing Teachers in Italy!! – Here’s what we did!

 

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Wow, you girls and and guys were astounding!    After seeing you all on Facebook and emails it was so good to finally meet so many of you and all at the same time in the same place, it was such an energising experience!!

The local primary school teachers were totally freaked out to see where had you all come from and how passionate you all were! 🙂

Thank you for travelling in from all over Italy, and flying in from all over Europe, and for all you amazing questions – you are seriously, seriously at the top of your game!

Here’s just a little bit of what we did! 🙂

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– Task on the board before we start each session (saves you hours of teaching time each year!)

The Agreement – so everyone knows the rules of the workshop – respect everyone, and always tell me when you don’t understand! 🙂

Disco Warm Up – always go for the challenge!

– A quick tour around India, Africa, Thailand.

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What’s your name? song – strong eye contact and confident gestures from the start.

What is “Shy” and how to cure it  + how to make diamonds not coal.

– Your mind controls your body,  but your body also controls your mind with Superhero gestures and presentation skills!

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 Remember how I did it?

– Which then leads into video projects  – such as the amazing soup exchange!

Vocal warm up  to protect your voice.

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How old are you?  (remember how I old I said you all were!) + Mingle game

– Efficiency, let’s learn the top 100 words first.  (I’ll blog the list soon! 🙂 )

Then after a very nice Italian  lunch ….

Summer sports + clap, clap game  change just one word and you have the past tense!

Pronouns song – remember how we did grammar just using gestures!

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Baby Dinosaur – for irregular past.

Genki Korean to see what it is really like for the students!

Better than the best of the best.  – always choose positive words at the end of the lesson- “I have to” goes to “I can!”

 

– And we finished off with the Indian students’ project, Do flowers fly

And Italian dinner….

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Day 2!

Then if that wasn’t enough head exploding for one day, we went into day 2!!

Good Morning song – I can’t believe how genki you all still were after yesterday! 🙂

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Secret Warm Ups – review everything & forget nothing!

– The Hammer Game and Lines Game to evaluate students in summer camps.  (Who’s going to win? 🙂 Genius!! )

Doctor Doctor song and game

45 minute lesson plan and curriculum

– Plus Ninja Tips for goal setting  – what do you want to achieve with your camps and courses!

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– Then a massive, top secret, closed door, no videos allowed session on how to get more students than you ever imagined.  A  few little hints are here  but I hope you took note of the gold that was in all the amazing advice from the other teachers there!

Ninja Tip:  The BBC have just done a great story about Nutella:

They could have played on different universal values like, ‘This is cheap, this is affordable, this can substitute chocolate.’ No, they played upon,’This is natural, it contains nuts so it’s better than those that don’t contain them.'”

 Remember you have no competition, no one can ever teach like you do.  Show the parents the emotion, the passion, the life changing experience you will bring to their children.    There are hundreds of android phones, but only 1 iPhone!

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Good cat, Bad Cat  (Which did seem to never end, but you were all totally on the ball!)

Where is it?  and I am a robot song.  

– And finally Genki Phonics – remember the sounds come from the kids and start phonics as late as possible!    (It was also really cool to hear all the “Woooo!” comments from the  Italian teachers  as we had so many UK, US and Australian vowel sounds in the room too!: )

Head exploding! 

Wow, that was a lot – and with so many chats and questions and stories in between that I hope you took notes on because there were so many!!

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I had actually planned to premiere a few vol. 14 songs for you,  but all the questions you were asking were just fantastic, and all the advice you were giving each other was just pure diamonds and gold!

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Thank you so, so much for being so passionate and putting so much into everything you do.

And a huge, huge, huge thank you to Monica for her herculean effort in putting all this on, and thanks to the school, the headmaster,  the board of education, our fantastic cameraman and all the local primary school teachers.

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I hope you took away a few jewels of advice,  the names and emails ( + Facebook) of many new friends,  and memories of a wonderful weekend.

I know I did and I have no doubt that every single one of you is going to go on and upwards and do even more amazing things in the future.

Grazie mille, keep in touch, I’m heading off to workshops in Slovakia next weekend and I’m sure we’ll all see each other again soon!!

Be genki,

Richard

 

Richard Graham

I'm on a mission to make education Genki—fun, exciting, and full of life! Genki English has now been researched by Harvard University and licensed by the British Council around the world. The results have been magical! Now I'm here to help you teach amazing lessons, with all the materials prepared for you, and to double your teaching income so you can sustainably help many more students in the future!

5 Responses to “Amaaaazzzing Teachers in Italy!! – Here’s what we did!”

  1. Julia

    Wow! The workshop in Italy has taken place already!
    Well done Richard!

    I wish I could be there, too!
    Following you on blog!

  2. Alessandra

    Dear Richard
    This workshop was an amazing experience, I’m so happy that you decided to share your inspiring thoughts with us! You really made this week-end an extraordinary experience.
    Thank you very very much – so sorry we didn’t get the preview of vol. 14 – can’t wait to hear/see it !!!!

  3. Margit

    Looks GREAT! Are they learning Japanese there or Calligraphy???Nice writings!

    The room looks challenging~I had a constellation like this in February (slope of 15-20m with people on the left and right hand side) and I found it very tough to keep eye contact with “everyone” . Would be great to hear what you did here (except from running up and down) and how you managed, so next time I can be better.

    Also I am surprised teachers are taking notes~this is not your style usually; so what made you change your mind here?

    You see, I’m very curious~ these are all points coming up when giving workshops, so I would be happy to hear about your thoughts.

  4. Richard

    Thank you Alesandra and Julia! 🙂

    @Margit: Room wise, yeah it was tough. Basically lots of moving up and down. And … telling the ones who got back early from breaks it was OK to steal the chairs from the front people who weren’t back yet! 🙂
    We also had 20 more people than I was expecting! 🙂

    Notes wise…. First time in Italy so we had all the best Genki English teachers from all over the country (and continent!) who’ve been using it for ages. They were asking amazing questions so we were running off in different (advanced) directions all the time – we got into projects in the middle of the first morning!! Plus, in the business segment they were coming up with even more fantastic suggestions, tips & ideas than even I had, so I was getting everyone to write down as much as they could!! You would have loved it Margit, and Julia too!! 🙂 And actually we need to get you on their Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/groups/576010569155667/

  5. Jaynie

    Wow;looks and sounds like you had an amazing time teaching and sharing.Thanks for always keeping us updated.

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