OK, so the aim of today’s workshop was to get the teachers able to teach on their own. The plan was quite simple:

1) Put them in groups of three or four.
2) Give them a printed copy of the curriculum in Japanese and 45 minute lesson plan and let them choose a theme to teach
3) Look on the website for the lesson plan and game explanation ( using the Songs/Themes menu at the top of the page)
4) Use the CD software to practise in their group
5) Present the demo lesson to everyone else.

So after a small warm up I got them sat down at the computers and told them to go to www.GenkiEnglish.com. To which they all had blank faces saying “eh, what do you mean?”. Apparently they had never used the internet before. These are all qualified elementary school teachers at a school with a fully equipped computer room. Ah. So after getting the computer teacher to explain where to type in URLs ( they were doing things like typing “genki” into Yahoo kids and wondering why the screen was different from mine), we eventually got them on the Genki English site. At this point I was rather worried that 3 hours maybe isn’t enough! Teachers who can’t use the internet…. Japan: the land of hi-teach?

Anyway once they’d figured it out they were quite happy reading about how to teach the song, and checking the photos of the gestures. The first three groups chose Good Morning ( really easy), colours ( again easy) and How much? ( a little tougher). And they actually did really well. Pedagogically it wasn’t the best lessons ever, but for a first attempt they did good. They quickly realised the importance of preparation ( something they said they had no time for before), and how easy it is to use the Genki English software and mini-lessons, which freed them up to do the real teacher’s job which is motivating the students. They made lots of mistakes, but I made sure the atmosphere was one where they could do that frequently ( by praising the ones who did make mistakes), and in the kanso ( feedback) time there was lots of honest criticism that was picked up by the next group and lots of “I’m glad I tried it because I would have never thought of that” or that “It was scary at first, but quite easy once you get into it”. They also noticed the need for lots of communication if you have more than one teacher. Excellent. I was also really happy that they turned out quite proficient lessons, certainly better than many of the usual demo lessons you see in elementary schools, and with practise they’ll be cool.

Then lunch.

Then in the afternoon another 4 teachers joined who were still very much in the “I know nothing” mode, so I made new groups with one new person in each group, got them to choose a new theme and they did it again, this time choosing What’s the weather like?, How did you get here?, Doctor Doctor & How are you?. They made a few more mistakes this time ( after lunch tiredness!), like missing out the mini lesson acapella step and just playing the song, hence everyone was doing the “eh? what are we supposed to do?”, but they quickly realised so went back and redid the lesson correctly and the difference was really noticeable. Lesson learned. In the warm ups they also included the precious themes as a review and they could see that not only their English, but their genkiness was getting better and better.

So a really good day. Going from terrified teachers who couldn’t use the internet to being able to do a basic Genki English lesson was really something to see. It made a huge difference doing things in the computer room as they could look on the website in groups, and having a student pack license for the CDs meant they could all use the software at the same time. Although actually even if you just had the Superpack you could do a similar thing, you’d just have to make sure that each group used a song from a different CD.

This week I was also really thinking about making printed lesson plans instead of the web based ones, as teachers had requested them. But what I found out today was that they can use the net based lesson plans ( and especially the photos are useful), but it’s actually entering URLs and finding websites that is the problem!

If you’d like to add to this post, have a look at the Genki English forum.