Here’s a video to show how to teach Genki English in a 45 minute lesson plan. (Click here if you are on email and can’t see the video!) The written version is here and the individual lesson plans are here.
As you can see there are 3 main steps:
1) Warm Up & Review
2) New English with the Song
3) Practice with the Classroom Game
Hopefully the video will give you a better idea of how everything flows together to get fantastic results for your kids!
Here is the software I mention in detail:
And here is a video of the warm up in action:
Any questions or comments, please ask away in the comments!
P.S. It’s the last few days of the comment competition, where I pick out a random comment to win a Genki English CD of your choice!
Hi Richard, thanks for the post. I do have a question pertaining to combining GE with other lessons. In addition to teaching at my usual school, I’ve been given permission to tech at a private elementary school in a nearby district. This school uses an OUP language course for kids. As I’ve never taught from a book before (!), this is proving very challenging for me. I use the teacher’s book and the classroom book during my lessons. The class teacher then covers the activity book during the remainder of the week.
I’m getting more and more frustrated using the book. Last week’s lesson for the 4th years was about musical instruments. So, I did the first half of the lesson with GE Can you do it – Yes, I can play the violin lesson. And then finished off with 15 mins of the book, purely to have covered it so the kids could do the activity book lesson with the kids later.
The parents are paying for the English lessons and have bought the books for the kids. They have been using these books successfully for about 5 years. I’m just not used to using them and I find them very restrictive. The 4th year kids are already bored out of their minds. As I cannot ditch the books out of hand, do you have any experience of similar situations?
Liza,
have the parents bought already for years in advance, or is it always for a one year (or so) period?
If so, I think there might be a way for you to convince them that your way of teaching without book will be much more successful in a shorter span.
I’ve tried to compromise in many situations, and I do think sometimes we need to compromise, also as you say, to take the challenge and maybe learn something for ourselves.
But with compromises like this the one thing I’ve learned is: Don’t compromise on this one! Especially with as much of experience with kids and teaching as you have.
What I did do with the Eigo Note is I checked with gumby’s entire help and support the things they wanted to have taught in that year; the topics the words and the conversation patterns.
After writing them down, I put the book aside and made a new lesson plan with GE covering everything they wanted, but neither I nor the students had to open the book afterwards.
This way it worked pretty well.
Does this help at all?
Hi Margit, thanks for your reply. The parents have invested in these books for the 3rd and 4th year of elementary school for their kids. Previous English teachers have used them and the parents and teachers see no reason to change.
Teaching from a course book is a whole new ball game for me and I feel very restricted doing it.
Like you, I have made a decision to create my own lesson plans around the target language and integrate as many GE lessons as I can. I am sure the results will speak for themselves!
Your videos are always so inspiring and fun! you make everything seem so easy!!!!!
I also have parents saying that as of this year the kids need to work harder during the lesson … not just fun! The kids are 7 years old!
Hi Nena,
Glad you like them! I agree with the parents, the kids should always be working smart and have fun – it’s easy to do both!
Hi Liza,
Yes it can be very restrictive when teaching with textbooks, especially when the kids start getting bored or not into the language. As Margit says the best way is to take the language from the books then plan the Genki English lessons that fit. Then the kids usually whiz through the books a lot faster than they normally would. Conversely it can sometimes work better as the parents see the kids “working” on the books and are happy. (The bad thing for me there is that the books take the credit! But never mind!)
A lot of teachers in Korean and Taiwan do this with the “Let’s go” series, and in Thailand that’s the way we had to do it before GE became an official part of the curriculum.
Thanks. Today I’m teaching 3rd years Nrs 1-12, 4th yrs Sports – I can/I can’t. So I’ll be using GE Nrs 1-12 song for the 3rd yrs. For the 4th yrs I’ll revise Can you do it from last week and then move on to What sports do you play?