[UPDATE: Beta Test downloading has now finished, thank you! If you still have comments or things you’ve found please do keep writing them up in the comments. If you didn’t manage to download the files, check out the vol. 11 page where it is on sale now!]
The vol. 11 software is now ready for beta testing!
What you get:
1. You get to have the vol. 11 software before anyone else.
2. You get to use it in your classes before anyone else
3. You don’t have to pay for it.
4. Unlike Microsoft who make you buy the product once the beta test is finished, if you make a comment on the blog you’ll be free to keep it as long as you like!
.
What I ask in return:
1. You play through all the songs, mini lessons & karaokes for every theme
2. You play around with the “words”, game and “words 2″ sections of each theme.
3. Tell me on the blog if there are any mistakes/things that don’t work.
That’s it, really simple! It will probably take an hour or so to do.
At this stage it’s things like spelling mistakes, typing mistakes, buttons that make the wrong sound, crashes or buttons that don’t work type mistakes that I’m looking for i.e. real mistakes.
It’s unfortunately a little too late for things like changing lyrics, pictures etc.! Sorry! Once you’ve gone through everything, setting kids loose on the software is always the best test!
Stress Free
Making the final master is always very, very stressful for me so if you could help by checking the themes and then posting your findings on the blog below (even if it just says “everything is OK!” although if you do have any words of praise that would also be great to hear !) it would really help me out and I’ll be able sign it off and get back to making the mini cards, printable games and maybe even picture books for the themes as well as lots of new stuff!
You can download the file from [UPDATE: Beta Test downloading has now finished, thank you! If you still have comments or things you’ve found please do keep writing them up in the comments. If you didn’t manage to download the files, have a check next week on the vol. 11 page when it goes on sale!]
and can make comments on the blog here.
Thank you so much!
Be genki,
Richard
P.S. Get your download early, there will be so many people downloading (thank you!) that I might have to close it down early if it crashes the server.
P.S. If you’re not a VIP member yet, if you buy your Download Pack right now you might still get your vol. 11 if you rush, rush, rush!
P.P.S. Just out of interest, after going through everything on vol. 11 and seeing how much there is there, how much do you think I should charge for it? Forgetting about all the other Genki English prices, just based on your running through the beta test, how much would you think it is worth to you?
Earn More From Your Passion For Teaching English!
Hi!
I absolutetly love vol. 11, came just in time! I’m teaching to my first graders Shapes and second school subjects! thanks
Genki dance 🙂
Only praise for you, Richard! Don’t ever stop!!
These lessons are wonderful and I can’t wait to use them. Haven’t found any glitches, all is SO good!
Baby Monkey has ALL the Genki elements that the children adore–what a treat this is going to be for them. They’ve always gone wild over Baby Monkey’s Winter Clothes and Rocket Launch so I’m sure they’ll take off with this one!
Treasure Adventure’s longer sentences will get the kids really talking and putting their words all together. And the kids have literally been begging for I Am a Robot. I’m going to let them figure out for themselves its cool intuitive phonics game.
Look at Me is great and I love Lots of Shapes. Great music choices all around! And the kids are going to be rolling in the floor, then fascinated with your Head and Shoulders–thanks for the Japanese lesson here; and as for the Days of the Week–whoopee!
Thank you so much! Bravo.
Patti
This is hilarious!!!
Now I have to change my whole lesson plan for 2nd term. How the kids will go, when they see Baby Monkey on the screen!
I’ve been through all but Karaoke, and so far I couldn’t find anything. But I’ll have my daughter play with it today and have her check again.
Is there a way to add it to the download pack?
Richard, this is priceless. You really can’t ask me how much I would pay for it, really.
Thanks everyone!
I’m working on a new menu to add it into the Download Pack. Fingers crossed it should be ready by the weekend!
Hi absolutely love it… interesting subjects and fun songs… the kids are getting addicted!
Only thing that I could see was the Japanese button on the Head&Shoulders section – should that be there? Will set the kids on it this afternoon! Keep it up – it is brilliant!
Hi Jennifer, if it’s the button I’m thinking of then I think yes! Did you push it? 🙂
Richard, it’s lovely and thank you for sending it out to the teachers. My only comment at this stage is since I teach EFL, sometimes the accent is hard for them to pick up e.g. the pronunciation in the pronouns HER & US are slightly problematic. I’ve already used the Summer Clothes theme and they loved the animated song & the activities. I’ll be using the rest of the themes from Vol 11 during the coming weeks and hope to have additional feedback for you.
Keep it coming!
Deena
Today is a lucky day!
Yesterday,I went to Casino. I lost (small but all) my money. I had to head for my home being a begar (Konglish) and while driving, a bird hit the windshield. I am really sorry for the bird, because I couldn’t even find the body. And the windshiled broken into pieces, can I say, sorry for myself? Remember, I lost all my money. So, yesterday was horrible to me.
But, today I have a luck to find this free software. I’ve been using your progrm for 3 and 1/2 years. Since I am not good at speaking, your program is really helpful.
For this 11th volume, I really like the Subject song. I like the hip hop version. That will be good for higher grade but low level students. And you have mixed the ‘subject’ with the ‘Day’. I really like it. Hope you to mix other 2 subjects again. Thank you. Today, I feel like life will be fair. One lost and one gain.
What can I say Richard…!
SIMPLY FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The kids will love it…Baby Monkey is a real superstar!
The treasure adventure is also fantastic to make illustrate and teach the phrase THERE IS A….. totally love it!
i just love the Japanese head and shoulders version (for me….had great fun with it!!!)
I haven’t spotted any errors…but I’ll go through it again later today!
Thanks again!
Nena
PS: I have a Mac…how do I make the short cut …I couldn’t figure it out but then again my computer skills are really bad…need to work on them!
@Nena: Thank you! Glad you like it, and wow no errors so far!! I’m not sure how to do a short cut on a Mac. Anyone else know?
@Youhee: Glad today is coming along better!! I’ll have a few more “mixed themes” ideas coming up in the volume 11 manual, just finishing it off now!
@Deena: Thanks for the reply on that! They’re all real native English accents from around the World, I guess the kids just have to get used to them! 🙂
I just tried it out! Superb!
A few small details:
when I push QUIT he asks whether I really want to quit and when I push YES there, nothing happens. This might be MAC related, though.
I don’t understand the game in I AM A ROBOT.
Maybe a button to have to word repeated would be nice in the games (or is the aim of the game to understand it the first time?)
The rest seems to work fine. I’ll have my students try it. If anything else comes up, I’ll let you know this afternoon.
@Nathalie: Thank you very much – the small details are the ones I need to hear about!
Quit problem: Yeah, that’s a Mac issue!
I am a robot game: Hopefully this is just an adult vs. kid problem. Do the kids get it?
Repeated words: Yeah the idea with the games is to get the kids guessing and clicking if they don’t catch it, getting them over the fear of making mistakes!
Hi, Richard!
I admire your work!
A few words about your songs:
Usually they are a bit too fast for my pre-schoolers so I must choose the slower ones, but I like most of them a lot!
I would suggest there is a “normal” version songs and a slow version included. The same for karaoke. I think, that could help even first graders.
Treasure theme – excellent! Song great, too. More such themes needed 🙂
Days of the week – excellent for bigger kids – rhythm!!, but too fast for my students 🙁
That’s for now,
Thanks a lot!
Diana
Hi Diana!
No, no, no, try the fast ones! 🙂 You’ll love them!
All the songs have been tested with young kids, old kids and everything in between and the speed is perfect for even the youngest 2 or 3 year olds.
In fact the younger ones go for the faster songs much, much more than any of the slow ones!
With the days of the week, the most popular with younger kids is the techno dance mix!!
Just try it with an open mind and you’ll be blown away!
Hi Richard!
Wow! These songs are great – thank you so much. I’ve only had time to look through the first four songs. Here are my comments so far (I’m being very picky though – for my uses none of these “mistakes” would matter at all!)
On the menu page it says “I am robot” instead of “I am a robot”
In the “Look at me” – “Words” section, us, them, everybody, nobody are hidden until you happen to roll over them. Perhaps this is on purpose, as they are then not included in the song – a real hidden extra!
In “I am a robot” – “Game” secion, the robot is being built partly off my screen so I can’t see part of his body or any of his right arm. Perhaps this is an issue with my screen resolution though, although I’m not missing anything else!
In the “Treasure Adventure” – “Game” section, the game gets very slow once the treasure chest has appeared in the mounting pile of coins… once again this could be an issue with my extremely ancient computer that doesn’t cope well with music and graphics at the same time. But it went slow at the same point each time I played.
As I said, they are really tiny things though which don’t distract from these really FANTASTIC songs!! I can’t wait to do the summer clothes as a grand finale before the summer holidays – my kindergarten children LOVE baby monkey!! (Any chance of the blank mini cards for them to colour soon, or do you still have to make them all?)
I have to say, I do agree with Diana that I have found the kindergarten children do not respond well to the faster songs, unless they are the type where the children get to repeat the line back. If the line is only said once then they only enjoy the slower songs.
Thanks again for this brilliant material!
Charlie
Wow!! First (virtual!) bottle of champagne goes to Charlie – can’t believe I missed the menu “I am robot”!!!!! Thank you! (And I think you can probably imagine how many times I’ve looked at that screen!)
Look at me: Yep, so not to scare off teachers who are less confident!
I am a robot game: Let me check this!
Treasure Adventure: Again well done finding that! Yeah, the treasure graphics is HUGE so slows older machines down but I figured as Gaz did such a great job of it it had to stay in!
Minicards: I’m working on them now! Well, after I fix that glaring mistake I just made! 🙂
Younger kids: Fair enough, let me try and find out where the problem is, it’s probably that I’m not explaining something somewhere well enough! Apologies to Diana!
Hi Richard! I could check with my friend in his computer (I’m not vip member). We loved the robot song, we think it will be the best hit with I’m a super hero! By the way, in the game section of I am a robot we also have some problems to visualize the whole structure. Appart from that everything seems ok.
Amir Garcia
Thanks Amir!
Richard, this volume is amazing! I love the Baby Monkey and Pirate themes and the graphics are great. I also very much appreciate the longer sentences in “subjects” and “treasure” themes.
From what I’ve seen everything is working all right, so great job!
I really don’t think you should include this in the basic Teacher’s Set, but have it sold apart since it’s a great added value and once teachers start using the first 10 volumes they will really want nr. 11 as well. Nobody else offers this kind of materials at your prices!
I’m getting a lot of offers for “teacher guides with extra material” that are being sold for ridiculously high prices, and they certainly do not even come close to what you’re giving your members. So make us pay for it!
About the song speed:
I also noticed that small kids are much better with fast songs than older kids, and in general love them.
One thing you could try if you are having problems:
Split the group who is singing in one group singing the question, one group the answer:
Like:
A: Excuse me, I have a question: Are you hungry
B: Yes, I am..
or
A: “What would you like for breakfast”
B:” I’d like some…”
A”Me, too”
“Where are you from” A>B>A>B
A: I’m from America
B: I’m from Australia
A:I’m from England.
…
It really works great with all ages for me.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Richard for these wonderful new songs, they are BRILLIANT! I can’t wait to show the kids these ones. They are all huge fans of Genki English, as am I! Haven’t found anything wrong with it so far!
Linsey
Downloaded but cannot open? Help! Thanks.
Hi Richard,
I love the CD. I’m going to try the summer clothes song and game with my 4-year-old students because we started that unit last Monday.
Thanks a lot for your great job.
@Sussie: I’ll be sending you an email to find out more! 🙂
@Linsey & Monica & Margit: Thank you!
@Jacs: You should just be able to double click and unzip it. If you don’t have an unzipper, have a look for a free one over at download.com, that should get you going!
I love the I am a Robot song and will begin using it right away. I also am looking forward to using the Days of the Week song (I especially like the “What day is today?” version) and the shapes song. Recently my 4th graders asked to learn about school subjects in English, so I’m hoping to use the What time is it Mr. Wolf in combination with your new Subjects song.
One question is I’m wondering if you have a “What do you like to do? I like to …. (action words) version? Maybe I’ve just not found it yet. Thank you for this special download offer – a very nice present!!
I guess I’m running late to this show. Brilliant work on this one. I thought CD 9 was your best, but this is SO GOOD!
The graphics were especially clever, making the language even more memorable, and all the different versions of the days of the week. WOW! I could really go on and on about the good things on this CD
The only thing that I discovered what the BM T-shirt changed as soon as you put it on him. Then again maybe you had planned it that way. I had to do a double take on the subject game 2, but then I realized you had added a fun way to drill the longer sentences.
I have to agree with Sussie. it seems only fair to you to make this a separate product. The level on a lot of the songs makes it well suited to first year JHS. If you get this far, you probably have a successful program, so those who want more should be willing to pay for it.
I don’t know about other countries, but in Japan you pay $200 for picture cards and a teaching guide. or the same amount for a pen that uses a bar code to say the English, mostly nouns. Want to pay for software and then you really have to dig deep. I think my town pays yearly by the computer, and it is a staggering amount. many 100 times what you charge. (don’t quote me on this but I remember my jaw dropped when I heard the amount!)
For the teacher’s guide to the JHS textbook, my textbook with lots of extra writing/explanations and answers to the listening quiz and other questions is more than $25 US. For the TT guide, CD, really thick book with all the grammar you wanted and more, you pay at least $200. Ask any JHS teacher it the teacher’s pack is successful in getting students excited about English. You will find it is all the EXTRA work the teachers do, that accomplishes this.
But I have gone on long enough. Congratulations on a terrific CD. I am going to have a lot of fun this week teaching!
Hello Richard,
I love you program and the new songs are great. I too have only gotten to the first four and here is what I saw:
In Look At Me, you use nobody in the first word section but you don’t in words 2. I was just wondering why not? I know that it would be an empty space but if you click on it you could still see the word nobody, just a suggestion.
In I am a Robot, I didn’t understand the game. At first I thought it was long o or short o sound but then you added some other words besides the o words. I don’t think the kids would get it. I only had time to play it once but couldn’t figure it out maybe if I played it more.
Other than that I think the CD is great!! Thanks for all your hard work!!!
Just had time to look through the last four songs. I couldn’t see any problems with them at all. I love the way that you’ve incorporated Baby Monkey and the other characters into so many of the songs and graphics – it really makes the children feel like they already know the things when you do that!
Thanks Margit for your tips. I’ll certainly give that a go.
These supercharge me–great songs! The biggest problem of them all is on Robot song no sound comes on for “on” or “off” in the words section.
Here’s more critique:
When I open “Days” it says “Wednesday” right away.
Robot game: I don’t understand the game.
Shapes: on Words, I can’t see all of the last word “star” or “Quit”. I have my screen at the very top of the monitor. (It doesn’t fit the screen).
Game 2: Wrong responses–when I point to the triangle it says “no” and the other shapes the same thing.
Favorite Subject: Baby Monkey’s School–School should be capitalized. The first verse that’s sung there’s no question mark.
Summer: “Quit” doesn’t fit the screen.
Game 1: Not identifying all the clothes and repeats the same clothes several times in succession.
Game 2: When finished dressing Baby Monkey there’s no sound or “congratulations”.
Treasure: Words don’t fit the screen–can’t see “picture” or “Quit”.
I’m sorry to tell you so many things but I know you want it error free. Thanks for all your effort–I’m impressed.
Hey Richard,
I was testing today and I noticed that in the days of the week song game section the program showed the correct day and date, however when I tried to click on Wednesday for today it continually said “No”. There was no answer to that question I could find that it would respond “yes” to. Something must be wonky in the program loop.
Cheers for now,
Neil
Hello Richard,
It’s just great; I haven’t had the time to go through to all the games but I’ve listened to all the songs.
Some comments:
Days of the weeks, I like the funky one and the dance, I THINK this time it won’t be hard to teach them the days and I’m sure they will ask for more…
The Subject song: This is just what I needed for my cm2’s I’ll try it out and come back to you…
The robot song will be nice for my nursery school pupils, I’ll try it as well.
Look at me: I like this one and please please could you make in the futur an item with mine, hers, his theirs and ours, very difficult to teach to French pupils…
Head and shoulders I like it and I will give it a try in my classes as well. For the games it will be more difficult as my classes are too big and it’s not easy to have a computer for all of them.
Thanks again,
Carla
Hi, I just managed to get the download done before midnight (Italian time) and read all the comments whilst waiting for the download to finish. I really wanted to try the Robot song as my kids absolutely LOVE the superhero song.
Unfortunately I run Linux and can’t get anything to work. I’m afraid I’ll have to comment later when I’ve had chance to look at it on another computer.
Sorry about that!
Marvellous!!!!!I have been using them when you were creating them because my pupils love the videos were you are the teacher trainer and me too of course! and I don’t have words to say THANK YOU RICHARD, because pupils that have horrible marks in maths or language, they have and excellent mark in English. My partners ask me that it’s imposible they have so good marks in English and I always say: teach Maths in a genki way,teach language in a genki english, look for Richard and ask him.
My computer doesn’t work very fast and it’s too late here in Spain, but next morning I’m going to have a look before going to school.
Thank you
Dear Richard;
Just downloading now and I will spend time this weekend looking it over.
A very special thank you for all your talent and hard work.
Barbara in Shanghai
Hi richard, I’m sorry, but when I click on it, my computer screen is white, so I can’t see anything.
Hi Lines, thank you this is something I need to fix! Did you manage to unzip the files OK? Is it when you click on the menu file that it goes white?
Hi Ruth, it should be OK on Linux! Please give it a try there if you can, just use the MENU11.HTML file and it will load in the browser. As long as you have the “flash player” installed ( it’s free from adobe.com ) then it * should * work OK. I’d love it if you could test it on Linux as that’s what we use with a lot of schools in Africa!
Hi Neil, ah, there should be a “today” calendar in the bottom right of the game display. Does it not appear on your machine?
Hi Janet, it looks like we’ve got a big problem here – these are just what I need to hear!
With the Robot song, do the sounds appear if you click the buttons next to the words?
When you say “I have my screen at the very top of the monitor. (It doesn’t fit the screen).” are you on a Mac or a PC? Obviously cutting off words is not good!
For the shapes game 2 and the robot game, get the kids to have go – you’ll kick yourself when you see how easy it is! 🙂
@Everyone: Thank you for all the nice words! I’ve just got up so I’ll check out the problems first then get back to the other questions soon! Keep them coming!
I wrote a long comment and forgot to put in my e-mail, and then it disappeared, so I’d like to see that improved 😉
I went through the software quickly yesterday and found a few things:
In the Head and Shoulders song, when “toes” is introduced, the last “knees and toes” is hummed instead of sung. The Japanese version has the same thing, so maybe it’s on purpose but it seemed odd to me. It isn’t really something in the software though but rather the music file.
As an aside, I’ve never really had much trouble with just teaching the whole Head and Shoulders song at once and having kids straggling along until they pick up all of the words. It takes a few repetitions over multiple classes but it seems to work fine for me. Is this version meant for really young kids?
With the Days of the Week song, sometimes Sunday is shown first on the calendar (e.g. the main screen) and sometimes Monday (e.g. the “Dance” intro and the “What day is it today?” chorus part). It’s not really a big thing, but it could possibly be a bit confusing for students who aren’t reading the words but instead are relying on the order from 1-7 in order to understand what goes where.
Finally, I don’t really understand how to teach the missing-Saturday song (as well as the missing-12 song from one of the earlier CD’s). I guess this isn’t the place for that question though.
Hi Glenn, Thank you!
@Head Toes: The traditional version slowly takes out one word at a time so you are left with no words – so it just worked better to flip it around.
@Days: Yeah, I put in both as we had passionate requests from both sides, so far, touch wood, the kids seem cool with it!
@Missing Saturday: This is good to hear, I need to get a video up! It works great once you figure it out!
@Blog: Arghh, OK, let me see what I can do!!
Hi Richard,
New software rocks!! I really loved it. I will start teaching my new students and I will definately use it here in Brazil.
Thanks a lot !!
Kazuya Hidaka
Hi Richared,
Vol 11 is so much fun, it’s fantastic. I didn’t have any problems with images not fitting on the screen and my triangle shape was correctly answered when I played the Shapes game. I have a question in regards to the Favourite Subjects lesson. Are you going to offer an alternative spelling for us Aussies, for words like favourite and maths? I love the ‘today’ in the Days lesson, it changes to the correct date! That’s a real suprise! I’m wondering how you did that (no need to tell)? The kids are going to love this one… Thank you for providing such imaginative resources. Cheers, Jan
Hi Jan, yeah usually I do do alternative spellings but in this case “math” actually changes the recordings so I just left it with the US one which is what most tests and textbooks seem to go for. It’s good for the kids to see alternative ways of saying things though and there are still lots of correctly spelled favourites around the curriculum! 😉
Hi Kazuya, were all the kanji Ok on the Heads & Shoulders theme?
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the GREAT opportunity to benefit from all that work that you’ve done, and we get to try it for FREE ! ! You must have taken your “nice” pill today 🙂
I noticed one glitch: When I wanted to exit the program,a second confirmation screen pops up and asks “are you sure you want to exit?” When I click on yes, it just freezes. It doesn’t shut down the program and take me back to my home screen.
Dan from quebec, Canada.
P.S. Lots of GREAT ideas to use!
Thanks for this Dan! Are you on Mac or PC?
This is great! Also I know my students should love the music that goes along with the songs since some of them are similar to Korean pop music (the ones with a great electronic sound).
I’m the one who has been sending you emails about the program not working these days. I figured out a way to play the program without having to use the flash player. I use a media player instead. I may not be able to use the menu, but if I go into my files and select the individual lesson, it works great! : )
The only problem I ran into was the Baby Monkey Summer lesson. In the game screen for dressing up Baby Monkey, I could see most of the clothes clearly, but some of the items were cut off. Maybe the media player screen is not big enough to display things, but I could still see what each item was despite that.
Thank you so, so much and I hope my students enjoy these lessons!
Hi Richard,
Very nice work. Musta taken a while! I personally don’t like the robot song, but could maybe still use it with the occasional kindergarten kids visit days. Something they could get into that’s not too challenging.
Don’t know if anyone mentioned, on the Days of the week game – getting the answers wrong – it seemed if Friday was next (not the current), the “no” and “Friday” (deep male voice) both came on.
I’m on Firefox (and Linux) and the Menu11.swf works fine, but the htm starter doesn’t work (just wants me to download Flash, but I have it up-to-date and raw swf works).
Apart from that, it’ll be a great starter to the new academic year for me (but my current students have most of that now).
Cheers for filling some of those early and often boring to teach gaps like days of the week 😀
Hi Bee, thanks for the linux update. Let me try and fix that!
Do try the Robot song it got fantastic ratings!
@Coleen: Glad it worked through the player. Yeah, the baby monkey clothes are on the edges so I could fit more in, you just drag them across to Baby Monkey!
Hi Richard,
WOW!!! Another wonderful volume!!! Thank you soooo much!!! I like all of the themes, but my absolute favourites are the Treasure, Robot and Head, Shoulders themes. I will have sooo much fun with my kids with these! I plan on leaving them for October so we can use them for Halloween as well. I hope there will be a robot mask until then.
One suggestion for snakes & ladders though: would it be possible to use only half the amount of squares but make them bigger? I usually teach kindergarten kids in small groups of 6, so it takes us much too long to complete one entire game. As an alternative, would it somehow be possible to put the s&l games together ourselves? Then we could integrate three or four themes that we would like to repeat.
Oh, and another thing about vol. 11: thank you for using Baby Monkey in the games!! My kids love it!
Thanks again for another master piece, Richard and team! Keep up the fabulous work! We and our kids thank you.
Gudrun.
Hi Gudrun, glad you like it! For younger kids I usually use the Islands games instead of snakes and ladders, it’s just the same but shorter like you asked!
I’d **love** it if there was a way for you guys to make your own snakes and ladders, but how could we do it?
P.S. One more question, Richard: will it be possible to play this volume on the iPad? That would be the best, as my kids ask me every time if we do something on the iPad and why they can’t see Baby Monkey on it…
Unfortunately not! Apple don’t allow flash files on there. Hopefully I’ll have some ipad experiments up later this year, but it’s taken 10 years just to do the PC versions!
Hello Richard. Thank you for the chance to download volume 11. It is nice you let VIP members do this. I have ordered teachers pack at my schools and the kids love them. Its nice to mix in with the eigo note too.
Shapes is great to have and its a great song. would have been nice to have “shapes, shapes, lots and lots of shapes” twice each chorus.
Days of the week and subjects are really good too and will be very useful.
I get the shark biting off the pirates arm thing but could be a bit inappropriate was my first reaction. (Im sure the kids will love the pirate theme though)
the older kids will love the pop and techno angle I think
looks like everything is in order, thanks again.
Hi an idea for making an interchangeable snakes and ladders review game is to just have numbered, coloured squares on the board with 4 colours maybe which you can use over and over again. Then either 4 or 6 piles of any mini cards with either 4 mini cards in the 4 key colours or 6 mini cards with numbers 1 to 6 on them. Then place these 6 or 4 mini cards next to each pile of review mini cards.
With the Numbers game with 6 piles, if a kid roles a 4 he or she moves 4 spaces and then turns over the mini card on the labelled number 4 pile and says the English.
Then the next child plays. This way you can review different topics and no one knows what is going to turn up but they may then start gussing which theme is in which pile etc.
For the Colours game, the child moves the number of spaces 1 to 6 and then selects the pile with the same colour as the square they have landed on so this reviews the 4 basic colours, say, red, blue, green, yellow and the 4 themes. You could even have 5 colours and so for the 5th colour, purple, the kids do not have to say anything or can say anything they like…
I usually review less topics so you could just have a choice of two or three piles and the kids play the numbers game and then they can choose which pile they want and turn a card over. My kids love to play in teams so although they move across the board individually you could have team piles or something to add an extra element to the game! Whose pile is going to disappear the fastest, red or green etc!
Not Whose, I mean Which pile, in the last sentence, sorry! Typing too fast!!!
Ah, found it, can’t believe I missed it. Linux is case sensitive, in that MENU11.swf doesn’t = MENU11.SWF
So in the htm both data=”MENU11.SWF” & movie value=”MENU11.SWF”
Fixed my version and it works now! 😀
Cheers,
– Bee
I have to tell you that of all the songs Doctor! Doctor! is the one thez want to see the most because of the bit where he falls over at the beginning and his leg breaks, the kids laugh so much still, all ages from 4 to 10!
I am still having trouble with opening the files but when I do I will check out the pirate arm bit first! LOL
Everything works fine – I didn´t experience any problems with the software. Songs are great – and I really like the idea of “hmm” feature in the songs. Looking forward to the materials for each song. Thanks Richard for all the great work you do!
Hi Richard!
Please admit my congratulations on your new part of GenkiEnglish course! It’s a real feast!
You’ve done it excellent from the psycological and methodological points of view. There are so many surprises for kids and hints for teachers!
Children like to go for meaning whatever it might be: rules of a game, words or a situation in a story.(Teachers also should try several times to get a fish! :))
And placing the Japaneese version is very cute to get teachers who doesn’t speak Japaneese to remember what being a student feels like.
Changing clothes to the kids’ taste is also very tricky as it makes them repeat the word “T-shirt”lots of times.
Acting like having forgotten the sixth day of the week shows to the teachers what they need to do if their kids do not catch anything: simply to do it with them!
Singing Head and Shoulders song adding one word at a time cocentrates children’s attention on perception of the concept they already have in their native language and can predict it because they did the gesture many times before.
The last but not the least benefit: the happy end of the Treasure Adventure!
Thank you VERY MUCH!!!
Richard, It’s Dan here. I was the one who told you about the problem with the closing screen freezing up. You asked me wether I had a Mac or a P.c. I have a P.c. Dan
Dear Richard, this is a fantastic material, I enjoyed it a lot, my students were so happy yesterday, my daughter and one of my students did not want to stop dancing, I am a robot and what subject do you like. I did not see any thing wrong in the material. thank you so much for all you hard work, you are a huge blessing for us. God bless you!
Is Really great! I did not encounter any problem. I am teaching in a small village in the sierra madre of Michoacan, Mexico and to me all the genky english material is been a life saver.
Thank you very much Richard
Richard,
AWESOME!! It’s like Mc D…I’m lov’n it!
I’ve been through the whole thing and the only (small) negative I have is with the mini game in ‘Look at me’. If you go through the mini game in class, then I can’t see a problem…but, if you assign it as homework (after your homework site is up and running…hint, hint) then finding the ‘nobody’ button is not easy (it took me 3 tries). ‘Nobody’ is not covered in the mini lesson and an ill-prepared teacher may not cover it and then send students to the homework site.
Not a huge problem, but I’m a knit-picky kind of guy and I was look for a worst case senario.
Other than that, I love it!!
So, how’s the homework site coming???
Thanks for letting me in on this beta version. I’d gladly pay for this!
Thanks for everything Richard and please keep us posted on the homework site!
Hi Richard,
I love Volume 11! The Summer clothes song is perfect to use right now as we are about to finish school and go on summer vacation!
The Subject song is very popular with my older kids. We haven’t figured out all the gestures, but they love it. They want to get up and dance!
The Shapes is a needed study area and very helpful. The memory game is excellent in the shapes.
I am also happy about more hip hop music that appeals to my older learners. The Days of the Week Funky is great as well as is the robot music.
Pirates are nice with the movie coming out soon and good vocab and sentences.
The only thing that was confusing was the Robot game.
The first time through no one knew what was going on.
I then studied the game and figured out that you are looking for the short o sound.
It may be too late, but is there someway you can highlight the roBOT..the Bot in robot? The bot has the short o sound. The ro is long o. However this is a minor issue. My kids are very excited about the robot song as of course they do a robot type dance.
Everone is happy to see Baby Monkey back..It is great to keep the monkey theme going.
All in all, it is a wonderful product. I think you should charge for it also and make money so you can make more!!!!!!
Everything looks good. My only question is the robot game. It’s not clear what the questions are to get a correct answer. At first I thought it was words that begins with “O” or that had the but that didn’t quite work out.
Thanks everyone for the comments again!
@Robot Game: I’ll write up in the manual and on the site what to do with the game!
@Bob: Online homework site hasn’t really worked out (too many problems with net access for kids) But stay tuned for another system soon. No worries for the games, the best way to use them is before the kids even start the theme!
@Bee: THANK YOU for the linux fix!
Wow! great comments, great work Richard. Sorry I missed the offer. I’m really looking forward to buying Vol 11 – just one question that might already have been answered, if so I’m sorry.
When Vol 11 is released, how will I be able to download it on to my download pack stick that I already have?
Hi Liza,
Not like you to be late to a party!
Fingers crossed I’m looking at a release next week.
You’ll just copy the vol. 11 files onto your USB stick, then copy the new menu files which hopefully I’ll release in the next couple of hours (just a few tech things to sort out first!)
I’m delighted with vol.11. I haven’t gone through all of it yet. I also got confused with the robot game. I don’t know what the aim is, sound of words…?
I had already used “What’s your favourite subject?” song with my pupils and they love it.
In the summer clothes I found it strange to use shades for sunglasses and sunscreen, for suntan lotion? I’ll keep checking the rest of the lessons. You’ve done a great job. Thank you so much.
Oh yeah, meant to mention this too – I use sunscreen but I’ve already taught sunglasses as this makes sense to the kids and is natural for me. Tried telling them it = shades, but don’t think it’s going to wash/stick 🙁
To all that have troubles with the Robot game…
It seems like it’s meant to be a phonics type game. The lesson is “On” and “Off” with the short /o/ sound like “hot” “cot” “on” “off” but not the long ‘oh’ sound, like ‘bone’ ‘cone’ “so”.
So the game says a word ‘bone’ – is it the short /o/?
No – click the X
‘rot’ = short /o/?
Yes – click the tick
Think phonics/sound of language (not spelling) 😀
Thanks Bee! It is quite amazing that even without the manual out yet this was the only confusing game. As I say thought the kids had no problem in the testing, I guess the spellings didn’t get in the way!
Yeah, “shades” was one of those words we went over and over discussing in the beta test of the actual song. Actually that song just started out as a “throwaway” as just something to try, but as it became so popular I had to try and get it as coherent as possible. The only thing with sunglasses was that it had too many syllables and didn’t rhyme, so artistic license won out with “shades”, but Valentina, you are right, it should really be sunglasses. Can I get let off this time? 🙂
Sunscreen on the other hand also sounded strange to me, but not as bad as the laughs everyone else gave me when I said “suntan lotion” !! 🙂 So sunscreen won as the most popular international way of saying it!
Hi everyone!
I had my last lessons for this school year yesterday…I obviously couldn’t resist trying the new material…I chose … last weeks lesson.
In my 3rd grade class, we had done some phrasal verb review on the previous lesson:
put on – take off (put on your hat –take off your hat)
pick up – put down (pick up your pencil — put down your pencil)
take out- put away (take out your notebook — put away your notebook).
And a few more so …TURN ON and TURN OFF were perfect and I introduced ” I AM A ROBOT” the kids went wild they just loved it. With the class i didn’t use the game…they were too excited and didn’t want to stop dancing…so to calm them I introduced the Treasure Adventure
theme. I got them to sit down close to the computer and in the end they were all singing the song.
Then in the afternoon with two private students (brother and sister) who usually don’t do the lesson together because they fight too much…the boy though older is not very good in English, unfortunately at school they run through the grammar with an Italian English teacher never repeating anything (he is in 4th grade and has done all the verb tenses including conditionals and he can hardly remember basic words ( numbers, animals, clothes, food, etc). His younger sister finds English easy and this gets him really frustrated. they also have a mother tongue conversation teacher who makes them translate just about anything and doesn’t converse with them…a total disaster! I go there and practically do homework with them (the parent don’t know no English and can’t help them with homework)… and they have a lot of it. So while doing homework with the girl I turned on my computer opened the Genkie menu told the boy to play around with it any theme he wanted all I asked was for him to repeat all the phrases or words he heard…he loved it! Once the homework was finished I made them play together with the “I am a robot” song and game. First just saying the words and choosing the right answer and counting how many mistakes they each made…when they got good at it and were making no mistakes. I had one do the oral with the computer and the other child had to write down the words he heard…they were really concentrated in their tasks (one in listening and pronunciation and the other in listening and writing) Obviously the girl got almost all the words right…and he was a bit frustrated..to ease the tension I had the mom try…it was quite interesting to see the kids reaction to the difficulty their mom had in distinguishing hot from hat etc…In the end they had great fun and were laughing, teasing and even helping their mom with the spelling of the words.
Thanks
Nena
Today I’ve been using the rest of the lessons. All of them are fantastic as usual. But, I had problems with the 2nd game in SHAPES, I tried once and again and when you click on the 2nd shape you hear, the answer is No. You start again and the same thing happens, the answer is No again, even though your answer is right, so you can’t get on with the game.
SUBJECTS lesson – With the second game, is it only to repeat the subject and the day aloud? because nothing happens by using the mouse. CONGRATULATIONS and many thanks for sharing this useful teaching material with us.
@Nena: Great feedback! So good to hear!
@Valentina: Ah yes with the shapes game, adults can’t do it, only kids can! Give them a try and see what happens! 🙂 With the subjects game, yes it’s a a new type of “classroom” game where the kids have to speak and the teacher has to give the feedback, just like a normal class game. If it proves popular I’ll make more, if not we always have the old games!
Vol 11 is great! as expected. I’ve had a good play around with it as have my two daughters and we haven’t come across anything in the way of problems to report. I love the robot song, but it took me a minute or two to figure out the point of it, I’m a bit slow I know.
Anyway, congrats and as always thanks for all of your hard work.
Hi Richard, I’d like to congratulate you for your great work. Your sense of creation is one in a million. I personally enjoy using G.E software, and thank you for this great one again. May you never stop!!! Big hugs Richy!!!
Jan asked “I have a question in regards to the Favourite Subjects lesson. Are you going to offer an alternative spelling for us Aussies, for words like favourite and maths? ”
I couldn’t figure how to do this at first, but I’ve now put in a “favourite” and “maths” version of the song for you! Minicards etc. will follow.