Yulis wrote in to ask:
Thank you so much for your pack!!! It’s really cool! My kids and adults were impressed!
About the question… If you sat next to me I’d like to know how to keep students interested all the time, not only while having fun with them.
For example grammar material needs explanation and often boring. Practice is another thing, here you can play games and use different techniques to keep them ready for having fun, but grammar explanation..
For keeping them interested, see here.
For grammar explanations the short answer is “don’t teach the explanations.” 🙂
Have fun. Live life. Get fluent. Quickly.
Or the longer answer ….
The question is, why do you need to do grammar explanations?
In teaching real spoken English then you simply don’t need them. So leave them out. Because they are boring. And pretty useless for speaking.
Ninja Tip: Try asking regular UK or US people about the grammar terms in your textbooks. I bet they won’t know half of them. But they are still fluent speakers of course! 🙂
You need actual grammar, that just means “learn English in sentences, not just words,” and the better your grammar the more impressive your English becomes.
But you don’t need the explanations to be an awesome speaker.
For the exams….
Or if your goal is to pass grammar based exams then the key is sequencing.
Just like getting a shower on a morning, the order you do things is important.
If you try to do the grammar explanations before the kids can speak, it’s a bit like taking a shower without getting undressed first.
So you get the kids to speak amazing English first (using Genki English of course) then much later on you can add in the explanations for the exams.
The kids already have a feel for each grammar point and you can just help them put a name to it.
Easy.
Choose your goal
Plus of course grammar terms aren’t really anything to do with language, they are simply explanations that have been artificially created later by people who study languages. They are by definition not part of the spoken language. And very often they are totally incorrect. Just look at how many grammar “rules” I have broken in this piece, but I’m sure your students would love it if you got them to speak English as well as I do. 🙂
So if your goal is to get the students speaking English, drop the explanations.
If your goal is exams then
- Get them able to speak first.
- Just add in the explanations later.
Easy 🙂
Be genki,
Richard
P.S. Every Genki English song includes at least one key spoken grammar point, a much more fun way to “drill grammar” as some people call it, and there are more advanced ones in the Hip Hop collection. If there are any that are missing from your course then do let me know in the comments!
P.P.S. Some great teacher comments on this topic here.
Earn More From Your Passion For Teaching English!
I agree, and you also need to wait until the kids have learned grammar in their first language. If they haven’t then doing grammar explanations is like using a third language to explain a second language.
Wow, I was already impressed by your blog, but now I am VERY impressed! Because I think the exact same way! This is the very first time I hear from someone else the idea to just naturally get students to speak first, learn it in the sense of getting a feel for it and then just add the terminology to it so that the students will clearly know what they need for their exams. I thought it was just my own little crazy idea. 😀 Haha, I’m so happy that someone like you, who is so genki and whose opinion I value a lot, thinks the same way. I’m so encouraged by you!
P.S. I’m the living proof for what you’ve written in this post. I learned English all off of media and internet, having fun the whole time and guess what – I’ve no clue about the terminology. In school in Bulgaria I learnt German and no Englush, then at 17 I moved to Austria. The teachers here would require students to know the terminology and use it to “help” them when having difficulties. 😀 Which didn’t work at all!
Dear Richard,
after joining your workshop in Murcia(Spain) I started using your crazy and effective Genki system.I’ve doubled my students and this year I’m planning a presentacion for the parents before the school holidays.I asked them to bring other parents with kids.Beside playing with the parents I’d like to ask for your advise whay to tell them.Thanks.
Angelika from Ourense
This is what you need to do!
http://genkienglish.net/teaching/demo-lesson-ideas-learnt-from-my-first-helicopter-pilot-lesson/
Hi Richard sensei!
At the elementary schools, we don’t teach grammar. We just automatically teach them words and sentences, however, at junior high school in Japan, as you knew, it is mandatory. I love it though, when I don’t have to explain the boring grammar part when teaching English. Warmest regards and I hope that you will visit us here in Okinawa.
Hi Julie,
The grammar explanations aren’t mandatory, get out the 指導要領 and show the teachers what it says in there!