“What’s your name?” and Mingle are almost Holy Grails as they are guaranteed to get people singing, moving and hence smiling and genki. The teacher also gets a bit of a rest to prepare the next part of the lesson. The other songs though require a bit of teacher supervision as the English is so new. But one idea I did find the other day was to do Karaoke Jumbles…

1) Teach any of the songs as usual and sing it together.
2) Give every kid a mini card, or better still an A4 card of a word / phrase from the song.
3) Play the karaoke version of the song.
4) In the chorus everyone mingles around whilst singing the question.
5) In the verse the teacher sings the words, but in a new order!

6) The kids line up in the this new order.
7) They mingle again on the chorus and repeat from 5)

This works great as the kids are moving and thinking, but having the music there really keeps the timing tight and the adrenaline flowing. They’ll never get it the first time, so they’ll want to try again until they can master it! As a teacher you might want to practice ( or write down a few new orders) before you try it in class. Songs such as weather, pets or sports work great as you can fit in all eight words in each verse as you don’t need to repeat each one. It’s a challenge, and lots of fun.