Teaching using Genki English is dead easy, that’s what it’s made for. Training teachers to use Genki English is also pretty easy, that’s what I do everyday. But training teachers to train other teachers how to use GE is a new experience!

The Ministry of Education has brought together around 180 of the best teachers from every area in Thailand. They have two weeks of workshops ( many sponsored by the British Council ) in which they learn how to train up all the primary school teachers in their areas. Over the next 3 days they also have 9 hours of Genki English workshops, to show them how to use the GE songs, games & projects.

Although these teachers are really good ( really the creme de la creme ) they are secondary school teachers – which filled me with a little dread! And I found out today that except for 3 of them, they had never taught primary kids and they all admitted they had no idea what teaching younger kids is like and were wanting to know how different it is! Ah….. those of you who teach both certainly know the difference! I was so glad that I had taught demo classes in Thai High Schools before so at least I knew where they were coming from.

So I started doing some stuff and they were totally freaked out!! Both with the level of English ( “This is secondary stuff, primary kids can’t do it!!”), and the speed at which the kids get through stuff ( “No, they can’t possible move like that!”). So in the 3 hours we covered about half of what we did with the real primary school teachers last week! A lot of it was gently, gently, yes you can do it, style things. These guys are going to have a huge shock when they set foot in a primary classroom, they just have no comprehension of what it’s like. Mind you they should all be happily surprised at the progress they can make and by the end of it they were quietly relieved and quite excited.

Contents wise it was the basic 3 hour workshop, but without too much explanations as a large group of them were struggling with the English explanations and my Thai isn’t up there yet, but eventually they came round and the two rules of “I can do it!” and “Try again” were firmly in place for a massive finale of the “I can do it” song ( a new Thai favourite!).

Good, certainly a lot better than I thought it might have been. I could never have imagined doing this with Japanese high school teachers unless they’d had 4 or 5 beers each. No where near as good as primary teachers, because there everyone is in the know. But let’s see how far we can get as now the basics are over, it’s a full day of activities tomorrow!