It was back to more training sessions (same teachers) this morning. And they did really well.
The Genki English curriculum you have is purposefully non-linear so you can change the lessons to your students needs. But in India and China I’ve given them sets of 20 lessons to do in a set order. The nice thing about that is that the warm up content is clearly written out for each theme e.g.
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1. Warm Up Warm up with stand up, sit down, hands up, hands down, clap, cheer, left, right, forward, back. Count the numbers 1 to 12 whilst jumping. Ask the children “What’s your name?“, “How are you?“, “How old are you?“, and “What’s the weather like?” Sing “What’s the weather like?” song from last time. |
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It means that everything is reviewed every lesson and is really making a big difference. If anyone is interested I might be able to make those lesson plans available here.
After the 9th lesson this can get a bit boring though. So from then we also introduce the Lines Quiz to review everything in a more fun way!
Just after you’ve taught something, thinking time is really important i.e. give the kids plenty of time to remember what the question and answer are when you talk to them. But as this is a review game then speed is what is needed!
We also had the great news today that because we’re only going to be researching Genki English in grades 1 and 2 i.e. where we have the flexibility to re-design the curriculum, then we can actually have the lessons in the computer room. That will be so good. Especially today the new-to-English teachers were saying the words perfectly after hearing them on the computer, but the “learnt English the traditional way” teachers were still making mistakes e.g. “Kozea” instead of “Korea”. It only needs one machine and it will make such a difference to the kids’ pronunciation.
So that took a lot of the pressure off the teachers and I didn’t have to worry about how to produce picture cards or how they could do the pronunciation without the software. Everything’s taken care of for them and took a big load of everyone’s shoulders!
More jolly phonics in the afternoon and again they were perfect before an early night, because I think everyone was totally shattered!
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Hi Richard,
It was good to see the line game in action! I laughed alot. You are strict! I have to perfect my technique…I find it a little rough with 34 kids!
I’d be interested in seeing the order and plans you’ve come up with. I have to write the program for my first graders (no official program to follow!) Since I started in mid Oct I’ve only done the Genki Disco warmup, What’s your name?, Good Morning song, Left and Right, Halloween,and the Thank you song. I’m going to do Christmas next. I want to start phonics as well….
I’d love to see what you’ve put into the curriculum, if only to see how you’ve gone about it!!
Richard,
Sounds great. Personally, I would love to see the curriculum. It sounds like an easy way to review the materials.
I “need” to see it desparately.Just finished do you have any pets and can’t decide what to do next…I’m afraid I may have mixed the order up just a bit too much…
I’d also like to see what you’ve done. Thanks.
These lesson plans have been such a help to me. I live in Spain and am only just starting to understand the language . It makes me more aware of how the pupils I have who are learning English feel ! I have classes of very young children on a Saturday, for ‘ fun’ English! I decided to plan a lesson about ‘ colours ,’ I printed out small cards with the primary colours on them plus a few others and asked the children to bring something in that matched the colour. I am now inundated with, well, oranges, tomatoes, grapes ( green & purple), almonds, mangoes, lemons, pomegranates ! It was such a fun class, the children were able to learn both the colours with numbers due to the small shop we now had in class. Also, I did the line quiz, holding up the food they had bought to school so they learnt the names of those as well. Everyone enjoyed that Saturday lesson, a lot of laughs and happy children went home. The parents insisted I keep the food , I wonder what I should ask them to bring in next time ? Thank you Genki English for making ‘ my ‘ job so much fun !…I cam home extremely happy ! Kate from Barinas, Spain.
p.s. Kate from Barinas also wishes to add, that she is mortified at the amount of speeling mistakes in her comment she sent! Apologies for those who wonder why she is teaching !..put it down to rather a long night due to it’s fiesta time here ! Adios !
Your Lines Quiz is super!
I’d love to see the lesson plans too.
HI
Would love to see those lesson plans…Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom!
Hello,
I also would be happy to see those lesson plans.
For the “Lines Quiz” I’m having the same problem as Carol, wondering how to do it with more than 30 kids, without anybody being bored? Has anyone tried to do it with about 4 lines?
By the way, for a bit higher level (private classes), I sometimes do the “Lines Quiz ” the other way round: The students have to ask me a question, and I answer. I call it “Opposite Lines Quiz”.
Of course, the person who asked most quickly may sit down.
I’ve done it with 4 lines before, I’ve even done it with 6 in high school where the kids were sat in lines of desks.
Let me see what I can do for the lesson plans. They are basically the same as the ones here http://genkienglish.net/manual.htm , but just with the warms ups explicitly written out.
@Fantastico: The best lesson after “Do you have any pets?” is to do the Monkey Family. Then you can re-use the “do you have…” in “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Be genki,
Richard
A varition on this is the Criss Cross Game
(copied from the GE gamepage)
1. All the students stand up.
2. Ask a question.
3. The student that wants to answer raises their hand.
4. If they get the question right then all the kids in their row of desks (ie. all kids to the left and right of them) sits down.
5. Ask a question. The student that wants to answer raises their hand.
6. This time if they get it correct all the students in the column they are in (all the kids in front and behind them) sit down.
7. Repeat from 2 until only one kid is left standing
This works for me because invariably there is a very quiet person or one who is consistently slow in raising their hand or answering a question. This gives the teacher a bit more leeway. I try to make who gets to sit down random. Depending on the numbers, students etc I say rows, columns or even diagonal.