Here’s another “Try it yourself” video to try learning another language in the genki way. It’s the Where are you from? song but in Japanese.
For High School Students?
The nice thing about YouTube is that we can see the students’ comments directly. If you don’t speak your students’ own language fluently, it can often be easy to misread their reaction to things. For example thinking that materials are too fast or too slow, or mis-judging which ages different things can be used for.
Which age group do you think this video would be most popular with? According to YouTube it’s most popular (over 40%) with high school students aged 13 to 17. Yes, high school! And if you look at the comments, here are the sorts of things they are saying about learning like this:
“wow look`s like this is really easy to learn”
“Amerika =D I LOVE these Genki Japan things! They have taught me so much <3”
“That’s a really cool song to teach with.Makes me proud to be an Earthling. “
“thanks for putting that warning! XD lol but it was already too late! This song is permanently stuck in my head now =P I love it! I think this might be my fav <3”
And remember, these are high school kids. (Mind you you can tell that straight away with the style of writing and all the smilies!)
Problems:
But it also shows where the kids are having problems e.g.:
“I learnt somewhere else that Japan is Nihon.. :S”
“if you want to know where someone comes from, shouldnt you ask “anata no kuni ha nandesuka” thats what i learned… “
Which shows that if they’ve learnt things elsewhere slightly differently it can confuse them. In this case the first one is simple in that both Nihon and Nippon are correct, but in the second case the student has learnt an incorrect, or rather non-used, phrase from a not very good textbook. It’s important to set your students’ minds at rest if these types of things crop up, otherwise it will just niggle at them and prevent them moving on.
Anyway, I always find it really useful to get information like this from students both with Genki Japan but of course with Genki English as well. OK, now it’s your turn! Try the song a few times then see if you can do the game without making any mistakes!
Well I managed to get my jumbo jet to take off!! How fascinating listening to this song and understanding it!!!
On the point of older children it is very true that they really still like learning using this kind of method. ( I had an English music lesson with some 12 year olds and they asked if we could sing GE songs!!!) The problem is the cool factor with some classes. I suppose thats why YouTube is a great place for children to watch and learn on their own or with like minded friends.
Flossy
I must try this video out on my son, he loves watching original japanese animes even though he can’t speak a word of japanese!!