Good morning!
Music is one of the easiest ways to teach English, just think of all those pop songs that get stuck in your head all day!
The problem I always had was that most Christmas songs are just way too hard for kids learning English.
One year I even brought my whole studio into school and tried to record “We wish you a merry Christmas”
It worked great until we got to the “Good tidings we bring to you and your kin” part! 😱
So I thought, hmmm….. OK, can I can write some really, really easy, super fun Christmas songs that have only really useful English that we can teach in just one 45 minute lesson? 🤔
And that’s what I did! 🏆
I started off with ….
🎄 Genki Christmas: which teaches simple Xmas words like snowman, Santa Claus, reindeer, Christmas tree, Christmas stocking, candy cane, presents, Christmas card.
Then we tried the question that kids always get asked at this time of year:
🎁 What would you like for Xmas? With “I’d like a …” (it’s always good to teach manners!) + robot, doll, bag, video game, bear, phone, rainbow, bone (you’ll see in the song!)
These worked so well, I figured we could try some of the language we usually teach but using some Christmas magic.
So today we have …
🔶 Christmas shapes with “I can see a …” + triangle, circle, diamond, oval, rectangle, heart, square, star
⛄️ Body parts with Let’s build a snowman head, nose, neck, eyes, arms, buttons, mouth
🌈 Christmas colours with What colour is Christmas? with red, white, green, gold, blue, purple, orange, silver.
🎁 Prepositions with Where are the Christmas presents? Next to, under, on etc.
🏡 And parts of the house with Let’s build a gingerbread house for windows, door, walls, roof, garden etc.
📆 “How many?” with How many days till Christmas?
And we even combined these all together with a special review version of the 12 Genki Days of Christmas and into a Christmas play that kids can learn in just one lesson with
🍞 The Gingerbread Man
We even tried something a little more complex, but still in one lesson, so we did “What does Santa do?” to practice the third person “s”
(VIPs, you can find the lesson plans & teaching videos for all these in the VIP Menu at the top of the page, and the software is all on page 4 of your software download!)
Of course the reason you can teach any of these in just one 45 minute lesson is because we have the talking flashcards, super quick computer games, picture book etc. to make the language in the song really easy to teach. (Plus the lesson plans & teaching videos that are part of the Teacher’s Set materials too!)
And for teachers in poorer areas who can’t earn enough per month to cover the $49 for the Teacher’s Set Digital Materials I’ve put some songs on Youtube too.
There’s no software for these, so they do take longer to teach, but hopefully it should get you going!
👃 Santa’s Reindeers’ Noses for colours and “My name is …”
🎄🐱 🎶 What do you do on Christmas Eve? for ✅✅ Sometimes ✅ Rarely ❌ Never with the Genki Gingerbread Cats!
😎 🎅 “Genki Cool Santa!” Part 1 for verbs for teen/adult students
As well as Youtube versions of the
📆 How many days till Christmas?
🍞 Genki Gingerbread Man Song!
🏡 Gingerbread House
🎁 Genki English 🌲🌲12 Days of Christmas🌲🌲
(These are all on the playlist here!)
I really want all kids to really enjoy learning English so hopefully this goes some way to bringing the magic of Christmas into lessons for all the kids who want it!
The Teacher’s Set is where the action is, but hopefully the Youtube videos can help you too if you’re not earning that much from your teaching (yet!)
And of course if you don’t celebrate Christmas there are all the regular Genki English lessons to bring to life everything you have to teach.
So try out the lessons above, let me know how you go and have a wonderful Christmas!
Be genki,
Richard
