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Contents:
1. Body Clock Game
2. Drinks Song Remix + new pic cards
3. Adjectives Remix + "Is it ...?" Guessing Game
4. If you're teaching in High School...
5. Live in Fukuoka May 20th
6. And Finally .....
Hello,
If you're in Japan, I hope you enjoyed your Golden Week. I've just got
back from China, which was very interesting to say the least. Now it's
full on into the Summer term, so there's lots of new things for your lessons
including some cool games and two new remixes. Enjoy.
1. Body Clock Game
If you play the "What time is it Mr Wolf?" game in the gym, you
can also use this game to get some practice telling the time with minutes:
1. Draw several large circles on the floor.
2. The kids shout out "What time is it?"
3. Someone replies with a time.
4. Two kids from each group ( one short and one tall ) race to make this
time on their circle using their bodies.
5. Fastest team is the winner.
Before teaching the minutes, it's always useful to do the numbers up to
60 in a previous lesson. Jumping whilst counting in the warm up is a great
way of doing it.
You also have the "What time is it, Mr Wolf?" song on CD vol.
2:
http://genkienglish.net/mrwolfsong.htm
2. "I'm thirsty" Drinks Song Remix + Menu Game
After "I'm hungry", "I'm thirsty" is a really popular
request from the kids. On CD3 there's a great drinks song, but I wrote
it for older elementary school kids and I've heard from teachers that the
heavy metal rock guitars don't go over too well with small kids.
So ever willing to please, here's a more "child friendly" version
for you to try. It is a little on the "twee" side, but should
be cool for your kids and you can always use the heavy version for your
older students.
I've also updated lots of the picture cards and there's a new "menu
worksheet" game for the older kids.
http://genkienglish.net/drinks.htm
Drinks Worksheet Game
===================
This new worksheet is similar to the food worksheets. The kids ask you
"Would you like a drink?" and you say something like, "I'll
have a water, 2 teas, and a hot chocolate". The kids have to work
out the total price. Quickest team is the winner. Or get 6 kids to come
to front, they each put their orders in and in groups the other kids write
down the total price for each person. At the end see how many totals each
team gets correct. Very good for calming down a class of 5th or 6th grade
kids!
http://genkienglish.net/drinks.htm
3. Adjectives Remix + "Is it ...?" Guessing Game
Being able to say things even though you don't know the English is a really
important skill. If you don't know the word for "Grandmother",
but can get by with saying "My mother's mother" then you're doing
well.
So for describing "things", adjectives plus a couple of words
such as "animal" or "fruit" etc. are really useful.
On CD3 there is the great adjectives song, which also contains the very
useful classroom English "I have a question" and "Please
let me try". However it seems I may have been a bit too ambitious
with this song as many teachers have written to say that it's almost impossible
to get through in one class. Sorry about that! But as I always try to make
things as easy to use as possible, if you are a CD Owner you can now download
a chopped in half, easy to teach version.
http://genkienglish.net/adjectives.htm
This leads very nicely into the "Is it...?" guessing game....
which you play by singing along to the karaoke version of the song on CD3.
1. Put several picture cards on the board (e.g. animals and fruits or even
sports).
2.One kid comes to the front and closes his/her eyes.
3. Another kid points to a card on the board.
4. Everybody sings the "I have a question, please let me try" part
5. The first kid opens their eyes and has to guess what picture card was
pointed to by singing "Is it an animal?" "Is it big?"
"Is it yellow" etc. etc.
6. The class answers with either "Yes it is!" or "No it's
" plus the opposite word (e.g. if you say "Is it red?"and
it's a lemon, the answer is "No, it's yellow!")
7. If the kid gets the card in 4 questions they win!
8. Another kid comes to the front repeat from 2.
Without the music this game is really boring and painfully slow to watch.
But the fast timing of the karaoke song really gets the adrenaline going
and the unpredictability of the questions is great practise. The kids need
to be quite good to do this, but it works really, really well.
http://genkienglish.net/adjectives.htm
4. If you're teaching in High School.
Over on the forum ( http://genkienglish.net/forum.htm ) there's a really big list of very good websites building up. One of
the links put up last week was for a massive pdf book of games and ideas
by the JET teachers down in Okinawa. It's a really big download, but there
are so many ideas for Junior High School (JHS) and Senior High School (SHS)
that it's great resource. Have a look:
Massive ebook of games for JHS & SHS ( Thanks to Roger for the link)
http://www.okinawajet.com/oldsite/downloads/Class%20Ideas%20Handbook.pdf
Don't forget the Team Taught Pizza or Joel's "Teachers & Kids" book if you'd like a real printed book instead.
http://genkienglish.net/ttp.htm
http://genkienglish.net/joelsbook.htm
5. Live in Fukuoka: Maruzen Bookstore Tenjin Saturday May 20th
Sponsored by Maruzen Bookstore
14:00 - 14:30 for kids
14:40 - 15:40 for teachers
There'll be a quick kids show using some of the familar Genki English songs,
then a teachers' workshop on how to use the new
CD volume 6 in class. Anyone can join, so get in touch with the Maruzen Bookstore
in Tenjin ( foreign books section) to reserve your place.
6. And Finally
In China last week I was really surprised by how much Chinese you can read
if you already know Japanese. But of course it doesn't help you at all
when you actually need to talk to someone! But it spurred me on to put
more material on the GenkiJapan.net site. This time it's a couple of games
from the GE CDs that I've simply flipped into Japanese.
Shopping:
http://genkienglish.net/genkijapan/shoppinginjapanese.htm
Left & Right:
http://genkienglish.net/genkijapan/leftrightinjapanese.htm
They're great if you're bored for a few minutes, because you simply learn
whilst playing - a bit like learning to drive a car.
Roger has also sent in some new crosswords & dominoes which will be
on the site later this week, so be sure to check back then!
Be genki,
Richard
======================
Richard J. Graham
The Easy way to Teach.
Primary School English Games, Songs and Activities
http://www.GenkiEnglish.com
=====================
"A ship in harbour catches no fish.."
And if you like the ideas in this newsletter, please feel free to pass
it along to your friends!
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