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Genki English Newsletter


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May 2004

Hello! Just for you, there's a brand new Genki English CD! And to celebrate there is a load of new free stuff on the site....



New Genki Phonics CD


"Phonics" sounds quite complicated, but it's really simple. All it means is that instead of learning the alphabet as "Ay" "Bee" "See" , you learn the sounds that each letter makes. The idea being that if you have all the basic sounds linked to the letters, you can sound words out, like "d" "o" "g" to figure out how to read the word. This is pretty much the same way that many of us learned to read as children. It's also great for curing accents!

But when I was teaching I always found that traditional phonics needed too much vocab to be useful. For example what use is "fox" as an example of a sound if the kids have never heard it? I needed something simpler, something fun, something that just focussed on the sounds themselves. So I took all the energy and excitement of the famous Genki English songs and made brand new ones just for phonics!

On this new CD there are 10 funky new Genki English songs, complete with 10 audio mini-lessons and games! Use them for 5, 10 minutes per lesson and the kids will love it!

The Genki Phonics CD is available on June 1st, but if you already have any of the other Genki English CDs, as a special "thank you" you can pre-order the CD before June 1st and get post and packing for free!
Check out more details on the site:
http://genkienglish.net/phonicscd.htm

People living outside Japan will be able to order the CD by credit card when it's released on June 1st!


Upper Case or Lower Case

I always recommend teaching lower case letters before upper case letters. Why? Have a look at this newsletter, how many upper case letters do you see? Now count how many lower case ones there are!

Actually, do you know why there are upper and lower case letters? I found this out from the very useful ETJ mailing list. Apparently the first people who started using written letters were people who carved them on stone. They needed big bold strokes which became the upper case letters of today. Then people started writing on parchment. This parchment was very valuable, so they needed smaller letters to save space. These became the lower case letters. All very interesting!

In any case (no pun intended), it's conversation that comes first, then when the kids have a grounding, try the new Genki Phonics songs along with the new ......


Phonics Worksheets


To celebrate the launch of the new Genki Phonics CD, I've put up a load of new worksheets, all free to use for anyone. There are very colourful and "kawaii" ( cute in Japanese) A4 sheets for each of the lower case letters, and then 10 new odd-one-out worksheets. There are already loads of these about on the net, but hopefully the bright colours and cute fonts will make the kids very genki!

http://genkienglish.net/phonicsws.htm




Talking games to learn Japanese

To keep the "letters & sounds" theme going, if you're learning Japanese (or know anyone who is!), I've also put up 4 new talking games to learn the katakana alphabet on the www.GenkiJapan.net site. Using these games you should be able to read katakana in a couple of hours, great for reading menus in restaurants and making you a star amongst your friends!
There's also an article about the hints and tips I used to learn Japanese. If you're quite advanced, or just starting, I'm sure you'll find lots of useful information!

http://www.GenkiJapan.net




And Finally,

There's no game in the newsletter this month, but there'll be one next month! However there is another Kids Workbook to download from the "CD Owners Page" ( http://genkienglish.net/members.htm ), this time for CD volume 3. I'm also going to be looking at making CD vol. 5, so if you have any ideas of themes you'd like to see, please get in touch.

I hope to see you at the Kobe Recontracting Conference in June!

But for this month, enjoy the brand new Genki Phonics CD!!!
http://www.GenkiEnglish.net/phonicscd.htm
Be genki,
Richard

======================
Richard J. Graham
Primary School English Games, Songs and Activities
Email: newsletter@genkienglish.net
http://www.genkienglish.com
=====================


'Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.'
-- Herman Cain
( courtesy of http://www.goal-setting-guide.com/quote-of-the-day.html)


Oh, and if you like the ideas in this newsletter, please feel free to pass it along to your friends!



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Previous Newsletters: 

April 2004
March 2004 - Part 2!
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
August 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
July/August 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001Newsletter
September 2001 Newsletter
June 2001 Newsletter
May 2001 Newsletter Part Two!
May 2001 Newsletter Part One
April 2001 Newsletter
March  2001 Newsletter
February 2001 Newsletter
January 2001 Newsletter
December 2000 Newsletter!
November 2000 Newsletter
September/October 2000 Newsletter
August/September 2000 Newsletter
July/August 2000 Newsletter
June/July 2000 Newsletter
May/June 2000 Newsletter
April/May 2000 Newsletter
March/April 2000 Newsletter
February/March 2000 Newsletter
January/February 2000 Newsletter

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