Welcome to Genki English in November!! OK, I'm holding off a bit this month
and the big new update (featuring lots of Christmas ideas) will be up in
a couple of weeks time. So to make up for it this month's newsletter is
going have tons of stuff in it!!
New Game: Fruit Runner
OK, try out this cool game of Will's... An energy-packed game for reviewing vocab and getting your kids to speak with genki intonation!
1. Two teams line up on one side of the room.
2. Halfway across the room each team has two boxes - one with a green tick (the 'Yes' box), the other with a red cross (the 'No' box)
3. On the far side of the room are two piles of picture cards - one for each team. If there are 10 members in each team, there will be ten cards in each pile.
4. Each team is assigned a set of vocab name eg fruit, drinks.
5.The teacher yells "Start!".
6. The first player in each team runs to the far side, grabs a picture
card, runs to the boxes in the middle of the room and calls out the word
depicted on the card eg "banana?" - with a rising intonation.
If that player's team is the Fruit team the other members call out "Yes
please!" and the player drops the card in the green tick box and runs
back to tag the next player. If the players team is the Drink team the
team calls out "No thank you!" the player drops the card in the
box with the red cross, rejoins the teams and tags the next player, who
runs to the far sidec
7. The team which gets all their cards in the two boxes first wins!
8. If a player drops a card in a box without calling out the vocab, or without the team calling out a reply it is a penalty - add a card to the team's pile!
NB A 10 member Fruit team will have 5 cards with various fruits, and 5 cards with some other vocab the kids have already studied. This way you make sure you get a balance of "Yes please" and "No thank you".
Make sure you get the runner to call out the card vocab with a rising intonation so it is clear that it is a question! And when the teams call out "Yes please!" they should nod their heads, and shake them for "No thank you"
If you have more kids, just make more teams !
Sharon Fruit?
Thanks Will for that game! Speaking of fruit.... In Japan I first saw the
fruit called "kaki". The Japanese informed me it was called "persimmon"
in English. Needles to say I was none the wiser (I guess it's a North American
word?) But whilst I was in an English supermarket this March, I saw some
"Sharon Fruit" which looked remarkably like "kaki".
So the questions is, are persimmon called "Sharon fruits" in
the UK?????
English Festivals
I'm always asked about festivals and things in the UK. In reality we don't
really have that many (certainly not on the scale that they happen in Japan),
but two dates that do spring to mind are Bonfire Night on November 5th
and Remembrance Day on November 11th. I've taught both these and they went
down really well!
Bonfire Night - November 5th
Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes day is one of the few times of year when English
people set off fireworks. It often appears strange to Japanese kids that
to most English people fireworks mean winter evenings in big coats, whereas
in Japan it conjures up images of summer! There are also loads of cool
recipes and foods associated with Bonfire Night that work great in lessons!
If you want to find out more about November 5th then check out this website: http://www.bonefire.org/guy/
Remembrance Day November 11th
If you look at any English newscaster, politician or even pop star during the first half of November, you'll notice that they all wear a red poppy (try getting some pictures to show the kids, the BBC site is great http://news.bbc.co.uk !). These poppies are sold each year in support of the Royal British Legion. You can find out more at the website. http://www.poppy.org.uk/pages/ or http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/welcome.cfm
Saitama, Yamagata, Aomori + Gunma Mid Year Conferences
This month we are very happy to do presentations at several JET mid-year
conferences and the CIR conference in Chiba. So if you live in Saitama,
Yamagata, Aomori or Gunma, then come along to our workshop at the mid-year
and get loads of great ideas for your lessons. If there is anything specific
you'd like to see then ask us on the discussion board! We'll also be having
our CDs available so bring along some money for some special savings, and
a receipt that will hopefully let your school give you the money back!!!
And we may also be appearing at the JALT children's conference in Kokura,
Kyushu, on November 25th! Check out details in the next newsletter!
Groovy GenkiEnglish Video!
Most of October has been spent filming our new Genki English video!! Now
this is going to be one cool video! We'll be going through lots of the
points from the seminars on how to use games, songs and how to motivate
yourself and the kids! The video will be in Japanese, but is so visual
that you should get what's going on, plus you get the chance to learn some
great Japanese to help explain things to your kids! Plus there'll be animations
and skits that you can actually use in the classroom, great if you want
a break for a few minutes! The video should be out and available to order
on the Website by the beginning of December - it'd be a great Christmas
present for one of your teachers!!
Next Month's Update
So sometime during November the website will get a whole new look with
all the trimmings of the festive season. They'll be ideas and games and
maybe even a few surprises, so keep checking back soon! Then I'll be heading
back to Europe from December till February. Genki English will be still
going strong in Asia, but I'll be looking at how teachers in Europe can
benefit from being Genki!
