1. Put several grapheme (letters e.g. s,a,t,i etc. or letter groups e.g. igh, oa, ee etc.) flashcards that you have studied so far on the table.  Ninja Tip:  I actually use the phonics posters, they have the key words on there so it really helps!

2. Put the kids in groups of 3 or 4.

3.  The teacher says a word they want the kids to sound out.

4. The first group rushes to the pile of flashcards, picks up one or two flashcards each and holds them up to make the word!

5.  One point if they get it right.

Bonus Ninja Tip:  Write small numbers of each flashcard (just like scrabble!) and total up the points for each word!

Be careful in step 3 that you only use words they can do e.g. don’t use the “sh” or “ch” phonemes if you’ve only taught “c” and “h” separately so far.

Ninja Tip:  If you’re unsure, just use the words in the “reading” section of today’s phonics poster, the kids can do all of those!

What do you think?  Do let us know in the comments!

P.S.  If you are unsure about phonics, do check out this “Phonics Crash Course” post I did a while back!

P.P.S. There are more of Mido’s great games in the VIP Games section.

Julia wrote a comment on the previous post that said…

It’s wonderful how you keep ALL the teachers (even in the last rows) singing and doing the gestures ALL the time!

Government school teachers are often worse than teenagers and when I have 200 students in a class you have to have *everyone* doing *everything* otherwise it’s chaos!  (And many government school teachers think that training is just to sleep through – of course they don’t get away with that in my classes!)

The secret ”ninja trick” is …

zero tolerance

of the rules.

If you let just one student get away with not doing something, gradually that will spread and soon no one will be listening to what you say.

You have to get everyone in line, right from the start.

Fine in theory, how to in practice

In the main discipline ideas post I give several techniques you can use and in general, the older the students the more techniques you need.

Kids tend to be fine with just one or two techniques, adults and teenagers need more.

(Ninja Tip:  These techniques work with any classes, especially the hardest, toughest kids.  The only time it doesn’t work is when the kids have weapons or actually carry out violence, in that case please don’t try and handle it on your own, you need outside help. No one should have to deal with a violent workplace.)

The easiest technique to implement, for kids to adults,  is in the beginning warm up  Just get everyone to stand up and sit down really, really quickly.

Then say “sit down” whilst raising your hands to a) let them know that mistakes are OK and b) That you want them to do the commands really quickly.

Cue lots of smiles and laughter!

If anyone thinks they can get away with not doing it, use the proximity effect.

If they have serious back/leg problems or are pregnant, no worries, but other than that, laziness is not an excuse to not join in!

If you’re moving on to games and activities later it’s vitally important to get the students organised quickly otherwise it just descends into chaos.

Level 2: Clapping and clapping & self policing

If there are still stragglers at the back, or gossipers when you are talking, the next step is to say “clap” and raise your hand to control the volume, again have a look at the main training video to see how to do this – it’s much easier to see it in action!

Then walk round the class, still with your hand raised and the kids clapping, and get the students next to the ones who are talking to tap them on their shoulder.

You can’t do everything yourself, so you have to get the students used to disciplining each other.

I’m quite happy to just keep them clapping and clapping until every student has stopped talking and is joining in.  Patience is the key.  The kids will lose it before you and start policing themselves!  Then you begin to build up speed so they eventually get quiet in just a few seconds.

(Ninja Tip:  Just being silent and waiting for everyone to be quiet doesn’t work in large groups.  Eventually you’ll reach a tipping point where the kids think you’ve just given up and all start talking!  Clapping works so much better as everyone knows they are supposed to be doing something.)

Next up ….

Then I go through my rules for the workshop.  It doesn’t matter what they are used to, now it’s *your* class so they play by *your* rules.

Incredibly, when I’m teaching teachers the rules I have to use are:

1. Listen when someone else is speaking.

2. Ask when you don’t understand.

I go round making sure everyone is on board with the rules, especially the ones at the back.

If they do speak up and disagree with some of the rules, as often happens with cheeky teenagers, just ask them what they want the rules to be.  They  usually come up with even better rules!

Ninja Tip: Remember kids don’t do what we say, they copy what we do.  The next time you are in a training session, or listening to someone else speak, think what model you are creating for the kids!  I can’t believe these are the rules I have to use with government school teachers, but they often get it wrong and think it’s “Do what we say, not what we do”   That’s not how the kids see it!

Shut it down

If all else fails, never be afraid to just shut down an activity and stop the class.

I’ve had demo classes where the kids just didn’t listen to any of the rules of the game, and I just shut it down, got everyone back sat down and said to them “Was that really good enough?  Was that up to your standard?”

Invariably they will say “No.” and look down.

So you say “So what can we do to make it your level?”   Then they, not you, start saying “play fair” /”speak louder”/ “stop bullying” etc. or whatever they know they were doing wrong. And you can start again.

Or sometimes it brings up problems you didn’t know about.

They might not understand part of the English or one of the rules.

Or something else, for example last week the teachers weren’t doing the games on the tablets, they were just gossiping and not doing the work.

So I shut it down, got them quiet and sat for a minute.

Then I said “OK, what’s the problem?”

After a few minutes of silence, and patience from the teacher, one participant put up their hand and said, in Thai, “We can’t hear the sounds.”

Now, that was the problem.

They didn’t realise that earphones have to go in your ears to hear the sounds. (Not everything is so obvious to everyone.)

So I added that into the instructions, and we started again.

This time they were working away like angels, and having a fantastic time playing the computer games.

If I hadn’t have shut things down I would have never figured out what the problem was.

Smile & Isn’t this far too draconian? 

Now you might say “oh, this isn’t very student centered, it’s far too old fashioned”

Fair enough.

But in my experience the more everyone respects each other and respects the rules, the easier it is to do much more fun, student centered activities later on.

And of course you have to keep a smile on your face the whole time.

The most fun classes out there are *always* the strictest.   Everyone knows where they stand, they can have lots of fun learning, but everyone knows that if they step outside the line, that’s not on.

Stress saving

Wherever you are teaching, set the rules, make them fair and enforce them rigorously.  The more cool, calm & stricter you are I promise it will completely revolutionize your lessons.

And remember, zero tolerance!

We all need to know the limits of what we can do, and where the lines are.  They might need moving and changing later, but if everyone is playing by the same rule book, and the teacher is calmly enforcing them equally for everyone, we all get much, much more done.

And it also saves you so much stress next class.

You wouldn’t want ME as your boss.

Just last week I was having dinner with a fantastic group of teachers from the UK, they were saying “I wish you were our director of studies.”

My reply was “Oh no, you’d hate working for me, I would be *FAR* too strict on you!  You’d have a fantastic time, but if you stepped out of line or didn’t work smart enough…”

And, keeping in mind these were really great teachers, their reply really surprised me.

They said:

“Well, actually I think that’s what we need.”

Be genki,

Richard

First up is a quick look at the location in Kohn Kaen, pretty nice for English training, eh!

Then we have the Chiang Mai teachers doing the How old are you? ong

And the teachers in Trang doing the What sports do you play? song

And finally the rock guitar version of the Good Morning song

Do these videos help you see how to do the songs?  Do let me know in the comments if you’d like more uploading!

Be genki,

Richard

1.  Put several (at least 3 of each) copies of today’s minicards all over the board.

2. Two kids come to the front, facing the class.

3. Everyone in the class shouts out today’s question e.g. “What sports do you play?”

4. The teacher chooses one student who answers with one of the answers on the board.

5. The two kids at the front quickly spin around, face the board and circle all the minicards that have this answer!

6. Total up how many each team got, bring two new kids to the front and repeat from step 3.

Obviously the more cards, the more fun, and an odd number of each card always adds to the competitiveness!

What do you think? Do let us know in the comments!

P.S. There are more of Mido’s great games in the VIP Games section.

You can “get by” with just gestures, picture cards etc.   But … it will cause many, many misunderstandings and your students will not nearly progress as far.

Or the alternative is to “Get fluent.”

You already have a goal (the phrases you need to use in class)  and the motivation (to make you a better teacher!) so if you are in country for more than 2 months, now is the time to take the bull by the horns and get fluent yourself!

Here’s how we’ll do it …

I’m going to start another series of posts on Getting Fluent Quickly just like I did with the Start your own school

Don’t worry, I’ll also tie in each one to some super teaching tips to really help with your classes.

Some things I hope to cover:

• Setting Goals
• Getting the mind set right
• “Cheating” tips the pros use
• Unknown advantages of getting fluent
• Common “myths” about getting fluent (e.g. the time it takes or what age is “best”- it’s probably not what you think!)
• Maybe a few interviews

Plus of course I’m sure lots of other things will crop up along the way.

So the first thing to get out of the way is…

What’s your definition of “fluent”?

As most of you know, I spend most of the year travelling and working in many different countries.   My world is a world of language learners, people who have learnt a language in order to do something amazing in a different culture.    It’s the means to an end, not the end in itself.

So, unlike the rest of the blog, this particular series will be written from modern *learners* point of view, not an academic or teaching point of view.

Hence the definition we’ll use is modern learner’s definition as being *practically* fluent i.e.

You can conduct your professional and private life without spoken language being a hinderance at all.

You can understand just about all of what goes on around you and you can express anything you wish in the target language.

Does that sound cool?

It doesn’t mean knowing *everything* in the foreign language.  It means knowing what is important to *you*.

At Uni I could chat all day in French about Quantum Mechanics or open heart surgery (long story!) but ask me about 17th century philosophy in French and I’d have no idea!!!

But then again, I’ve got no idea about 17th century philosophy in English!

( It also doesn’t mean being perfect.    Dude, just look at all the mistakes in this post, but I think you can say I’m just about a fluent English speaker. )

This isn’t “cheating”, it’s being smart.

You only have 70-80 years on the planet and there are waaaayy more difficult things we have to learn than languages.

So if you find yourself constantly not having enough time, this will help you enormously.

How long does it take?

This is the sort of level of fluency that you can achieve in just a few months.

Yep months, not years or decades.  If you work smart!

(Ninja Tip: Notice no use of the word “study” or work “hard” in there ) 

Don’t believe me?

Tim Ferriss shows how  it takes 3 months.

Benny Lewis has done many languages in 3 months each.

Michel Thomas said 3 days.

And I see people literally everyday who have done this.

(Ninja Tip 2:  If you want to add in writing, add an extra few months, depending on the language.  Using the tools I’ll show in the series I was basically fluent in Japanese in 3 -4 months, but the kanji took another 9!!)

If you wanna join the cool kids’ club, we’d love to have you come along for the ride!

Be genki,

Richard

P.S.  Ninja Teaching Tip:  How does this definition of fluency fit in with your curriculum and lesson plans?   Or maybe you have a different goal in mind?  Does each part of each lesson help the kids progress towards this goal?  Are there any ways you could trim or change your lessons to get there more quickly?

P.S.  If you have any questions or things you’d like to see covered in this series, do let me know in the comments.  Similarly if you think I’m wasting time doing this and want me to just get back to the teaching stuff, do let me know in the comments too!

Today the teachers were asking for help with the “th” pronunciation – always a tricky one is just about every country!

The easiest way to do it, by far, is with the “4th, 5th, 6th”  song on the Download Pack version of the  Where is your birthday? software.

Get them to practice sticking their tongues out first, and (jokingly of course!) tell them to lick the head of the person in front of them as they say it!

Do make sure you tell them it’s a joke before anyone actually does it though!!

And if you add in the hand gestures it’s makes a very fun pronunciation lesson.

Check out the video, as you can see it works just as well for adults as kids!

Game time!

A good game for this is to get them to line up in order of their birthday, Jan 1st at one side of the room Dec 31st at the other and everyone in order in between.

They do this by asking each other Where is your birthday? and answering with all those “th” sounds!

They get a *lot* of practice and like with all Genki English Manual games you get to wander round the class checking who needs what help with which parts.

Phonics “th”

And once you’ve done this it makes things a lot easier when you come to the “th” sounds in the Phonics Course.

What do you think?  Can you do all the gestures above?  Do let us know in the comments!

Be genki,

Richard

P.S.  Thank you to everyone who came on Saturday in Bangkok, it was fantastic to see so many amazing people using Genki English!  This coming Sunday is a workshop in Surat Thani, so do get in touch if you’d like to join us!