If you have your own school you might be able to get some press coverage for yourself by printing out the press release and giving it to your local newspapers or TV and saying how you also use the same system in your classes!

PDF Version in English - PDF Version in Japanese
Press Release: July 2009

Made in Japan English Systems Go into Every School in Thailand

The British Council, the UK’s public organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations, jointly with GenkiEnglish.com provides elementary English learning systems to every school in Thailand.

The British Council is working on a regional project called Access English, a three year programme designed to provide partnership and support in agenda setting, institutional change and capacity building for English language teaching in East Asia including Japan and Thailand.

In many countries English has been a compulsory subject for many years but teachers have often found the traditional textbook approach focused more on reading and writing than speaking and listening. Hence, the Thailand Government asked the British Council to recommend a new method to revitalise and re-energise the English teaching in their schools.

The materials the British Council decided to introduce were from Ehime based GenkiEnglish.com, a provider of teaching materials and training based on the Japanese concept of “Genki” - getting children engaged and excited about learning and communication.

The introduction to 30,000 schools was so successful that from this academic year the made in Japan “Genki English” is now part of the official teaching materials for all primary schools in Thailand.

Genki English is in fact now used in over 180 countries as well as schools in Japan from Hokkaido to Okinawa. In all countries it is called “Genki” English.

Founder Richard Graham developed the materials whilst teaching in Ehime prefecture, basing them on the MEXT guidelines of confidence, speaking first and getting students to love expressing themselves in English.

Genki English and the British Council in Tokyo are also planning to work together to help Japanese teachers feel more confident about teaching English, and help Japanese children communicate with friends all over the world. The British Council and Genki English are planning to hold several elementary teacher training workshops in the near future, as well as collaborating on new online materials for students and teachers.

For more information or requests for interviews with Richard Graham [Genki English] and/or Steve Bates [Director of English Language Services, British Council] please contact Yukiko Sekikawa.

Enquiries and requests for interviews should be addressed to:
Yukiko Sekikawa, British Council
TEL:　03-3235-8005 E-mail: enquries@britishcouncil.or.jp

Additional Information

About Genki English

Richard Graham founded GenkiEnglish.com, a provider of teaching materials and training based on the Japanese concept of “Genki”. He is now working with the University of Newcastle in the UK to bring this “Genkiness” to schools for low income families in India, China and Africa as well as working with the British Council in Japan.

The Genki approach to learning English works by engaging all of the learners senses and appealing to a wide range of learning styles. Children are engaged visually through the simple but striking graphics, aurally/orally through the simple chants and songs and limited amounts of graded vocabulary input and kinaesthetically through the actions and games. Because all of the learning tasks are organised as game-like activities, children are immediately motivated to take part. Tasks are achievable and learners receive positive feedback throughout the learning process. It is important that teachers realise that just using the materials is not enough, the way the materials are used are just as important to fully engage learners and maximise learning.

Homepage: www.GenkiEnglish.com

About the British Council

The British Council is the UK’s public organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. Established by the UK government in 1934, the Council operates in over 100 countries worldwide, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Burma. We build trust, engagement and opportunities, reaching over 128 million people worldwide each year. In Japan, the Council has centres in Tokyo and Osaka and runs English courses, provides information on studying in the UK and introduces the latest of contemporary UK in the fields of Arts, Science and education. In Thailand, the Council has been working with Ministry of Education in raising the standards of English language teaching and learning for more than 20 years.

Homepage: www.britishcouncil.or.jp

Using puppets for every kid in class can become a little expensive, but Malaz in China has come up with this great game idea using sponges.

Sponge Talk

I came up with Sponge Talk a couple of weeks ago.
I have a large class and not much room to move around so more sponges, mean more action.

1. You’ll need a set of thick kitchen sponges
(number of sponges about 10-20% of your total class)
(preferably with two different edges, brightly colored)

2. And a set of  vocab / conversation cards attached with conversational suffixes, ie..”having a cup of tea” etc…

3. Say we have a set of conversations with “How about…” being the implied prefix.
The cards with the suffixes are attached to the sponges;
1 sponge, 1 suffix.

4. The sponges are then given to random students before the game begins.

5. The students are then instructed to pass forward or backward in the row repeating the “How about…” and then adding whatever the sponge says. e.g. How about … watching a movie tonight?

6. The receiver of the sponge can then opt to say “No, thank you”
or “yes, I’d like to” If the receiver says “yes” then they get the sponge and repeat the process.
if they say no, then the sponge is passed to the person opposite.

7. If both the person in front and behind the student say no, then the sponge is passed across the row from the student.

This was a really effective way to practice our lesson.

I also added an element of chaos with “Mr. Frog”

1. A stuffed frog is given to a student (whether or not they have a sponge)
2. They pass Mr. Frog until it reaches a student with a sponge.
3. If a student possesses both a sponge and Mr. Frog, they must then have the conversation with Mr. Frog, deciding for or against the proposition.
4. If the student decides Mr. Frog would like to “have a cup of tea”, then Mr. Frog is tossed to another student, if they decide Mr. Frog would not like a cup of tea…or whatever else…then Mr. Frog is thrown back to the teacher, who then puts it back in circulation.

I’ve found it helpful to participate as well.

This game is supposed to played sitting down. If you allow the kids to stand up, they’ll all end up hovering around whoever has Mr. Frog and the students who don’t have a sponge will begin floating around, not really paying attention.

I realized, while putting this game into motion that I could add several more elements which would keep almost every single student occupied at once.

A balloon, for example, tossed into the mix and given the function of reversing the order of the conversation if it hits a student with a sponge.

Malaz
Beijing

Thanks Malaz for that! Of course you can also use the game for just about any language point you wish to teach.

It would be really cool to make a list here of funky phrases to use after “How about…” Funny or off the wall ones always go down well, have a try writing a few up in the comments below!

Fukuoka’s always a good crowd with lots of people I know. In the beginning they were a little “errmmm, we’re not sure” but after the hour everyone was “genki ga demashita” - saying how it got them genki again!

Content wise was mainly CD9 as well as talking about development, India, Cambodia & China. The Slumdog Millionaire story is pretty cool isn’t it!

It was also good in the intro to play some of the member’s exclusive tracks such as Baby Monkey it’s Summer, Times Tables Songs, CD10 songs, Try again song, Genki Rules of Life and Genki Relax.

I also did a piece for tonight’s “Mentai Wide” TV show. We recorded a ton of stuff so I’ve no idea how it’s going to turn out edited up, but if you’re watching TV this evening, check it out!

P.S. the winner of June’s caption competition, chosen at random, was Val! Keep commenting to see if you win this month, and Val, which CD would you like?

Here’s the Crazy Pizza Game to go with the How many…? theme, from Genki English reader Hump

Crazy Pizza
Target English  How many

This game is a funny practice for “how many” and nice way to get everyone involved. It is a bit more of a sitting down activity but it gets the kids really excited and really genki.

Preparation -

1. Print or draw a bunch of flashcards of pizza toppings

i.e tomatoes/sausages/chilies etc

2. Then you need to make crazy toppings
i.e cockroaches, cats, dogs, natto, goya(most kids seem to hate this), lemons etc (or any other theme you want to do, transport pizza?  Animal Pizza?)

3. Put them in a hat and mix them all together.

You also need to make a large paper pizza base, one for each group (lunch groups work well).

The Game…

1. Pick one student from a group to come and choose a topping from the hat. Have the student show the class. The whole class then ask, “How many (cats)?“. The student can then answer from 1-12 (or any range you like)”12 cats”

2. The students in each group have to draw the correct number of toppings on the pizza. If you want to make it a bit more active have this as a race (having everyone stand up works well, the first team to finish can sit down). Kids will often scribble anything to finish first, so it`s a good laugh to judge their artwork as a class between each round

3. Repeat step one and two until the pizza is full.

It sounds a little dry on paper but the kids love it. The more bizarre and odd the toppings the better. You can use any vocabulary you want to review. (fruits, animals, transport)

Thanks for the game Hump! Let’s us know in the comments if you try it out and if any of you have any other great games to share, please send them in!

TOP HINT:  It’s also a great idea in games like this to play the song quietly in the background whilst the kids are colouring and drawing.  They start singing along and memorising the English without realising!

The other reason is to show that Genki English isn’t just some theory, it’s what I use to learn languages myself. If you start as an adult you’ll never get native level, but hopefully this video shows that with the Genki way of thinking you can pretty good.

Flossy has also got a very nice game to go with the I have a question theme.

1. Put up each adjective’s flashcard on the board.

2. The kids come up and draw something that’s big, red, expensive etc. next to each card.

This is what they come up with:

If you’ve got any cool ideas or videos then please send them in, and if you have any comments for Flossy then please write them below!