Richard Graham
In a recent ajarn blog, our resident Filipino blogger, Benito Vacio, wrote about the success he was having in his classrooms with something called ‘Genki English’. Eager to learn more, we tracked down the main man himself, the founder of Genki English – Richard Graham. And Richard very kindly offered to put himself in the ajarn hot seat.
Richard, a big welcome to the ajarn hot seat. Right then, Genki English. Summarize the concept for us in one short paragraph if you would.
Thank you very much for having me here! In a nutshell, in many countries people are really bored and fed up with school. “Genki” just means, “energetic”, “exciting” and “full of life” and that’s what we’re trying to put back into education, so students enjoy it and want to learn more.
So what actual student age group use and get the most out of the Genki English concept?
In Thailand it seems to be most popular for primary kids, but we’ve had teachers getting great results for really young kids and even old ladies! On YouTube we tend to get the best feedback from teenagers, and the Harvard research was done on high school kids. So the ideas we use are pretty much universal, I learnt a quite a few of them from highbrow business training!
Tell us a little about your own teaching background – first off, which countries have you taught in?
Not that many yet, although in the past year I’ve taught in India, Tanzania, Thailand, Japan, Okinawa & Russia. And I first started teaching when I was back in the UK. We’ve got teachers using the materials in 180 – 190 countries so it would be cool to visit them all!
Wouldn't it just. Has most of your teaching experience been with kids? Is that the age group you enjoy teaching most?
I always say that I’ve met plenty of really stupid adults, but I’ve never met a stupid kid. They see things in a totally different way, and no one has told them they can’t do it yet, so they are totally up for learning. Plus in most countries we have a lot more freedom with what we can teach kids, hence that’s what we tend to focus on as we can make the biggest difference.
There must have been a Eureka moment somewhere along the line. A light-bulb appeared and you thought “Ah Genki English”
When I was doing my A Levels I was looking for a teacher to teach me, and they were just all so seriously boring! So I figured, hey, if I want to enjoy learning then other people must too, so that’s when I started teaching and that has evolved through science, music and eventually into Genki English.
Looking at your website, you travel around Thailand doing Genki English workshops. Who typically organizes them?
Usually OBEC in the Ministry of Education.
How many teachers attend one of your workshops and what kind of teachers are they?
Usually we have several hundred teachers, depending on the location. They are usually primary level and the ones who will train others on how to use Genki English. Needless to say I get some of the crazy, crazy teachers, which is always great! Thai teachers are pretty cool and are amazing singers!
I suppose by the very nature of Genki English, it’s one of your jobs to create a fun atmosphere during these workshops? Is that difficult to do when you have larger audiences?
Big classes are way easier! One on one would be the toughest, then smaller class, but with bigger groups it’s like a rock concert!
You have some sort of partnership with The British Council it seems. What part do they play or have they played in promoting Genki English in Thailand?
I first started in Thailand, many years ago, doing volunteer workshops with various groups and several of the British Council staff joined these. So then when the Ministry of Education asked the BC if they had a good kids programme, they got in touch with me.
Talk us through a typical Genki English classroom activity.
The standard lesson plan is to start off with a warm up which is a review of everything we’ve done before. Then we use computer games and special songs to introduce today’s new language and get it stuck in your head. Finally we try to simulate the adrenaline of speaking English in a real situation, and we do that with class games.
The main component though are the Genki English rules of “I can do it!” and “Try again!” which we reinforce throughout.
OK, a scenario for you. I have a small language school with say 50 students, mostly coming on weekends and almost 100% kids. I want to bring Genki English into my school. Do I begin with some sort of starter pack?
Depends what budget you have!
There is a free email course I’ve done here: http://genkienglish.net/ninjateachingtips2.htm
But if you’ve got 50 students already it’s probably best just to jump into the main Teacher’s Set. It’s very inexpensive compared with all the materials of a regular course and there are demos of everything scattered around the Genki English site.
And what about when I really want to roll the product out because all the kids love it?
Then you can join the homework programme where you can sell the software on to the students. You send me half the money, half you keep yourself, and the kids get amazing results!
You’ve clearly worked very hard to get the stage you’re at now?
Dude you don’t know the half of it! 14 years, *very* full time. I could do with some sleep at some point!
What have been the biggest obstacles to your progress? (maybe a good question for any budding entrepreneurs out there)
Being in education the biggest problems are always things like bureaucracy & politics. Especially in Thailand you go three steps forward and then two steps back!
But I must say compared with many other countries, who know they do have to change but often don’t, in Thailand they tend to take a lot more risks. Of course there are various motivations, but for example the amount of training teachers get in Thailand is amazing compared with so many countries.
If you want advice for entrepreneurs though, then don’t get into education!
And finally, where would you like to take Genki English in the future?
My aim is to have every subject in every country taught in a Genki way. That will either split between supporting really passionate teachers to do even more, or going round the tech route where kids will be able to learn on their own.
I was just doing a TED talk the other day and education is changing at an unbelievable pace, we’re all just surfing on the edge at the moment but it will be amazing to see what kids will be able to achieve in the future!
