The new website - coming soon

In the next few days FunSongs will be launching its new-look website. We hope the new design conceived  in collaboration with Creospace in Norfolk, England  will provide  teachers and parents visiting the  site with an entertaining and interesting experience.

Some of the new features you will find on the site:

• Free downloads of action song packages
• Free download of Charles Goodger's pdf book
  Music and Mime, Rhythm and Rhyme
• Improved action song packages with more worksheets
• Details of the international conferences and events FunSongs will be present at
• The chance to register with FunSongs fr updates and free materials
• Incorporated  FunSongs  blog
• News of FunSongs Shows in Italy and Latvia
• Info on job opportunities for young teachers and actors in Germany and elsewhere

We hope you find time to visit the new site and to support FunSongs by buying   the school licence - still the same price as last year. 

FunSongs Worldwide Distribution with BEBC

Through contacts first made at the 2009 IATEFL teachers conference, FunSongs recently agreed to allow the UK's leading distributor of ELT and EFL materials BEBC (Bournemouth English Book Centre) to handle the worldwide  distribution of the FunSongs  CD and booklet "Action Songs for Learning English." Already a number of bookstores which FunSongs has been supplying directly such as the Uppsala English Bookshop in Sweden have welcomed the move. "That's great - well done Charles! We already have an account with BEBC and that'll make ordering new copies of the CD a lot easier for us," commented Jan the outlet's manager in a phone call.  

Action Songs for Learning English ISBN 0954396316, 

The CD is also available from the FunSongs website

FunSongs on YouTube

YouTube is an incredible resource for teachers and students. FunSongs has uploaded a number of action song  videos with captions to show English teachers how best to teach and present the songs. You will find a Teaching Actions playlist on the  www.youtube.com/funsongs channel. At the time of uploading this post the following action songs could be viewed:

• Water is Everything
• Best for the World
• What's Your Favourite Sport?
• 65 Million Years Ago
• On Halloween
• The Monster March  

The packages for all these songs and many more are available for download on the FunSongs website. 

Emelie Loeb at Rome TESOL

FunSongs practitioner Emelie Loeb making  a point.

Emelie Loeb has been teaching other teachers how to use the FunSongs Method for almost three years.  She assisted  Charles Goodger at many workshops and conferences before he left Italy to promote FunSongs in other parts of Europe at the start of 2008, and together with Valentina D'Errico has continued to train teachers in the action song-based teaching method ever since.
At the recent TESOL-Italy teachers conference in Rome, Emelie was sponsored by FunSongs' sister organization CAIL - the Cultural Association for Interactive Learning. CAIL, whose headquarters are in Bologna, organizes shows, events and camps for young learners throughout Italy.

Unfortunately Emelie's slot at the two-day conference was at the end of the final day when many of the participants were leaving. Despite this, her workshop on interactive teaching methods drew a large crowd of over 35. Emelie completed her session by showing participants how to teach   I Love Christmas.

I Love Christmas and I Hate Christmas

Christmas is a magical time for kids so how about teaching your primary school classes I Love Christmas and working on its language? Kids love to perform this song which is far more useful linguistically than overused standards such as the difficult Jingle Bells. The original action song presents and teaches the vocabulary  English uses to describe several typical Christmas traditions. The song also alludes to the real meaning of the Christian festival. 
As a special bonus teachers who download the package, which contains nine graded worksheets, will also receive the words and music of  I Hate Christmas - an amusing parody that makes fun of the commercialisation of the festival.
Free samples of the I Love Christmas action song package can be downloaded from www.funsongs.co.uk/available

FunSongs Workshop at Paris TESOL

 
 

 Charles Goodger teacher the action song "Water is Everything"

Friday 7th November Charles Goodger flew to Paris from Riga to hold a FunSongs workshop at the annual English teachers' colloquium organized by France TESOL in Paris. He was presented to participants by Prof. Mauro Verde from Milan representing TESOL Italy and whose blog you can view here. Though most of the teachers registered for the conference were not primary school English teachers,  feedback from the organisers confirmed  the workshop was highly appreciated. You can view a video clip of teachers acting out and singing "Water is Everything" on the FunSongs YouTube channel   and download  Goodger's power point from the TESOL France website.

FunSongs Halloween events in Italy and Latvia

Kids at the Halloween Fashion show at Laimite, Riga

Halloween never fails to fascinate children with its ghosts, witches and pumpkins. One of FunSongs most popular download packages is “On Halloween” with nine graded worksheets to recycle and practise different aspects of the song, including difficult plural nouns. The song is also the basis for the FunSongs Halloween Show performed this year in a number of school and venues in different countries. In Italy the Cutural Association for Interactive Learning, as well as staging several Halloween shows, organized another American Halloween Event for families in Bologna while in Latvia English teacher Vita Caice put on a Halloween fashion show for the children at the Laimite Children’s Centre in Riga as you can see from the video.

FunSongs Robin Hood Show for Scuola Media

Australian actor Costa Latsos as Professor Krettin

As well as Halloween Shows and events, CAIL in Bologna (the cultural association responsible for FunSongs activities, courses and events in Italy) recently visited a large Scuola Media - Scuola Farini - in one of the poorer areas of the city, to perform the hilarious FunSongs Robin Hood Show. Working with ten and eleven year-old students is always a challenge as kids that age may not appreciate the FunSongs Method based on mime and action song as much as younger students. However FunSongs actors Emelie Loeb and Costa Latsos valiantly succeeded in teaching over 60 "tweenies" the action song Robin Hood's Band, a useful tool for presenting a range of themes, including medieval England world and language-wise, possessive adjectives. After the event, the school was given access to the package on the FunSongs website for follow-up work in class.

FunSongs Day in Vilnius

On Friday 23rd October LAKMA the Lithuanian Teacher's Association invited Charles Goodger to Vilnius Pedagigical University to hold a FunSongs Day for teachers of English to young learners. Assisted by Patrick van Rensburg who intends to launch FunSongs in China in 2010, Charles involved 42 teachers in an intense series of activities designed to underline the didactic power of action songs in EFL. All teachers participating received free downloads from the FunSongs website. Upcoming national and international English teacher conferences at which Charles Goodger and Emelie Loeb will be speaking are TESOL France in Paris this weekend, TESOL Italy in Rome on November 21 and the Children's Literature in Education conference in Hildesheim, Germany on 25-27 February 2010.

What's your favourite sport?

In Livani, basketball is a favourite sport

The FunSongs website is evolving and enlarging. The aim is to provide an increasing number of quality worksheets, more action song package downloads and an easier experience for visitors to the site. This week sees the completion of the latest language-learning action song written by Charles Goodger entitled What's your favourite sport? designed to focus primary school classes on the kind of words English uses to describe a range of team sports including football, soccer, cricket, rugby and basketball. Just this week rugby was officially recognized as an olympic sport.

Part of Verse 3

Bounce the ball
And throw it fast
Make sure your aim is true!

The theme lends itself well to the TPR aspects of the FunSongs Approach.
What's your favourite sport? will be available for download before the end of November 2009.

FunSongs in Livani, Latvia

On Monday 12th and Tuesday 13th October the FunSongs Latvia mother-tongue team will be in the town of Livani near Daugavpils Latvia to involve over 100 children in FunSongs Quiz Shows and a special On Halloween workshop and promotion.
Livani is famous for its basketball team and the event will also provide Charles Goodger and his actors with the opportunity to showcase the new action song.

FunSongs in Jurmula and Riga

Charles Goodger and Talis Smits teaching the

action song "Water is Everything."

This week Charles Goodger and FunSongs teacher Talis Smits from Toronto visited the large Pumpuri School in Jurmula. The purpose of their visit was to provide a free FunSongs Workshop. About 65 children and several English teachers participated. At the end of a physically and linguistically challenging 40 minutes everyone had more or less learnt two new FunSongs action songs: "Time to Play" and "The Monster March". After the workshop the teachers were given a link to download a free action song package. The FunSongs team then met with the school administration to discuss several future events including, FunSongs Puppet Theatre Shows and FunSongs Quiz Shows for older kids to be staged by three mother-tongue actors at school during the annual language week at the end of February.

Ecole Française adopts the FunSongs Approach

The Ecole Française in Riga has decided to teach its pupils English using the FunSongs Approach and on Wednesday this week the year-long course began! At the very first session, held by FunSongs expert Talis Smits, seven kids aged from 4 to 7 were delighted to start learning the language in the play-based way FunSongs proposes.

Water is Everything

On Monday 14th September Charles Goodger and Talis Smits visited one of Riga's largest schools, Mezciema padaskola in Ipocrate iela. They were invited by the head Silvija Tikmere to teach two classes of 8 and 9 year-olds "Water is Everything," the action song about climate change and clean water. As part of a cross-curricular project on science, nature and water the song was seen as an ideal complement. Teachers from Riga and the surrounding area are welcome to contact FunSongs to organize a fee workshop. Please call +371 25995781.