Here is the link to the video that explains two new games that I have just invented to complement our songs.

If you want to print up the match game cards and play on your dining room table, the document is attached.

Here is a link to the Youtube video that explains the Roblox games I have created https://youtu.be/kk9a-6qgqfc

I integrate technology into teaching to use Gamification in the classroom, and to help kids practice at home. One of the best ways to learn, is through playing. Many kids spend hours on Roblox. I have created games to practice the target vocabulary that we are learning in our songs and stories. By synthesizing the learning, through multiple media, we can maximize exposure to it, and make the most of our hour of class per week.

The goal of the Roblox games is generally the same. You have to choose a path with correctly spelled words. Follow the correctly spelled words, and you get the end. Follow the incorrectly spelled words, and you have to start over.

You can play against other players, which makes you have to choose the correct words quickly, in order to win the race.

I have also integrated learning into mazes. By giving the students difficult mazes, with clues on the correct path using correctly spelled words, we have transformed mazes from busy-work into an activity with a learning goal.

I have created a new type of match game, with different points for different cards. Some are rarer than others, and are worth more points. There are common cards that are easier to match, but worth fewer points. The fun thing about the match game, is that it uses my Mr Andrew ESL Cards, which are actually just flash cards. We disguise the flash cards as trading cards. We give them funny names and have little jokes in the description. But they are just flashcards.

These trading cards/flash cards are also one of the ”Fabulous Prizes” that I give out at the end of class, when the students get 20 points in our classroom management system. For every 20 points, they can choose a prize. The idea is based on gamifying reward systems, by mimicking those used in video games. At the end of a round in a game, the player would receive pts, XP, etc. They then use these points to buy things in the game. The same idea works for my ”Fabulous Prizes” system. They sing a song and dance correctly. They get points. They can exchange those points for fabulous prizes. They are willing to do the work regardless, as it is fun, the songs are good and the stories are funny. But they appreciate being rewarded for their work. It’s like any job. At the end of the week, you expect to be payed for your work.

The distribution process for my trading cards/flash cards is also based on that of trading cards or “blind bag” toys that kids buy. Some of the flash cards are common, some are rare, some are ultra rare, some are special limited collector’s edition. By creating scarcity of demand, kids get super excited to pull an ultra-rare trading/flash card. It makes it special.

They can also choose other prizes. They can ”purchase an item from my store”, like they would in a video game. In reality, I will just print them up a drawing of something they like. But the whole process makes it special. By turning the mundane into ”Fabulous Prizes”, life gets a little more fun and special.

They can also choose to have a special lunch period where we eat and talk together; change their ClassDojo Avatar; get a sticker, or an old hockey card from my collection. Perception is reality, and if kids perceive these simple things to be ”fabulous prizes”, it’s real to them.

I have started looking for other ways to add grammatical and linguistic elements to games. I have created a “Spot the difference” games, with a vocabulary list, to integrate a linguistic element. I have also created virtual quizzes that help us practice the themes and vocabulary we’ve seen that period. It is easier to get students to play than to work. but by the end, they’ve worked by playing. By integrating gamification, we make work more like play.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AjbvVhLx7a12efU4_XnqJCmWoFDWvNiWNaI3NadS8_8/edit#slide=id.p

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Here is a template for the Cl@sster activity I do with my students.

It is a fake social media site, where we..

1-Invent a name 2-Draw what we did this weekend 3-Write a sentence about it using the model verbs (I played…I watched…I went to…I ate…) and circle the verbs. 4-Take a photo of it and send it to me to be entered in the “Cl@sster of the Month” contest.

Download the template at the bottom.

We play the role of motivational speaker in my ESL program. That is the only way we can intrinsically motivate them. But this cheerleading has to be sincere to be most effective. And the only way to make it effective is to make it a reality. We have to present material and activities that are motivational, that they WANT to do, rather than are FORCED to do. This is how you build intrinsic motivation, and how you then continue a higher level of performance by motivating them to stay motivated!

Motivation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I tell them they will do a good job today, because they always do a good job. They then do a good job because they are already doing it. It is easier to continue a positive behaviour than change a negative behaviour. It is motivational to have someone believe in you.

This is true, intrinsic motivation. The most powerful force in determining future success.

The stories are also important in ESL teaching. Telling them same public domain story every week will get tedious for them after a few weeks. Even if we try to change up the story a bit, and make it funnier, the source material only offers so much that you can do with.

Humour is a proven tool in educational success, and if we don’t use it, we are not trying hard enough. The same jokes can get predictable after a while though, and we can only use the same stories a few times before they lose their effect. These stories can be used to teach the target vocabulary, explicitly, through reinvestment activities, and implicitly teach sentence structure, syntax, etc.

The stories live on through the activity sheets in the activity book, but can also be revisited if the students wants to watch or listen to them on their own at home.

Students don’t have the autonomy to go see a comedy show on their own. Offering them something similar is motivational to them. To be able to watch a comedic performance with an audience, laughing together, is so much more dynamic than simply watching a funny video on Youtube, but we also have the ability to rewatch those funny videos at home.

“Clean comedy” is a great way to get kids interested in learning English. You can teach the vocabulary in context, and use the general themes that we see in class. It is a strategy that is not being used enough in schools.

New technology can easily integrate humour in the classroom. I can make and animate funny, age-appropriate videos that complement the songs and themes, like I do with my “Adventures of Life” series. But there are so many other ways to quickly inject humour into teaching. Kids are growing up with “Memes”. Using a meme, with an image and simple joke related to the theme you are teaching, is a fun way to add layers to the learning process. Kids love absurdist humour. It is easily understood by learners of all levels. Sometimes, you don’t know everything, but you know what you don’t know. And if a joke is so ridiculous, it can actually become more obvious what you are supposed to understand. As an example, in one of my videos, I talk about how kids have a heard time with the days of the week. I exagerrate a bit, and say that one time, a student told me he knew them, and proceeded to list “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Banana” (in reality he said Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, January, but this way is funnier). Even weaker students know banana is not the fourth day of the week, and they start to analyse the situation, and it can trigger the correct days of the week. My videos use clean comedy and absurdist humour to complement the themes we are learning in class, and by making them fun.

I have also changed the way that we use flashcards, to add humour. Instead of just showing a triangle, why not show a triangle, but anthropomorphize him and also give him a funny name like Terry Triangle, and list his triangular shaped hobbies, like visiting the pyramids, and sailing? I then present the flashcard like a trading card, and give them out as rewards. The students want to win a flashcard. That doesn’t happen with regular flashcards.

I have seen the effect that this material has had, I can honestly say that it works better than what we are using up until this point, to teach cycle 1. I am always encouraged by the results; that students want to hear these stories again and again. They see the vocabulary, and are practicing it in a fun new way. This is motivating, and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I tell them they will do a good job today, because they always do a good job. They then do a good job because they are already doing it. It is easier to continue a positive behaviour than change a negative behaviour. It is motivational to have someone believe in you. And at the end of the day, we all just want to laugh….why not learn while we’re laughing.

Nobody has ever asked if the songs we show our students are good. If they did, maybe it’s just that they don’t understand 6-8 year olds. They offer the same public domain  songs to these kids, year after year, and many will do the work for the most part, because it is forced upon them. But this is purely extrincally motivated. And you will not reach the portion of students who are reluctant to engage in learning. However, if you offer better songs and better music, you will intrinsically motivate them, and reach a greater audience.

But that requires better songs, better music. No one was offering that to our students. I have written better songs for ESL learning. They are not « educational » songs, or « children’s » songs, they are just songs. They are authentic. They can serve to teach the vocabulary, but they also stand on their own. No one has shown an interest in doing that until now, or if they have I am not aware. The students feel grateful that this new type of material is presented to them, and it strengthens the student-teacher bond.

I have always loved singing and playing and composing music, and I bring that to my teaching. The fun thing about composing kids’ songs is that anything can be a song. The parts of the body, that’s a song, weather, that’s a song; everything can be a song, and the possibilities are endless.

Students have no autonomy in life. They can’t just go to a concert. By offering them an enhanced experience like this, we are offering a little bit of that to them, and make it feel less like school, and more like a show. They look forward to a show. It is the best part of the week for many. It is much more dynamic than just watching a music video on your own at home, but the students can also watch these videos at home if they wish to. It changes the dynamic of the lesson completely. We shift our role from authoritarian to animator. We now get their collaboration, as when you go to a concert, you are more likely to participate willingly than you are to heckle the band. We get their collaborating, and see intrinsic motivation.

They have an interactive experience where they get up and sing and dance the songs with the class. We choose different students every song to dance and sing in front of the class, to lead the song, and demonstrate the dance. They also get to choose a friend to come up with them. They earn points for their participation.

When they get to sing and dance in front of the class, they experience the feelings of competency and autonomy, and these are motivational factors. They are helping the whole class learn and practice the dance for the song. The dance helps with comprehension for the target vocabulary. That target vocabulary is often used in subsequent songs (big, small, sun, rain, and other frequently used cycle 1 vocabulary) and becomes long-term reinvestment. It is through “learning in context” that students effortlessly absorb the vocabulary.

I have recently begun “coding” my songs, to see how many times different target vocabulary is seen, sang and danced in each song. For example, if we sing “The Rain or the Sun”, I would be able to say that we practiced “I” 10 times, “Rain” 6 times, etc. And after a whole lesson, we could say how many times we saw each targeted vocabulary word.

The combination of explicit teaching (teaching them “see” by pointing to eyes), and learning in context (repeating that “see” gesture dozens of times in our songs, during a lesson, hundreds of times in a year), that the learning is done. By choosing a friend to dance with, who will also receive a point in our classroom management system, they experience autonomy and competence as well, as they help a friend earn points. They experience pride in their ability to help others.

Authentic music is also a good way to add differentiation to a lesson. If we are singing my song about shapes, I really only expect them to learn square, triangle and rectangle, practice the numbers that we use for the number of sides, and maybe learn moon, heart, star and diamond. But there are other more complicated shapes in the song, that stronger or even native speakers don’t know yet. They can learn these new shapes as part of differentiated learning. In cycle one, even native speakers don’t usually know the days of the week, the months of the year yet. We sometimes expect that they do, but in my experience, this isn’t usually the case. Add to that, the fact that my songs contain countless other opportunities to learn new vocabulary, as there are more than just the lyrics to the targeted theme in the song.

In recent years, education has seen a shift away from punishments for failure to collaborate, to going towards the positive to encourage collaboration. But if we change the way we teach, we need to change what we teach. We need to update the material. If you are still teaching 8 year olds nursery rhymes that belong in daycare, you can’t just take away the stick and expect a carrot to be enough. You have to give them something worth listening to.

I have updated my activity book for 2025-26; the link is at the bottom. Here is the newest version of Book A.

I have been working on different formats. If you are a teacher using Smart Notebook, here is a link https://content.smarttech.com/#!/share/c841f05c-bee3-4818-a671-e397e94a327f

Click on the title of the song at the top of each page, and it will bring you to the video of the song.

I have tried to make things user-friendly by putting “matching” activities instead of the cutting and glueing I originally used. I try to make the activities graded on 5 or 10, to ease the correcting process. I find it is easier to interpret a 9/10 than an 8/11.

I have also made a Google Slides version. The links for the activities work well, and it is a good way to project the activities, but I find that a smartboard doesn’t always let you draw on the document. Here is the link anyway. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rYaLolPwvRzOF6w-LJNzdYpB260hL6_rAn2r-lA7vD8/edit#slide=id.g12134c35eb6_0_1

Here are the activities for/Voici les activités pour “January” and “1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10”.

Here are the Youtube links

Here is the worksheet for my song “Places in the House”.

The song teaches vocbulary about the different parts of the house.

Voici les activités qui vont avec ma chanson “Places in the house”.

La chanson parle du vocabulaire lié aux différentes parties de la maison.

As always, we dance the keywords. We try to mime the actions we do in different rooms (eating, sleeping, playing, etc.), we make a self-pointing gesture for “I”, etc

Comme d’habitude, on danse les mouvements. On fait les gestes associés à chaque pièce de la maison (manger, dormir, jouer, etc), on pointe vers nous pour “I”, etc.