Job Discussion Forums

[Lance Uppercut]

Hey y'all,

first of all I want to say thanks to all the people who helped me with my last post (nursery rhymes). My next task seems to be a little more difficult. Right now I'm teaching a highschool class. Although most of the students are horrible, I have found a group of about five all-stars, who are genuinely concerned with improving their English. I decided to make an extra class for them, pretty much an oral English class to help prepare them for college.
So I asked them what topics they would like to talk about. The answer I got was other cultures. My jaw dropped. Culture is such an all-encompassing word that its almost hard to describe. So I started to break the word down; what makes culture? Well you got food, religion, politics, geography, music, etc. We chose to go with music for the first lesson.
So now (sorry for the lengthy intro) I have to come up with some songs to explain culture. I want to cover hip-hop, rock, country, blues, jazz, and (dreadfully) pop music. Any suggestions? It doesn't really matter how abstract the lyrics are, as I feel their English is good enough for me to explain it to them. I have some ideas myself, but any input would be appreciated. It doesn't have to be American music, it just has to give a good expression of how people feel or felt when the song was written. Thanks in advanced.

xanman

[Roger]

I am going to induce some sleep in other forumites with my mention of what has worked for me excessively well - I have my students - any age except kindergarten pupils! - discuss how to cheat during exams. Others sometimes happily tell their audiences how teachers or schools should stop the rot...

Also, I am discovering these days that most students actually need a lot of help with phonetics. I review with university students the various ways of pronouncing each and every vowel plus a select few consonants.
In addition, it is fun to tell them how the U.S. army spells words (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta...).
Have them spell words this way is sure to cause some hilarity. Plus they like to know what "Tango" or "Lema" or "Zulu" mean. When I asked them to write the name in Roman letters of "Hotel-Uniform gap Juliet-India-November-Tango-Alpha-Oscar" they had their field day!

[cimarch]

Music is one of my favourite topics, I have several CDs that I use and keep meaning to make one with all the best songs on it. Here's a list of some of the tracks I usually use, I find it's best to have at least two from each genre:

Classical:
O Fortuna (Wagner isn't it?)
The William Tell Overture (Rossini?)

Jazz/Blues/Soul/Motown:
Anything by the Rat Pack, you can use Robbie William's cover of Mack the Knife if you have to or to give them a name they might know.
Minnie the Moocher and other songs from the Blues Brothers (don't forget James Brown...)
Disney songs. Yup, most of them are at least based on Jazz, The Jungle Book soundtrack is very useful.
Groovin' - The Young Rascals
Tracks of my Tears - Smokey Robinson
Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding

Country:
Country Roads - John Denver
Friends in Low Places - Garth Brooks

Hip-Hop/R'n'B/Rap:
Dilemma - Nelly featuring Kelly Rowland
Without Me - Eminem
Still D.R.E. - Dr Dre & Snoop Doggy Dogg
The Next Episode - Dr Dre & Snoop
Tupac, 50 Cent etc...

Rock:
Paradise City - Guns'n'Roses
Scooby Snacks - Fun Lovin' Criminals
Walk This Way - Run DMC & Aerosmith
Hotel California - Eagles
The Fly/Mysterious Ways/Elevation - U2

Pop:
Your Song - Elton John
Against All Odds - Mariah Carey & Westlife
The Beach - All Saints
Love Shack - B52s
End Of The World As We Know It - R.E.M.
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Others:
Limbo Rock - Chubby Checker
The Twist - Chubby Checker
YMCA - Village People
Macarena - Los Del Rio (or some other horrifying song with annoying dance)
The Chicken Song - Spitting Image
Two Little Boys - Rolf Harris

It can be hard to classify songs and even harder to find A song that will accurately represent its genre, especially since each person's definition of the genre is different. This is why I try to use two or three songs for each. The good things about the songs I use are:
a) I can listen to (most of) them without wanting to kill myself.
b) At least one in each category is known by most of the kids already.
c) A lot of them can be used for multiple purposes (like demonstrating things like remixes and cover versions).

Hope this helps.

[mandu]

the rolling stones

mick jagger
keith richards
charlie watts
ronnie wood

bill wyman
mick taylor
brian jones

the stones are culture

honky tonk woman

street fighting man

brown sugar

its only rocknroll

my mother grew up with the stones,i grew up with the stones and there still going strong
the greatest rocknroll band in the world

[Lance Uppercut]

Thanks for all the info. I was already planning on using the stones and james brown. You know I want to use songs that have some social relevance, so songs like 'the twist' are out. sorry cimarch. Here are some songs I plan to use.

Pink Floyd-Time, Money
Gov't Mule-sco' mule
Rush-Time stand still
Eminem-White America
The Funky Meters-4pm
Max Creek-Love makes me lose my miond

thanks for all the posts! keep em' coming.

[wonderd]

Something I do with my classes (after we've got the concept of rhyming) is play a song that has no words. Go to a midi site and download your favourite songs sans lyrics. Then play a little bit and talk to the students about what they think of and how they feel when they hear this music.

Sometimes, with shy classes, nothing happens, so just start really basic. Ask them how they felt. Was it happy, sad, angry, etc. Then make your own first line based on the feeling they described. You can get some vocabulary from the class. If they say "sad", then write sad on the board and ask for other words about sad. "Crying", "Hurt", "Not nice", "bad" and work a first line for your song with the class. "I am crying because things are bad." Then what rhymes with bad.

After you've put together a verse, pick another song and have the class work in groups to make their own song.