Job Discussion Forums

[Noelle]

Hi all

I am gathering information on the different ways to use music to facilitate second language acquisition for my MA in TESOL practicum.

Any stories or suggestions... links, articles or even just opinions on this topic would come in pretty handy as I propose this topic to my academic advisors.

Comments...? I'd love to read them... especially from any of you who may be former music teachers, like me! If you teach kids, you've most likely used music in your classroom at some point or another. Or maybe you remember music being used in your class when you were learning a second language?

Feedback would be really appreciated here!

[Anda]

Um, this should help but it's for Chinese of course, the same thing would however apply to English.,

I have this one Chinese friend who's a
voracious reader. Reads everything English he
can get his hands on. Devours books, magazines,
everything. Reads Hemingway and understands it.
Writes, too.

I once asked him in English where I might
find the restroom. He had no clue what I was
talking about. Didn't understand me.

This baffled me, since the guy could read
advanced literature.

I can't tell you how many people just like
him I've met all across China. People young and
old who have studied English literally for
years but who would stare at me with a blank
expression when I spoke English to them.

Including, even, my friend Richard's
younger sister, who was a primary school
English teacher in the town where I lived. In
the four-plus years that I made regular visits
to Richard's home, never once did she open her
mouth to speak so much as a single word of
English to me.

What has gone so terribly wrong here?

Answer: It has to go in before it ever
comes out.

You can cut out three-fourths of the stress
and aggravation of learning new words and
phrases - *especially* if you're a beginner -
when you stop, relax, shut your mouth and just
listen, just let your ears hear what's going
on. Save the talking for later.

See a word, hear it, feel it,
smell it - and then know what it means, know
what it's supposed to look like, sound like -
before you ever try to do it or say it.

Do that, and then speaking it - when you
finally get around to that - will be ten times
easier.

This is not just true of language. It's
true of music. Of art. Of photography. Dancing.
Basketball. Knitting ... everything.

And it could not be more true of a tonal
language like Chinese, where hearing and
reproducing the wild sounds is so much like
learning to be a musician all over again that
the parallels are, frankly, eerie.

Do you realize how much stress and
embarrassment you can remove from trying to
speak Chinese, just by listening, and listening
only? Have your language helper work with you
exclusively on hearing and identifying the
tones in sentences. Just do that; don't try
speaking them. That alone will remove 90% of the
frustration from speaking a tonal language.

But what do most teachers and programs do
to you? They start you off - lesson one, day
one - plopping material down in front of you
and making you perform on the spot.

'This is Middle C. Now play it.'

'This is the word for 'cat.' Now say it.'

What are you really going to do in a
situation like this? Answer: You're going to
work yourself into a tizzy trying to pronounce
it right, even when you don't know yet what the
damn word means or how to use it.

Is there a better way? Yes!

My old language teacher Dwight once
performed an amazing little experiment on me
and a group of friends. Dwight had learned a
rare southeast Asian tribal language and he
started off our class by standing up and having
us listen to and obey a quick, 1-minute series
of commands in that language. He never told us
why, but he repeated the exercise every day for
two entire weeks, adding new commands as we
went along. Never once did he give us any kind
of English translation.

Even more importantly: never once did he
ask us to repeat after him.

By the time the two weeks were up, we knew
all of the commands by heart, and could easily
perform them on cue.

Finally Dwight explained what was going on.
He had proved to us that you can delve
naturally, effortlessly into a new language
using only your ears to learn, mastering a host
of words and phrases without ever so much as
opening your mouth.

Plus, doing it this way he had eliminated
99% of the initial stress and anxiety that
comes from trying to pronounce things right and
put sentences together with good grammar.
Completely eliminated it. All we had to do was
simply listen.

You see, this basic law governs all of
language learning:

It has to go in before it ever comes out!

This is the natural, effortless sequence
that you followed yourself when you first
started learning your own native language. You
went nearly two years, listening and absorbing
the world around you before you ever got around
to spitting out words. No pressure, no one
forcing your hand, no stern teachers glaring at
you waiting, nobody poised to jump all over you
for bad pronuncation - none of that. You
started talking long after you started
understanding, and only when YOU decided it was
time to start.

True musicians are the same way. Their ears
do all the work for them well in advance. This
is why you'll never meet a deaf musician. Ears
are everything.

Even Beethoven, after he lost his hearing,
still had the ears in his mind working
overtime, composing music long after his
physical ears had given out.

So take charge of the process. Start
learning Chinese with your ears alone. Save
your voice until much later. Throw off all that
pressure to pronounce everything right.
Concentrate only on what you hear. Understand
what it all means first, without any worries
about how you might sound saying it.

Does this sound liberating? It is!

For every person I have ever taught this
approach to, I've been able to literally,
physically watch the relief cross their face,
seeing their body relax as I walked them
through how to do this for themselves, and they
started 'hearing' for the very first time.

Tomorrow I'm going to share with you the
amazingly simple 7-letter word that takes
everything you ever learn and ties it all
together naturally.

To Your Success,
Bryan Todd

http://www.MasterChineseFaster.com/12rules

3529 Grainger Parkway
Lincoln, NE 68516 USA


If you no longer wish to receive communication from us:
http://autocontactor.com/app/r.asp?ID=111513900&ARID=222603

To update your contact information:
http://autocontactor.com/app/r.asp?c=1&ID=111513900

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Hi Andrew,

No single fact about the great and
glorious Chinese language arouses more
fear, more ire than tones. Those cursed
tones.

There are only four of them. Why
should this be so hard?

And yet it is. If it weren't for those
tones, learning Chinese would be a
cakewalk.

Is 'shu' a tree(4) or a book(1)? When
you say 'mai' do you plan to buy(3) or
sell(4)? If a store has 'xiang jiao' does
that mean they're selling rubber(4-1) or
bananas(1-1)? If you prefer 'jian dan'
does it imply that you like it simple(3-
1) or that you'd rather eat fried eggs(1-
4)?

The reasons for Chinese being tonal
are probably lost in the mists of
antiquity. As are the reasons for
Japanese not being tonal. Either way, how
do you figure out these awful things?

As I'll remind you again and again, it
all starts with your ears. If you can't
hear them clearly, you'll never be able
to speak them. And experience seems to
suggest that getting the tones DOES in
fact have a direct relationship with your
innate musical ability.

I bet the best thing you could ever do
for yourself to help hear tones better,
is to buy a cheap electronic keyboard and
start listening to music and trying to
peck out melodies one note at a time, all
by ear.

Couldn't hurt.

That'll get you to the stage where you
can at least understand your language
teacher.

And what if you still can't figure out
what tones people are using with you on
the street?

My American friend Erika couldn't hear
the tones at all, despite all the
drilling from her increasingly angry
teacher. So she went home to Arkansas for
3 months and came back.

Then she could suddenly hear it.
Amazing? I think so.

Perhaps that might work for you. Take
a vacation. Get away from Chinese. Leave
all the books and tapes behind for
several days, several weeks, maybe even
several months.

And then see if you come back
refreshed and able to make sense of it
all over again.

I'll always love the big cardboard
cutouts of Arnold Schwarzenegger
advertising the 'Bu Bu Gao' language
practice machines, for sale at
electronics shops and bookstores
everywhere. And those things do actually
help. Listen to the person on the tape
talking, record your own voice digitally,
and then play it back. See how you
compare. Do that again and again, day in
and day out, and you'll see improvements.

And of course, 'buy' and 'sell' WOULD
have to be the same syllable with only
the tones distinguishing them now,
wouldn't they?

My experience over four years was that
hearing the tones was always 10x easier
than speaking them. And for the first
stretch of time, speaking with tones the
right way never seemed to come
automatically.

But wait ... !

Eventually, it happens. You
start saying things right, without
thinking about it. It's only just a few
words at first. But it feels effortless.
You catch yourself speaking right, and
you can't believe you did it. But you
did. It actually happened.

(And you're eternally grateful that
Chinese has only four tones, unlike
Cantonese or Vietnamese, which have a
whole lot more ...)

That will happen to you. It's just a
matter of patience, solid practice, and
well-trained ears.

I'll give you even more insights into
making your ears do the work for you in
'12 Golden Rules of Mastering Chinese.'
It truly will feel like you're breathing
underwater.

[Steppenwolf]

I am sure, Anda, even you could summarise your essay in less than 13 words!

[sheeba]

As much as I am in favour of the natural approach you talk of Anda we're faced with a task in China that does not allow us to approach a class in such a nancy fancy way . Tenets of the natural approcah sure are a good thing but when you are faced with 40 students who really need to formulate questions to advance with their acquisition then you don't need them zipping up their gobs . How many times do you ask yours students 'Would you like to go to America ?' followed with a 'Yes' and that's it!! Half the time you don't even know if they understood the question . They have had enough of listening to drone from teachers and whatever other inputs . We need to get them fomulating questions as this subjects them to the forms that they are incapable of uttering and allows the teacher to do the remedial work required in class . They need to get used to speaking and formulating appropriate forms along with comprehendable pronunciation . This is also an essential part of language acquisition .

To the OP . Sorry about going off track . I also have to approach Music in my study later and I 'd be interested in ideas too . I have my reservations about music in class . I think now and again its OK but music being a personal thing won't always catch attention of all the subjects . I like to take part of the song out and use that as a platform for language teaching . I also use Music for students to listen out for rhyming phonemes particularly with problem areas that my students have .

[Anda]

Um, Noelle was after links, articles on music and I just posted what I have been sent recently.

I write and use stuff like below to teach English: Oh I also do conversations on the blackboard with my students all in spoken English script:

I Want Him. By Anda.
1. Sue: Ann, when are you going to trade in, that boyfriend of yours on a
new one?
2. Ann: Tom, get rid of Tom, no way. Why on earth would I want to do that?
Tom is great company!
3. Sue: I want him that�s why! I�ve been waiting for months for you two to
breakup. I really want him badly! (want him very much)
4. Ann: Huh, well you are going to be waiting a long time then. I�ve got no
intention of letting him go.
5. Sue: Well, I hope you don�t mind a bit of competition then!
6. Ann: Try all you like! I�ve had competition ever since I started dating
Tom. Lots of girls want him, not just you!
7. Sue: I�ve got a great body but, plus I know how to dress to kill!
(dress to attract men)
8. Ann: Well then, what�s stopping you then? I�ve known for some time that
you have wanted Tom. You can�t keep your eyes off him, when you
see him! Tom has even commented to me that you are always
staring at him.
9. Sue: Huh, what does he say?
10: Ann: Oh, he even says you have a great body, but he thinks you dress
too sexy. He prefers a woman who dresses somewhat
conservatively.
11. Sue: He says that, oh no! What does he see in you? Like you are getting
a little fat and you aren�t exactly beautiful.
12. Ann: Tom just likes my personality. He feels comfortable with me. I
don�t expect him to be anything other than what he is and he is the
same with me. We just get on well together, that�s all.
13. Sue: You must have some secret that you are not telling me surely! His
attraction towards you can�t be that simple, there must be more.
14. Ann: If I have a secret other than my personality, then even I don�t know
about it!
15. Sue: Then I�ll buy some conservative dresses then!
16. Ann: It�s a bit late for that now. But you are welcome to try!
17. Sue: Oh, I give up, Tom�s too complicated for me! Personality,
conservative dresses; there are plenty of men after me, who like me
as I am.
18. Ann: You or your body? I think you attract men the wrong way. I�d
much rather have a man interested in me, as a person, than my
body! If you dressed more conservatively then you might get a man
like Tom.
19. Sue: Um, it does kind of make sense! Anyway I�ve got to go, so I�ll see
you later Ann.

[smalls]

When I would use song in the classroom, it was more of an activity to break the monotony of the week, not a regular event. Either in two ways - I would cut each line of the song into strips, place the class into groups, than working together, as they listened to the song, they would piece it back together. For a larger class, I would remove words from the song (possibly have a word-bank pasted below) and as the students listened to the song, they would fill in the blanks. Would read the song together after, explaining unknown vocab or what some of the lyrics meant, and if the class was really doing well, try and sing it.
When I taught in Korea, I would play 'Come Together' by the Beatles - obviously not so the students could make sense of the lyrics, who can - but to break the habit of trying to understand every word they hear. For example, quite a few times, if a student could not understand the first word of a sentence, they would block out the rest as they tried to understand the first (at least in my experience.) If I asked 'How are you doing?' Quite a few were stumped, why, because they said they have only heard the phrase with the first three words.
Guess what I am saying is, for me, it was another way of breaking down the idea that every word must be understood and getting the jist or accepting that you can only get the jist (at that particular stage) of something can be alright.
Other songs I often used:
Stand By Me (my favorite, so biased, but lyrics are simple and clear)
Under the Boardwalk
Wonderful World - great for classroom vocabulary
At the low end, for musical chairs, great for the kiddies, a no brainer that just lets them cut loose for a few minutes.

[Steppenwolf]

What do you need music for in a language class? Is it to distract or entertain students? Or is it as a medium to transport English communication titbits in an appealing manner?

If you opt for the second, I think you are over-estimating the ability of your students to understand English lyrics!
I played THE SOUND OF SILENCE by Simon & Garfunkel - to mention but one rather popular piece - and hardly any adult listener could make sense of the lyrics. You can choose other kinds of songs but the result will be much the same: niente capisci! They do understand some of the words if they are presented with a translated version! And that would defeat the purpose of an English conversation or practice lesson!

You can use New Age or classical music to stimulate their brain activity (you know that Mozart improves your intelligence...!), or just to put your students in a more receptive mood. I think this is a valid point - to use music to let them forget they are in a dreadfully drab bootcamp.

But that's as far as I can see where music is useful for them.

[Anda]

I have a number of ways to teach English but I am not musical but some people are and can combine music successfully into class to teach students. Asians as a rule are into music.

Jazz Chants
Jazz Chants
What are Jazz Chants?
Jazz Chants are Carolyn Graham's snappy, upbeat chants and poems that use jazz rhythms to illustrate the natural stress and intonation patterns of conversational American English. The first book, Jazz Chants, was published in 1978, followed by Jazz Chants for Children one year later. For twenty five years, classes all over the world have enjoyed jazz chanting as a unique way for students to improve their speaking and listening comprehension skills while reinforcing the language structures of everyday situations.

About the Author
Carolyn Graham is the author of Jazz Chants titles. She taught for twenty-five years at The American Language Institute of New York University and spent nine summers as a teaching fellow at Harvard University. Frequently a featured guest at conferences worldwide, she has conducted workshops in such diverse places as the village of Arctic Bay in the Northwest Territories and refugee camps in Southeast Asia.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Your Teacher's Blog: Karaoke - Learning English through songKaraoke - Learning English through song. Today's lesson was given over to wine, women and song - well only song really. I sang 10cc's "Dreadlock Holiday". ...
www.learn-english-network.org/yourteacher/2005/09/karaoke-learning-english-through-song.html - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

TESL/TEFL/TESOL/ESL/EFL/ESOL Links - ESL : z UnsortedLearning English: Choosing an English language school: FAQs (Chris Nicholls): Answers to ... www.eatsleepmusic.com - Awesome Karaoke: Sing English Karaoke. ...
iteslj.org/links/ESL/z_Unsorted/ - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

[Plan B]

The obvious exercise is gap-fill. Try make it relevant for the language point you are teaching - for example, if you are teaching modals to talk about regrets, then choose a song with a lot of should have's and would have's, for example "You were always on my Mind". My Way" is also particularly useful for present perfect weak forms.

Pre-listening tasks - jumble each line of a song up, put students in pairs or threees and give them 5 minutes to re-arrange the words into the correct order. Once they have done the best job they can, one member of the pair runs outside the classroom, looks at the correct completed song segment, run back, and tell their partner who writes (running dictation). Finally, play the song to check. I usually use The first four lines of the chorus in "Last Christmas".

Introduction to a discussion topic. I usually start off a discussion of national stereotypes by performing an exercise using the song "I Like Chinese". A good one is to have half the class list as many adjectives, while the other list as many nouns as they hear.

Introduction to a roleplay. The traditional one here is the Beatles "She's Leaving Home", although I have my personal preferences, and I'm sure there are better ones out there. Pretty self-explanatory.

Re-enforcing stress, intonation, and weak forms. Only really works with late teenagers or young adults. Choose a repeated line in a song, write the sentence on the board, study the stressed words, weak forms, and intonation. For example, the song "I like to move it", contains good examples of all three areas.

* /te/ * \ * \
I like to move it, move it

Has primary stress on "like" and "move", has a weak form ("to"), and demonstrates the fact that intonation (almost) always goes down when you have a object pronoun following a verb.

Also, lots of games can be played. I particularly like First-line / Second Line. S's match first two lines from about 7 songs. Score them after playing each song to check the answer. Try to choose lines which rhyme or continue naturally.

[latefordinner]

PlanB, it's nice to know that other teachers are doing much the same thing that I've been plaing around with, and achieving some success. Make it relevent to the lesson plan, focus on the aural aspects that just doing the reading won't deliver, and make it fun. Gap fills are easy, almost too easy. I like to throw 2 or 3 comprehension questions on the end, but then stimulating something resembling critical listening/reading is my own personal hobby-horse.
Stepp, you make an interesting point.

[DistantRelative]

I enjoy using music in the classroom. My students enjoy using music in the classroom. In my case, because they are young (Junior Mids), I have to keep it simple i.e. gap fills and some listening comprehension.

This week in their lesson book they are studying UFO's, so I built a lesson plan discussing an alien encounter. Describing what you saw, heard, etc... (grabbed a sweet worksheet off the net). Last 15 minutes were spent listening to the Byrds tune "Mr Spaceman". Cute song, they absolutely loved it. I feel like I hit one out of the park this week.

I must be doing something right, my FAO called the school and said she wanted to stop by and sit in on one of my classes, see how I was doing. The Director at my school told her not to bother, in her words, "my work is perfect". The FAO nixed the idea of stopping by. Still have 6 months left on this contract and they're already asking me to re-up for another year. Nice to be appreciated.

Zhuhao,

Shawn

[diana83709]

I teach 10th graders. One of my classes consists of the "sports" students. (small - only 38 students). They are academic underachievers and have limited, poor or no English skills.

Fall term, I arranged to teach an extra class on a Sunday afternoon and came with CD player, CD and 38 copies of "The Real Thing" lyrics. I broke the students into groups and with the help of my husband, we taught them the lyrics. They listened to the song a couple of times, then sang it. The lyrics are simple and ALL of them sang the song.

Some of these "jocks" have actually improved their oral English since then. Every once in awhile, I will take my CD player so they can sing their song. I think it helps build their confidence.

[Popsock]

Another thing you can do with music is get the lyrics and if it's in a standard rhyming pattern, blank out the end word of the second/fourth/etc line. The students then have to read the lyrics and try and insert a suitable word which a) rhymes with the end word of the above line, and b) makes sense within the song. Check the students' answers whilst walking round the classroom, giving a little help when necessary, and then to finish play the song and the students check their own answers. I did this recently with an Abba song and it worked marvellously. Of course, I'm just trying to corrupt the little dears with my taste in music, but...