Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Cater]

I am teaching at an English Summer Camp at the end of July, and I found out today that the topic I am supposed to teach is dance. Here's the problem...I am not a dancer!

The classes are 90 minutes. I am supposed to teach them expressions, vocabulary, and of course a dance to learn.
Yikes! I need help! What are some key expressions for dancing that would be useful for 6th graders? Vocabulary? I honestly don't know the first thing about dancing, so any advice would be very much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[Luna]

[kat2]

Teach line dancing. Its straightforward and easy to learn. Its not all partner oriented, so you won't get so much "Oh teacher. Girl. yuck." I have no rhythm, but line dancing is easy. Growing up in TN, we had to learn it in gym class every year.

The Electric Slide is the easiest.
Also, the Macarena. (See! Its not all country)
Boot Scootin' Boogie (Is difficult, but would be a nice clumination to the class. The moves are part of the chorus. "Heel, toe, dosido, come on baby let's go bootscoot!" Oh, Brooks and Dunn.)

[Kim Jong Jordan]

the chicken dance!

[mrsquirrel]

Teach them some body-popping and a few helicopters and handplants.

[Fishead soup]

Show up with a mohawk play some punk and get them slam dancing.

[littlelisa]

Oh man, I would LOVE to teach dance. But then, I'm a swing dancer and teach dance here anyway.

[kermo]

SOLUTION:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw0YHv3ub-k

These guys (a band called Ok Go) ran a contest to see who could produce the best version of the same song.

Check out the contest and some of the winners:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aQSpV5cERY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iaAhF4diNE&mode=related&search=

[paquebot]

I remember learning waltz in both elementary schools that I attended. The basic step is pretty straight-forward, but finding music with the right count to it might be a problem if you don't download stuff online -- although I'm sure others would be willing to help with that. Both dancers should keep their bodies stiff and apart from each other, so you don't have to worry about students being getting disgusted at having someone of the opposite sex standing so close.

Country line dancing is a good suggestion, but a dance that I haven't tried myself.

Another suggestion is east coast swing, which is about as easy as line dancing from what I've heard. If you do east coast swing you can talk about 1940s jazz - the different clothes people wore, go over the different instruments used in swing music (horns: trumpets, trombones, etc.; woodwinds: clarinet, saxes, etc.), look up vocabulary from the jive dictionary (http://www.cabcalloway.cc/jive_dictionary.htm), and use youtube videos as a reference.

Some vocab that immediately comes to mind: lead, follow, step, rock-step, turn, frame, triple-step, line of dance (always counter-clockwise!), zoot suit, minnieskirt minnie, shorty george.

If you can find an online source / instructions for shim-sham that would be an awesome one to teach. It's another line dance with a ton of different moves to do, but unfortunately pretty complicated if you want to do the whole dance straight through. There are some pretty entertaining methods of remembering the moves though -- one of them involves reciting "I like ice cream, only on Sundays (sundaes?)" as you do the steps. Fun, but really hard.

If you have any questions feel free to PM me and I'll try to help as much as I can.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

Get the school to buy you a PS2 and a copy of DDR and have a week-long tournament! You can teach them how to talk trash.

[Atavistic]

You can review numbers AND multiplication with the Macarena. There are twelve points for the Macarena. Hit each point while saying the times table.

5, 10, 15, ...60 "OH! The fives!" clap, jump, turn, do the next set of numbers.

Seriously, I know the Macarena is just about The Most Annoying Song Ever Invented but the kids liked it in America and they like it here.