Singing workshopAMEP Consortium Day
Nov 12 2010
Anne Smith Carmel Davies, Sharon Duff
Using song in the ESL classroom brings several intelligences together at the same time and strengthens the learning process-
hopefully leads to PMA
WHY SONG??• Song is good for teaching rhythm, connected
speech and some features of intonation
• Song is good for picking out and working on difficult phonemes.
• Songs stick in your head.
• Songs carry culture.
• The emotion attached to song make it easier to remember.
• Singing /chanting is pleasurable and interesting - increases endorphins which make people relax and feel good.
• We can listen to and repeat a song many more times than a standard dialogue.
• Language in song is closer to spoken language than written form - recent discourse theorists have noted that spoken language has poetic structures eg. The use of repetition.
• Language teaching has used the written form as the model, when actually song is much closer to everyday speech!!
Song reaches learners with left and right brain strengths
• Successful performance in a second language requires competence in the kinesic (body motions) and prosodic(accent, intonation and rhythm) forms of the new language
And........
It’s fun!!!
MY ISLAND HOMEas sung by Christine Anu
Six years I’ve been in the city And every night I dream of the sea
They say home is where you find itWill this place ever satisfy me
For I come from the salt water peopleWe always live by the sea
Now I’m down here living in the city With my man and the family
My island home My island homeMy island home is waiting for me
My island home My island homeMy island home is waiting for me
Now the boring stuff …• Grammar points• Six years I’ve been in the city (I’ve been in the city for 6 years)• Every night I dream of the sea• Now I’m down here living in the city• Now make 6 sentences about yourself• Eg. I’ve been learning English for 2 years._______• I’ve been ___________________________ I’ve been
__________________________ • Every night I _________________________ Every day I
________________________• Now ____________________________ Now
________________________________•
TRANSPORT SONG
You gotta validate mate
You gotta validate my friend
You gotta validate everyone
Or the Inspector will take your name
and they’ll send you a great big fine
And you’ll lose $156 dollars
So
You gotta validate mate
You gotta validate my friend
You gotta validate everyone!