Transcript Cultural Language Exchange*Empowering Students

MUSIC TO MY EARS:
GRAMMAR REVIEW
THROUGH SONG
2.0
CATESOL CONVENTION
NOVEMBER 2016
FAITH C. LITCHOCK-MORELLATO
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
WENTWORTH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
BOSTON, MA
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE
OBJECTIVES
• Understanding the Population and Challenges
• Rationale
• Scaffolding Activities
• Future Activities
• Student Reactions
• Closing Remarks
CHALLENGES/POPULATION
• Students who have limited English proficiency
• My institution is a specialized one that focuses on engineering,
management and architecture, etc. Whether a native or non-native
speaker, English/humanities classes can be a hard sell for this
population.
• ESL class populations range from low-intermediate to advanced
• Most students hail from the Middle East and various parts of Asia
• Pair/Small Group Share—Where are you coming from? Why did you
decide to attend this workshop?
RATIONALE—WHY MUSIC?
• Try to create an activity that learners
are interested in to help them
understand a more complex topic
(grammar) in an authentic way
(incorporating form, meaning and
use) as well as refine listening skills.
PART 1—LET’S TRY IT ON! REVIEW
OF SIMPLE PAST
• Let’s Listen to the Song Viva la Vida by Cold Play
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE
Directions for in-class activity (10 minutes):
1. First time—just listen!
2. Second time– fill in the blanks for the missing past tense
verb
H.W.:
Please study the lyrics!
PART 2—LET’S TRY IT ON! REVIEW
OF SIMPLE PAST
• In teams of 6-7, put the song in order
using the strips of paper provided.
• You will have 10 minutes to do so. The
team that completes this challenges
successfully gets a candy of their choice!
PART 3—LET’S TRY IT ON! REVIEW
OF SIMPLE PAST
• H.W.—Please choose a song that illustrates
simple past and be prepared to present to the
class.
• Follow-up– Students pair/share their song
illustrating the past tense verbs. After, we come
together as a whole class and students read a
line from their song illustrating the said tense.
PART 4—FIXING BAD GRAMMAR
• Directions: Students choose a song that illustrates improper
grammar and bring it to class (hard copies for their small
group) to discuss.
• Step 1—Student reads (or sings!) song with group.
• Step 2- Student asks fellow teammates if they heard any bad
grammar? If so, what and why?
STUDENT EXAMPLE—EXCERPT FROM
“THE WAY I ARE” (AM) BY TIMBALAND
STUDENT REACTION TO HOW THEY CHOOSE
A SONG WITH “BAD” GRAMMAR
• Type of language wouldn’t fit in an essay
• Sounds weird
• Felt confused
• Interesting and obvious
• Slang
• Missing parts
• Repetition
• Word order
• Wrong tense
• Wrong word form
• ****Students noted that visually seeing the lyrics helped to detect grammar errors as
opposed to solely listening****
NOTES
• For every tense reviewed, I start with listening to the song and
having students fill-in the particular verb tense being discussed.
• Then I follow-up with song order activity in the next class
session.
• Finally, students bring in a song of their own demonstrating the
verb tense we are working with.
• This semester, I have covered a basic review of all major
tenses. We listened to Katy Perry’s, “Roar”
(future)/Switchfoot’s, “Dare you to Move” (present) in addition
to what has been presented today.
WHY BAD GRAMMAR—FINDINGS
• Students discovered that based
on context and genre the
grammar in the songs was not
“bad” but acceptable. This led to
a larger discussion on audience.
OTHER IDEAS
• Because song has been received so well by
my students, I have also used it to illustrate
other grammar principles (depending on
rhetorical mode). For example: Currently, we
are studying cause/effect and looking at noun
clauses. As such, I have used U2’s classic, “I
Still Haven’t Found What I am looking For”.
FUTURE IDEAS
• As we move towards research and incorporating sources in
low-stakes writing assignments, as a segue, we will use the
songs that the students have brought in to practice
summarizing, paraphrasing and quoting.
STUDENT SURVEY (32 SS
PARTICIPATED)
1.
What has been helpful about grammar through song?
• Identifying verb tenses in context
• People love music
• Helps my listening and grammar skills
• Sentence structure
• Learn new vocabulary and meaning of words
• Seeing more than one tense used in a sentence
• Helps pronunciation
• Knowing the difference between academic writing
STUDENT SURVEY
2. Which part (specifically) have you enjoyed
participating in?
• The competition
• Group part/teamwork (75% of participants answered this
way)
• Filling in the blank
• Choosing our own songs
• Fixing bad grammar
STUDENT SURVEY
3. What could be improved?
• Song choice (new songs)
• More discussion on meaning of songs
• Everyone should sing!
• Re-write the songs
COMMENTS/QUESTIONS?
•Thank you for attending this
session!
•Please fill out the evaluation
on your way out—many
thanks!