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!