I just think that songs are used very often just as gap-fillers or warmers, which I think
is an absolute waste! There's vocabulary sets you could teach. There's...
you know, like Old MacDonald had a Farm. All your farm animals done, you know?
We do, of course, phonics sounds like sound recognition...
We do parts of the body...We do clap your hands so you've got action verbs...
And then How does Peter go to School, that's another whole unit in P2. So much language
can be delivered and recycled because the feature of the song is repetition.
But compare that to a drill - the motivation levels like spike, you know, when it's in
a song.
With the P1s, because when they first came they had absolutely no English, most of them. Sammy of course had some, but
the rest of them didn't even have the alphabet. All they could say was "good morning" and
"I love you" and, you know "you're so beautiful" - that's about it.
So a lot of gestures accompanying the classroom language which you saw in the Motion Song, like "stand
up tall", "look at me". Now a lot of these things I use when I'm actually teaching big
books and doing shared reading. Like when I want them to arrange themselves
in a semi-circle in front, like with me, we all sit in a little
huddle and we read books, you know? But I'll tell them to move forward, move backward,
move a little right, that's already been established with that routine song. Do you see what I mean?
So it helps a lot with the smooth transition
or the smooth flow of the lesson, so they're not going "huh?" when you say "move right"
or "move left" because I'm not going to use Chinese and I'm trying for them not to rely
on translation.
You don't have to have a singing voice because it's not about you! It's not a performance, it's about sensitizing students to
rhythm and stress in English. If you don't want to sing it, you know, if you can't just have
a singing voice, don't sing! Just give them rhythm so that they have all these features
of connected speech fall into place. It's magic!
Karaoke is very popular, of course, in this side of the world and I put up a list outside
my door and have them put down their requests. And it's just surprising! Kids who are like
so quiet in class come out and, you know, let it loose!