Monthly Archives: November 2013

Pre-class assignment

PRESENTER: Charles Goodger

PRE-CLASS TASK INCLUDED BELOW the class description.
Please respond in a comment on this page and comment on your colleagues' responses.

Charles will lead participants through the fundamental steps to setting up a song-based module designed to improve pronunciation.

Pre-class task 

In this webinar we're going to look at how action songs help teachers favour good pronunciation in the most enjoyable way. We’ll then also go through an action song module for older learners based around the song "Water is Everything”, a song that highlights the importance of an abundance of clean water for the survival of life in the 21st century. The aim is to raise awareness among teachers of the effectiveness of using action songs to present new 
language and also to illustrate that action songs can work at any age level. 

To get you focused on action songs, choose your best answer to these three questions:

A. Teaching and practising new words and language structures in an action song can help learners of any age because:

1) It’s fun.

2) You’re engaging several intelligences (musical, linguistic, kinaesthetic, visual) at the same time.

3) Students won’t forget a catchy tune. 

B. Learning action songs is a fast-track way to intelligible pronunciation because:

1) The song won’t work unless it’s enunciated and intoned correctly.

2) Songs lyrics rhyme. Rhymes help you get the right pronunciation and accelerate memorization and recall of new words and meanings. 

3) Expressive mime helps learners associate the meanings of new language chunks and collocations along with their correct pronunciation.

C. English is a highly accentuated language with irregular spelling. How does singing help with reading and writing?

1) Singing, learning and acting out new words before seeing them in written form means you are handling the four language skills in the correct order.

2) Singing catchy songs with meaningful lyrics engages the learner 
emotionally. They will be more motivated when it’s time to work on the themes and vocabulary presented and hinted at in the song, in written form.

3) Reading and writing are artificial skills that need to be taught formally. Like speaking and understanding, singing and dancing are natural skills. If you know and understand a word or chunk first, your pronunciation won’t be effected by irregular spelling.

Class recording on You Tube

Powerpoint presentation part one

Powerpoint presentation part two