coucoucircus.org - Bienvenue This site gives you access to the theme tunes and lyrics of hundreds of French TV programmes, in particular a lot of children's cartoon series.
Flash Video Big Books This is a great site for anyone interested in using story telling as a key component of their courses. Some free stuff but the books you have to buy are pretty cheap and excellent quality. Highly recommended.
Wordle - Create word clouds This is a fantastic little site for anyone wanting to be creative with Language. It creates key word diagrams on any topic in an arty way. It is a great way to introduce a topic or allow kids to create a keyword list to help them prepare for a speaking test
One of the nice things about writing a blog is that every now and again you can indulge yourself and simply express a personal view. This post has relevance I think to the contemporary culture that our pupils inhabit and to the kind of lessons we might create for them.
Hopefully it might encourage teachers across the curriculum to think about how to include a 'community' song or chant as a normal part of their lessons.
I came across this video of a wonderful choir called Perpetuum Jazzile so first, sit back and enjoy this before reading any further! All language is a communal experience - singing together proves it.
Before I saw this video I had been looking at Eric Whitacre's virtual choir beautifully singing 'Sleep'. I was treated to the obligatory ad which in this case was promoting a new album by the X-Factor runner up 'Cher'.
The juxtaposition of all that X-Factor promotes, sometimes agressive vaunting of the individual vocal star, set against Perpetuum Jazzile's ability to blend a range of voices into a very clever performance was telling.
Whilst like anyone else, I love a good Diva, for singing, solo effort isn't the norm. The name X-Factor should be a clue, it's the unsusual X-ception not the rule. For 99% of the rest of the world, enjoying singing is something that everyone can do as part of a group.
I have an ok singing voice. Actually to be more precise, it's ok if I ask it to perform solo. It's actually much better when I sing with others. Solo, and I have to pretend that it is something it isn't, that it has a wide range which it hasn't.
It's actually very good in the baritone range but pretty rubbish in the tenor range. However the only way I am ever going to understand this and appreciate my particular contribution is to sing with others.
I think we need a cultural counter-balance to the 'Diva' factor for our children. If they grow up thinking that singing is all about 'solo' brilliance and performance then they will never benefit from the amazing satisfaction that can come from singing with others. Understanding that sharing your individual voice in harmony with many others within your particular range is a deeply satisfying experience is a vital lesson we need to pass on to our children.
I believe that singing together is an essential part of living together as communities. It has been one of the glues that have bonded tribes since the dawn of time. Sharing a common song has always been a mark of identity. It is something personally I feel we need to recover far more widely in western society.
In September I'm talking at a Modern Languages Show and Tell at Cramlington Learning Village just north of Newcastle. I decided that I wanted to talk more about the whole concept of building class cohesion and identity through songs and chants.
My own limited experience of trying some of these ideas out have deeply impressed me with the response from the children and the positive atmosphere they help establish in lessons. The title of my talk is "The Singing Tribe - MFL class cohesion" so if you want to know a bit more maybe I will see you there.
The format is a little like a Teachmeet but this is for the whole day so the talks might last from 3 minutes to longer than the Teachmeet 7 minutes. You get to hear fantastic talks from some top people working in modern languages in the UK for FREE!
As an added incentive, the host for the day is Chris Harte and I understand that this will be his swan song as he is about to leave the UK for Australia. If you have never heard Chris speak, this will possibly be a last chance for a while. Get there if you can, I highly recommend it. Click here to find out more.
(Music: Artist - 'Drowning Pool" - "Let the Bodies hit the Floor")
The drama of the music attached to the video clip of fish thrashing for their lives in a shrinking pool perfectly illustrates a process that is coming to a head in school curricula.
For drying water, substitute shrinking curriculum time allocated to ever-expanding content and each traditional subject discipline, from the sciences through to the arts, tends to thrash around trying to justify why it, as opposed to all of the others, deserves its special protected room to breath in a restricted pool of time.
As a language teacher we have always had an issue with the need for curriculum space, especially in the secondary phase. As the one subject on the secondary curriculum that, prior to the primary MFL initiative, only began being taught in yr 7, we have had to build a fast-track to exam success in 5 years where other subjects had 9 or 10.
We have always argued that children need a daily dose of the language to make up for this lost time. In the schools I used to teach in, these pressures were recognised and time allocation for yr 7 was generous with even more overall time devoted to language learning accorded in yrs 8 and 9 with the introduction of a second language.
The picture is changing however. From everything I read on various MFL fora, school leaders have been re-modelling timetables in all kinds of fanciful ways that allow them more flexibility but with the effect that they can 'squeeze' subjects perceived to be of less value to their overall performance outcomes. This is a process that threatens many other subjects too.
Then we have various governments', often clumsy attempts, to intervene that throw plans further into confusion. Withdrawing MFL as a statutory GCSE subject, giving the subject more time in the primary curriculum to compensate, now possibly doing a complete about turn, suspending the Primary initiative (we simply don't know) and returning to MFL's inclusion in the Ebac at GCSE level, and you can forgive all of us for not knowing whether we are coming or going.
Wagging the dog is the exam tail, with a system currently at GCSE which sucks vast amounts of time out of actually teaching the subject in order to prepare for and manage the tests.
Add to all of this the perception of many MFL colleagues that successive governments, many school leadership teams, many parents, indeed an awful lot of children simply don't 'get' the need for studying languages, and I can understand why so many colleagues feel under immense pressure.
Out of this arises a sense that we have to unite around a common front to 'sell' the subject with one voice, to have a common understanding of why we deserve our breathing space in the pool as opposed to any other subject.
Whilst understandable, this worries me....greatly.
The fact that I can even write this blog post and that it can be seen and read by many people I will never know or meet, underlines the real context we are in.
I am a language teacher who isn't in a shrinking pool.
My pool of contacts, colleagues and collaborators expands every day.
Every day, somebody new gets to know me and the ideas and resources I have to share, even if I never realise that they do.
I am connected to colleagues from all over the world. My connections are expanding way beyond my traditional subject boundaries in a way I have never and could never have experienced before.
The pupils I teach live in wall-less classrooms that have the power to connect across the globe. Their learning isn't restricted to the hours between 9 and 4 and it doesn't all depend upon me.
So I am worried by any call that suggests a re-trenchment into traditional subject boundaries in order to preserve our status. The essence of the new connected curriculum that I believe is emerging is one based on a fundemental societal shift, that highly prizes collaboration and eschews competition.
Pressure, panic, worry, fear, concern, can all be good things. Because we naturally find it easier to conceive of and settle for what we already know rather than what is new, we sometimes need these negative feelings to jolt us into action and re-think.
Out of all of this pressure, I would love to see a curriculum where many of the traditional subject boundaries disappeared. I have taught in but have never understood a system that forces a child to wear a 'languages' hat for 1 hour, take it off, forget about it for the rest of the day and wear a 'PE' hat, then a 'Science' hat etc.
Why can't we have a curriculum where connections are being made to many subjects throughout a child's day, where in PE I'm reminded of what I was taught in Science or French? Why should cross-curriculum models still be seen as the prerogative of the quirky and brave instead of the norm?
Children love these connections and teachers love to make them. If you want more curriculum time for your subject, there it is, partner up with other subjects! Don't retreat into the temptation to laud the values of your own subject in an attempt to win curriculum space at the expense of other colleagues in other disciplines. That way lies disaster, division, dislocation, lots of DIs! And it flies in the face of every other social trend that is gaining momentum.
Finally, as a linguist who believes passionately that there is an intimate and incredibly powerful link between music and language acquisition, can I start by pleading with leaders in Music Education and leaders in Language Education to talk.
Can Heads of Music in Schools begin to talk to Heads of Languages and look at joint projects and units of study? I know it happens in some places. When it does, it is truly inspirational. If we want our children to be buzzing with excitement at learning a language the surest and only way to do it is to make these connections the norm.
Let's hope that they will hasten the death of the competitive curriculum.
Update
As I have just found this, here is a link to Dr Jonathan Savage's blog writing about music and cross-curricula initiatives
I find talks from the TED site fascinating. I picked up the this video via Laura Doggett's blog, http://lauradoggett.com/, a really useful site for anyone interested in all things techie and MFL. Anyone who gets companies to give them expensive kit to review has my respect!
So this video is from Patricia Kuhl and is entitled "The Linguistic Genius of Babies".
What strikes me here is that there is an emotional context to language learning that helps the baby filter out extraneous sound and home in on the sound patterns that bring a reward in terms of making human connections.
In my work with music and language learning, my theory is that music and song are excellent vehicles for connecting emotion to language acquisition, and it was interesting to see the role of human and emotional connection highlighted here.
What is also fascinating to see is that as we get older we 'retreat' and become 'enclosed' within our own cultural and linguistic systems. It becomes increasingly harder to break out of them simply because I think we have a memory bank that is filling up, even clogging up with stored responses to inputs. It's a hard-drive in need of a de-frag to free up space.
I suppose I see music, song and rhythm as kind of de-frag software for language learning. They 'slide' new language into children's brains, flying under the radar of their stored responses. They help penetrate into parts of their consciousness where new information can be retained without having to pass through all of the border controls of stored cultural and linguistic filtering.
So, the younger the child, the more uncluttered the memory bank, the more receptive to new input. The older we get, the slower we are to assimilate new sounds and structures that do not match those already in our memory bank.
In the push to promote Primary Languages in the UK, one of the strains on the initiative is that though children can very easily pick up new language, the teachers who have to be re-trained to teach them find it much harder to re-learn.
The real difficulty lies less in acquiring the lexical and grammatical syntax of the language but in being able to 'tune' into the different sounds and mimic them. Prounuciation is a key issue. Fear of sounding inauthentic is a serious inhibtor in Primary MFL teachers.
Here again I believe, but can't prove, that on teacher language re-training programmes, re-learning a language with a significant input from music, rhythm and song might help. Someone somewhere ought to research an initiative to examine whether this is true. Could a program be devised where this is an integral rather than a peripheral part of it?
Here is a short post in a continuing series on what makes a great foreign language song that engages kids.
Having blown the trumpet for quite a few other MFL songsters, on this one I'm puffing on my own! Shameless I know but there we go …
My first example isn't actually my own composition - it is perhaps one of the most widely used songs for Early Language Learners, 'Heads,Shoulders,Knees and Toes'
The point I want to make though in this post is that even very familiar songs can be given an added twist of your own that make them even more memorable.
Children love a bit of fun in a song, a chance to look and sound ridiculous. You can inject this element into songs that you already use with a bit of imagination.
First example then is this French version of 'Tête, Epaules, Genous et Pieds'. I'm grateful to the early learning website Speakaboos.com for permission to use the tune. I think it is a cracking version of it and like the hip-slapping country feel that I think perfectly compliments the fact children are pounding parts of the body as they sing!
I have overdubbed a French version of the lyrics using Mixcraftsoftware and added an idea that I use a lot when warming children's voices up for singing. When you get them to repeat 'oreilles' pull yourself up onto the tip of your toes as you say the word and slide your voice from low to high up the scale as you say the word. Children LOVE it. Here's the tune and the French Lyrics I use.
Lyrics:
Backing Track
Backing Track + Main Vocals
Backing Track + Harmony Vocals
Backing Track + 2 part Vocals
Download a zip file with all of the musical tracks and a powerpoint file of the song.
My second example is one of my own tracks which you are welcome to download and use for yourself. If you like it please leave a comment. It is a simple French numbers 1 - 20 song but with 2 elements in it that I know add a funny twist and add a linguistic context.
Here is the whole resource in a zip file. This includes a Samrtboard Notebook file of the lyrics. You can import it into Active Inspire whiteboard software if necessary. It also contains the song sung at different speeds, another favourite trick to keep children interested and willing to repeat an activity.
The lyrics at the end of the song have some inbuilt self-deprecation. As they finally get to 20 they are invited to lingusitically puff and pant their way to the top of the song: "Ca y est, c'est fini, c'est fini ENFIN!" The thing is that though you invite them to say "At last! We've got to the end of this song" they seem very happy to go back and repeat it all over again!
As for the humourous hook, for some reason, after the first 1-10, when the children sing 'la la la la' that is the bit that gets the loudest vocal and engages even the most distracted. Perhaps you can explain it to me. Ok, it's not French, they can sing at least this but why does that appeal?
One theory I have is that any excuse you can give to children learning a language to ham something up, exaggerate, lose their reserve and inhibition, is a great facilitator. Any good language learner has to overcome inhibition, reserve and be prepared to sound stupid. My theory is that both of these song examples are successful because of these in-built opportunities to sound ridiculous.
Perhaps you have examples of other songs that you have adapted to do this. Please share them here!
As Miranda's Mum would say, "Such fun!" (Follow the link if you don't understand the reference - my current favourite comedy show on BBC - the art of the ridiculous perfectly crafted)
Today was spent in a very sunny Walsall at an excellent event run by Musical Futures. It has been a very busy week travelling quite a bit so I very nearly didn't go but I am so glad I did.
I had never heard of Musical Futures before but after listening to an excellent and thought-provoking keynote address from its founder, David Price, was left reflecting on the way education, especially at secondary level, is constructed and how the traditional models of discrete curricular areas urgently needs to change.
(David mentioned having worked at one time with Sir Ken Robinson, the guru of the creative curriculum)
David asked a group of children to illustrate in pictures i) how they see their current experience of education ii) how they would like to experience it and they came up with this pictorial metaphor
How they see their current experience
How they would like to be taught
The pictures capture the sense that whilst in their every day lives new technology offers them ever greater freedom to make connections, build their own peer, social and learning networks, they are in a school system that still puts them into fairly tight curricular 'subject cages' to be processed and 'produce' those exam results.
It is an 'assembly-line' model of education inherited from our industrial past, where each labourer/teacher does their 'bit' with their own discrete subject expertise to get the final 'product'.
These 'subject cages' are hard, if not impossible, to break out of.
Why? WHY? WHY?
There is such a revolution going on in the way people's working lives are being shaped. The emphasis is on fluidity, ability to respond to change, being connected with others dynamically across traditional barriers of class, race, religion, nationality, time and distance in order collaborate and act. Yet we are stuck with a secondary school system to prepare children for this that is essentially still 'closed' in nature.
The traditional subject boundaries need to be challenged. As far as I can see they are there not for any rational educational reason but for 4 purely administrative conveniences
buildings that don't allow for it
timetabling conveniences
an exam system that tests in discrete subjects - that old tail-wagging-dog!
available teachers that are trained in discrete subjects thus perpetuating the structure.
If the latter is not changed, we will never free ourselves from this antequated and inappropriate curriculum model.
As I look back I wish I had been trained as a Music / Language teacher. Had the flexibility been in the system to do this, I truly believe the most productive years of my teaching career would have been infinitely more profitable for the children in my care. Because it wasn't, I and they were robbed.
I am not so naive as to think any of those four entrenched elements of our system are anything but difficult to shift but a different mindset and willingness to think differently are the first steps on that journey.
So, whilst at this event, I found myself being challenged to wonder just why there seems to be so little evidence across the UK school system of Music and Language teachers working together? All language is a composite of sound, rhythm and pitch. Music perfectly matches these and marries them to emotion, and emotion is the fundemental driver of human motivation and purpose.
I know there is some overlap between languages and music going on, though it is piecemeal and depends upon the visionary presence of a few individuals in particular schools.
I attended a wonderful event last year at the Guildford County School where the Head of Music, Caroline Gale, had organised a Eurovision singing event for all of their feeder primary schools.
The music department went to the primary schools (yr 6) to train the teachers and pupils in how to compose a song. They then created their own original songs with lyrics written in a wide variety of different languages. These were performed at the Guildford County School they were soon to be attending to an audience of parents, teachers, yr 7 - yr 9 pupils. It was a wonderfullly positive celebration of song, music, languages and pupil creativity and I'm certain that, in September, those yr 6 pupils quickly felt a very comfortable part of their new school. I think too I can guess which 2 subject departments they felt most connected to and motivated to do well in when they got there!
So my challenge to all of my MFL and Music colleagues out there is this: Why don't we start to make a difference? Why don't all of us who have a passion to see children blossom in our distinct subject areas come together and collaborate to build communities of creative celebration for languages and music?
If you are reading this and know of anyone who you think is either already doing this in primary or secondary education or would love to see it happen, could you please pass this blog post on, especially to anyone with the power or influence to bring about change.
You can contact me personally at souffler(dot)uk(at)gmail(dot)com
If colleagues in other countries reading this have experience of such collaboration they can share, please e-mail me any relevant links or an outline so that I can share it here.
I'm writing this post as a follow up to the previous post about Eric Whitacre's virtual choir. In that, I said that I have borrowed the concept behind all collective singing and am learning to apply it to language learning, that successful blending of many voices into one sound is incredibly powerful and emotionally rich.
This is my first attempt to try and explain what I mean.
First, and at the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, our voices are designed to help us 'connect'. It might be obvious but sometimes what is so obvious can be hidden from us because it is right under our noses.
If our voice is the greatest tool we have to enable us to connect with others and we as language teachers are all about helping cultural strangers connect with each other by finding a new 'voice', a new tongue / langue, then why don't we explore how the use of a 'collective' grouping of disparate voices in the classroom into one voice can empower language learning?
In the UK, the pressure to measure every child's progress against a set of markers whilst laudible in intention, has had a very negative impact on a key aspect of learning: It edifies the 'individual' at the expense of 'community'.
Fine, we all have to stand or fall eventually based on the sum of our personal efforts. But the most effective vehicle for achieving the highest degree of personal growth is to be part of a supportive community. If this wasn't true there would be absolutely no need for schools in the first place.
Learning works best in the classroom if it is a collaborative, supportive, encouraging 'group' experience. That is where powerful learning takes place. We need each other. We function best in communities. We seek them out. We thrive on recognition from others, we understand who we truly are when we understand what value we bring to those who surround us. If education is about anything, it is about helping children to understand where their true value lies in relation to the people in their world, given their unique set of skills and abilities.
Since I have begun to adopt the Call / Response singing techniques I picked up from Sing Up training I have noticed a powerful enhancement of this collaborative atmosphere in my lessons. A couple of examples of exercises I do in my first lessons with new classes might illustrate this.
My first job as language teacher is not to teach children to speak but how to listen. Without that they will never make real progress. Adusting your voice to mimic what you hear from a model is fundemental to successful language learning. Fortunately this is absolutely true of singing as well.
So whilst my first lesson involves a lot of speaking, its actual focus is on how to listen. I begin with French vowel sounds. I show children pictures of Maori warriors and the New Zealand Rugby team and find out what they know about the Haka. We tease out why they do this, and the concept of sounding powerful as one eventually emerge as they prepare for 'battle'. (By the way, if you want boys instantly on your side, try all of this!)
I show them a video clip from Youtube of the New Zealand team doing their Haka and the Tongan rugby team responding with their own chant. We look at the role of the 'captain' calling, why the team respond as one voice and why that is so powerful. What are they trying to achieve?
I then set them a challenge: during this first lesson, all they they have to prove to me that as a class they can respond as one voice and one group action to what ever I say and do as the 'captain'. Can they do this?
To demonstrate this immediately I teach them 4 praise phrases we will learn regularly to say as a group chant to anyone who does something well.
Fantastique / Super / Excellent / Génial.
I teach the first 3 to begin with explaining that they are the same as English words but pronounced differently (cognates are a great way to teach phonics btw) and their task is to copy the word and the 3 part action I do to that word BUT they have to do this is one voice. After a couple of goes very quickly they get the idea.
Usually on 'excellent' I hear someone adding the 't'. Without picking anyone out, I explain that I heard something wrong at the end of the word, we do it again and ask them to identify what the difference is between the English and French way of saying it. The point is that they have to 'hear' it as a group and are corrected as a group.
We then do the French Haka. They have to face me as their captain, half crouching, knees bent, hands on knees and looking fierce. I say the French vowel sounds in turn with a separate action for each: 'a' both hands pushed out in front, 'e' both hands pulled back into chest, 'i' both one hand moves up, the other down to define an 'i' shape, 'o' hands to the side with index finger of each hand drawing an 'o' circle in the air, 'u' the same index finger drawing a 'u' shape in the air.
You can pick out the French 'u' versus 'oo' sound at this point. One tip to teach this: get them to notice what they do with their jaw when saying the 'oo' sound (jaw drops down and forward) versus the 'u' sound (jaw is pulled back)
They then add consonants of their choosing and we re-do the Haka. I explain that there are 2 rude consonants that I hope they don't find so as not to embarrass me with predictable results and eventually 'p' and 'w' are added to the mix!
The point is that right from the word go, the children are learning this 'call-response' technique.
They are having to listen intently to copy me.
They are having to be aware of rhythm, timing and each other to speak with one voice.
They are learning that making these new sounds is comfortable as they can try them out as part of a group; this one voice that allows them the security of trying things out without making a fool of themselves. This is FUNDEMENTAL. If I have one regret in my years in secondary teaching is that I sprung far too early to requiring individuals to speak out loud on their own in front of a class. They should be able to practice everything as a group or in pairs before being required to produce on their own.
We then move onto a very simple group song on greetings which we sing unaccompanied. I use my hands to do pitch change gestures as I sing, they respond, again as one voice, and often copy my pitch gestures too.
When I ask them to tell me what some of the words mean in that song (bonjour, comment ça va etc) anyone who answers correctly selects one of the 4 praise phrases we have done. I say the phrase + 3 part action followed by the pupil's name + do a 3 part 'shimmy' to their name eg: Calvin would become
Everyone repeats the praise phrase and does the shimmy. This is a regular feature of early lessons. I vary it by eventually asking for volunteers to come to the front and lead the whole class in praising someone using a 3 part shimmy of their own invention. Often these are hilarious! Imagine what the child who leads the class feels like as they do this. Imagine what the child on the receiving end of the whole class saying well done in French feels like. This is very, very powerful and we do it in the first lesson.
Class chanting or singing to fantastic music builds a positive, supportive, collaborative community. Learn how to do it effectively and very quickly you will establish the kind of atmosphere conducive to real learning that previously it might have taken me a whole term or longer to achieve with all the attendant emotional wear and tear involved. Seriously colleagues, I believe these techniques can mean the difference between burning yourself out and being a relatively effortless but powerful teacher.
It has been the biggest accelerator to success in my own experience that I have ever encountered. What's more it is FUN! Enjoy.
(Please send a link to this article if it has helped you. If you would like me to come to your school or area in the UK to demonstrate these techniques, please leave your name, school and a contact email on this blog. It won't be published for anyone else to see as I have to allow publication of all comments.)
Here is the completed video of Eric Whitacre's virtual choir singing his composition 'Sleep'. Again I would just make the point that there is both power and beauty in people joing voices to sing as one. I teach this concept of 'one voice, many people' as a vital part of my language lessons' and it has had a big impact on what I do. I'll explain more in a further post. For now, enjoy!
This post is in response to a request made at a recent training event. I promised that I would upload a video instruction on how to use sound editing software.
The software I work with is NCH's wavepad. There is a free version of this and a paid for version with more advanced features. The free version is very adequate for most of your requirements.
The first thing I would say if you are new to sound editors is that even if you are unfamiliar with the interface, if you know how to select, cut, copy, paste anything in a Word document, you can do this with a sound in a sound editor. The keyboard shortcuts are the same:
It's a while since I have posted anything techie on this site as I have been focusing on the role of music, song and rhythm in helping you to deliver powerful lessons that engage children.
However this blog began life as a vehicle to help me share tips and tricks with teachers that enable you to make the most of multimedia in your lessons.
This tip will enable you to use songs more effectively in powerpoint animations.
There are times when you need to use presentation software rather than just 'playing' a music file or playing it on Interactive Whiteboard software such as Smartboard or Promethean. The animations help you to draw attention to a teaching point.
In this video I am showing you how I needed to use simple 'appear' animations to highlight particular phonemes in a song. This is a great little trick to teach phonics and I highly recommend it.
Here is the video. I am using the scroll up and down wheel on my mouse to control the animations in the video but you could also use the up/down arrows on your keyboard.
Hint: One piece of advice not mentioned on the video. The player will not work if it cannot find the file. If you think that you will need to prepare this at home then take it into school, you must put the sound files onto a memory stick/flash drive and then create and save your powerpoint on that memory stick.
When you add in the location of your sound file to the media object, make sure that you choose the sound file version on the memory stick. In this way it won't be searching for the sound file on your home PC when you are in fact in school. It will search for it on the memory stick instead.
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