Category: Topics

Fresh (fresher, freshest): Building Vocabulary through
Rhythm and Rhyme – Jason R. Levine

 

“You’ll learn without looking when you stop feeling bored and stressed. Having fun when you learn is when you learn the best.” -Fluency MC

My daughter, Lola, just turned seven. English is her native language, yet last week she ‘hurted’ her finger and yesterday she ‘writed’ a letter to Dominic (the ‘love of her life’). “Oh, that’s right; you hurt your finger,” I say. And, “Oh, you wrote a letter to Dominic?” She responds: “I hurt my finger; I hurt it really bad.” “I wrote him a letter. I wrote it on a card I made.”

There is no need to correct Lola’s mistakes; she simply needs to hear irregular verb forms more often. With enough input, she’ll acquire them for life. She repeats the correct forms, instinctively, without being prompted: more input, plus practice. In countless stories, songs, movies, and conversations, she will hear (and read) them as they occur naturally in collocations.

Of course, learners of English as a second or foreign language rarely get this sort of input and practice. “Studying like crazy” (e.g., reading and copying irregular verbs) might get them closer, but typically they’re bored or stressed out or both-not a great recipe for acquiring vocabulary or keeping motivation high. And in most cases-such as with an alphabetized list of verbs-the input isn’t contextualized. This makes it even harder to store the words in long-term memory.

The key to using a language accurately and fluently is to follow the 3Rs. No, not “Reading, ‘Riting, ‘Rithmetic” (for those of you who grew up in the U.S) but rather, “Relax, Repeat, Remember.” This is how we learn our native language; and it’s what children and adults learning second and foreign languages ought to be doing, too.

That woman you know who didn’t speak a word of Thai but lived with an awesome family in Thailand for a year and “picked up” the language? She followed the 3Rs. Your cousin’s friend from Colombia who has never set foot in an English speaking country but speaks with high accuracy and fluency from watching so much television? He followed the 3Rs.

Kids come hard-wired to repeat new language without feeling anxious or self-conscious. In fact, they enjoy it; they’re hungry for repetitive input. They’ll ask you to read the same book to them nine times in a row or play the same song again (and again and again). We adults, on the other hand, have developed higher order cognitive skills. We read a story; we understand it; we’re done. We check a word in a dictionary; it makes sense to us; we’re on to the next word. Without enough repeated exposure to vocabulary in context, it is hardly surprising that most of us language learners are not as accurate nor as fluent as we’d like to be.

But wait a minute. Are children the only ones who want to hear songs again and again?

If we’re talking about your typical ‘pop’ song compilation for four-year olds, featuring gems such as “Bingo” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” then the answer could quite possibly be yes (especially if you’ve got that #@$% CD in the car). On the other hand, you might play a new release by your favorite artist dozens of times. Ditto for a song from high school, in spite of the fact that you’ve heard it at least 200 times.

Have you ever read the same book 200 times? The same newspaper article? Is it fun to listen to your Uncle Freddie tell the same story about his trip to Las Vegas?

There’s something different, something special about rhythm and rhyme.

Our brain likes patterns. Patterns, by definition, repeat. (Contrast this with reference lists arranged alphabetically).  Rhythm and rhyme are such powerful patterns they get “stuck in your head” more easily than others do. When was the last time you couldn’t take your mind off of a series of shapes you saw in a magazine ad?

And for human beings, music is as fundamental for nourishment as food. But as with food, there are different tastes.

With these ideas in mind, I wrote a song in 2010 to learn and practice irregular verbs. I grouped them according to sound and spelling patterns and wrote lyrics that I thought would appeal to my students, who were young adults from various countries around the world. I grew up listening to and djing hip hop music, so the song, “Stick, Stuck Stuck”, is a rap song with a simple, ‘old school’ beat.

It begins this way:

The microphone I take (took, taken). You shake (shook, shaken). Wake (woke, woken) to the style I’m creating. Think (thought, thought). Seek (sought, sought). Listen to the lesson that I teach (taught, taught).

I hoped my students would like the song enough to repeat it and get the multiple exposures they needed. True, native speakers don’t learn irregular verbs this way. But walk up to one of them and say, “take, took taken” and then “bring, ______, _______” and they’ll fill in the blanks. Our brains store the verb forms this way once we’ve heard and seen them enough.

This is what I wanted for my students: to be able to access and use irregular verb forms naturally-with fluency and accuracy-in conversations, in job interviews, while writing essays, wherever and whenever they needed to.

Thankfully, they liked the song and one student shot a video of me performing it. The students performed the song afterwards, though this isn’t included in this particular video. I’ve written many songs since, some of which you can see in videos on my YouTube Channel. I’ve just finished a new one entitled “Fresh (fresher, freshest)”. Can you guess what the language focus is? 😀 I’ll be performing it during my session at the  iTDi Summer School MOOC. I hope to see you there!

Rhythm and Rhyme: Follow the 3Rs with these 2Rs and watch (and hear) your vocabulary grow. “You’ll learn without looking when you stop feeling bored and stressed. Having fun when you learn is when you learn the best.” -Fluency MC

 

Join Jase and more than 30 other iTDi presenters for the iTDi Summer School MOOC live from July 20th to August 17th 2014.

 

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The Body Learns
Theodora Papapanagiotou

 

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”  – Confucius

When you read a title like this, you might wonder: can the body actually learn a foreign language?   You know that when we learn something, we use our brains, but what about our body? Is it possible?

You can’t possibly imagine how many different kinds of people there are around us! Some enjoy learning by exposing themselves to music, some prefer to categorize the things they learn, some are just a natural talent in acquiring language, and others, like me, are totally kinaesthetic.

What does kinesthetic mean? This is actually a Greek compound word, which derives from “κίνηση” (movement) and “αίσθηση” (sensation, feeling).  As kinesthetic learners, we have to actually feel the word and we can’t restrain ourselves on a chair or behind a desk during the whole lesson. We lose interest, we get bored, and eventually we stop paying attention. Using movement in our classrooms cannot only benefit kinesthetic learners, but the other types of learners as well.

First of all, it is fun to do different things than to do grammar and vocabulary exercises all the time.  Students remember the fun they had and in this way they do get to remember what they have learnt better.

When we are happy, our brain releases the so-called happy chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. As a result, when we learn with pleasure, our body seeks to create these chemicals. This is definitely a win-win situation for both the teacher and the students.

What can you do to bring movement in your classroom? You can do a lot of simple as well as complicated things, depending on the students, the space and the time available.

 

You can use TPR (Total Physical response).

Play pantomime to consolidate vocabulary:  You have a bag with word-cards. It can be anything, animals, professions, adjectives, a combination of adjectives and nouns, verbs.

Have them create a story, using movement, describing things in

detail using their hands and going around the room!

Use running dictation. Instead of the boring dictation of words or a text, stick a sheet of paper on the classroom door, or even outside and have a competition  – which team is going to finish first the text correctly.

Hide objects and give hints to the students, so they can find them or make a treasure map.

Use a ball to make the students speak. The student who has the ball has to talk for a specific time, let’s say 30 sec or a minute about a subject. Or you can use it as an ice –breaker / introduction in the beginning of the school year.

 

Use Can Use Music

Use songs to practice vocabulary or act out stories based on the song.

Use songs to teach adjectives. I use the song Ain’t No Mountain High Enough and have my students mine the meaning of the adjectives.

Have students choose a song and have them create a whole performance based on it – playing a little sketch, dancing, drawing, or even combining all these together. This would be a great show for an end-of-the-year event!

 

You can use Yoga

Give simple Yoga instructions to students while demonstrating the exercise so that students can learn movement verbs and body parts.

Use Yoga breathing techniques to calm your students down at the beginning of your lesson, especially if you work with young children.

What can you do to bring movement in your classroom?  Whatever you do, do it, and have fun yourself first. The fun you have will be contagious.

 

Join Theodora and more than 30 other iTDi presenters for the iTDi Summer School MOOC live from July 20th to August 17th 2014.

 

Connect with authors, iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers and Teacher Development courses.

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Invitation Standing: Bring Poetry To Your Classroom
Chuck Sandy

What is a poem? A poem, once read and internalized, is a song that’s meant to be spoken, that’s meant to be heard.  A poem is more than words, more than whatever meaning the words of the poem combine to make.  A poem is sound, rhythm, and cadence.  A poem is the poet’s voice arranged on the page in such a way that any reader can speak with the same voice, with the same rhythm, in the same way.

Please read the poem Invitation Standing by Paul Blackburn silently to your self.

BRING a leaf to me

just a leaf just a

spring leaf, an

April leaf

just

• come

 

Blue sky

never mind

Spring rain

never mind

Reach up and

take a leaf and

• come

just come.

Paul Blackburn (Invitation Standing)

 

Can you hear the rhythm of the words and the sound the words make? Notice the way BRING is capitalized. Notice the way each line breaks. Notice the comma between spring leaf and an. Notice the lack of commas otherwise. Notice the way the word come is set off by itself, a tab away from the left-hand margin. I ask you to notice these things because this is how Paul Blackburn shows us how the poem is meant to be spoken and heard. Say BRING in a louder voice than you do a leaf to me.

Speed through just a leaf just a before pausing a moment to say spring leaf, an / April leaf and then pause and put some emphasis on come.

Read the poem again only this time, read it out loud. If possible read it out loud to someone. Ask them to listen to the sound and the rhythm. Don’t ask them what the poem is about. Just have them listen. Can you hear the poem’s sound, rhythm, and cadence? Can they? My students can and then can read it to each other just the way it’s meant to be read – and so can your students.

Take any poem you find that’s full of sound and rhythm and read it to your students.
Take the poem This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams for example:

 

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

 

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

 

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

 

Tell your students you’re going to read them a poem. Tell them it’s a dictation and that you’d like them to write the poem out the way you speak it. Tell them that you want them to arrange the words on the page so that it looks like a poem.

Now read the poem out loud several times so they hear the pauses and know where the line breaks are. Pause longer between each stanza so they know there’s a larger space between them. Then, ask your students to compare the way they’ve written the poem out with a partner and to make any corrections they think should be made.  Give them a bit of time to do this before reading the poem out loud again.

Now, show your students the poem as written by William Carlos Williams, and have them make the necessary corrections. After they’ve done so, ask them to take turns reading the poem out loud in pairs a couple of times. After they’ve done this ask, “Can you hear all the s sounds in the poem?” and have them underline all the s sounds they hear:  plums, icebox, saving, breakfast, delicious, so sweet, so cold.

Then, if you want, get students walking around the room saying the poem to each other.  Tell them to be dramatic, to speak the poem as if they were speaking to someone  – and of course they are.

Bring everyone back together and either ask students to whom the poem was probably written and where it might have been left or just tell them: Williams wrote the poem as a note to his wife Flossie and left it on the refrigerator (icebox) door. Ask a question like “How do you think Flossie felt when she read this? How would you feel? Your students will come up with adjectives like annoyed, upset, angry, disappointed, dismayed, let down, and devastated. At least mine did.

And my students – no matter how often I’ve done this and no matter what group I’ve done this with – have never had any trouble taking the structure, sound, rhythm, and cadence of the poem, and using this to write their own versions.

My favorite student-written versions of this poem over the years have been:

This is just to say   I have finished your homework which you left undone last light   and which you were probably never going to complete.   Thank me. It wasn’t easy. But now you’ll pass.

This is just to say   I have stolen your boyfriend who you left alone this summer   and who you were probably going to marry.   Forgive me. He was so handsome, so lonely and now so mine.

 

Notice the creativity in those versions. Notice the way grammar has been shaped and used. Notice the sound and the rhythm. Note that this is language work.  Imagine the fun students have reading their poems out loud to each other.

Short poems can be memorized, versioned, acted out, turned into video stories like this beautiful film by Lam Thuy Vo or a stop-motion video like this one from Betsie Pie Baker.  There’s so much that can be done.

In addition to being sound, rhythm, cadence, and meaning, a poem is also a manageable chunk of language which students have little trouble managing to work with in some pretty incredible ways. Why don’t you give it a try with you students?

If you’d like to find some good poems to use, have a look at the Poetry 180 Project, the Favorite Poem Project or Popular Poems To Teach. If you’re working with young learners try  Funny Poems and Stories or The Twenty Best Poems For Kids.

Now back to the Paul Blackburn poem Invitation Standing. Could you memorize it? Could your students? Could they talk about why it was written and to whom? Could   they come up with their own versions of it? Sure they could.  So could you.

I’ll be talking more about using poetry in the classroom in my presentation for the iTDi Summer School MOOC.  I hope to see you there.

 

Join Chuck and more than 30 other iTDi presenters for the iTDi Summer School MOOC  live from July 20^th to August 17^th 2014.

 

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How can we bring more movement, rhyme and rhythm into our classrooms? How might this effect learning? In this issue Jason R. Levine, Theodora Papapanagiotou, and Chuck Sandy share ideas and activities.

Jason R. Levine (Jase)

Theodora Papapanagiotou

Chuck Sandy

 

Join Jase, Theodora, Chuck, and more than 30 other iTDi presenters for the iTDi Summer School MOOC live from July 20th to August 17th 2014.

 

Connect with authors, iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers and Teacher Development courses.

Like what we do? Become an iTDi Patron.
Your support makes a difference.