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Article: Music and Storytelling in the EFL Classroom

We can use music and chants as warmers or warm ups with students of all ages.

Music can be used as Karaoke to help students improve their pronunciation and fluency. Even though the lyrics of songs undergo transformations and aren’t always pronounced or ordered in the way we use spoken language, they are very helpful in reducing students’ resistance to using the language. Because songs are often poetry, we can also study the meaning, research the story behind the lyrics and encourage students to speak about what the song means to them or how it makes them feel

During class, I use background music to encourage students to think and learn while performing different tasks in English. Of course, the background music is always instrumental and usually classical, such as Mozart, Vivaldi or Handel. Studies have found that listening to baroque and classical music while studying, helps students to retain what they studied. Luz Maria Ibarra creator of the Brain Gym concept has several series of CDs. I frequently use tracks from Gimnasia Cerebral 1 as they were specifically created for classroom use and have all the components necessary to assist student learning. Background music can also be used as a non-verbal way of dividing class time into various segments by turning the music off when focusing on speaking and whole class work and turning the music on when students are working on individual or group activities. Remember, this is background music and needs to be played very quietly. As a suggestion, use instrumental rather than vocal music because the students do not focus on the music.

Another activity I like to do is playing music while my students use blank paper with coloured pencils or markers and their imaginations to create pictures that express what the music tells them. When they explain their drawings, they are using a form of storytelling.

So, in my opinion, we can combine music and storytelling to complement each other.

Just as we encourage our students to use their imaginations, we must use our imaginations, too, and create lessons that incorporate whatever it takes to impress our students favourably to encourage them to learn.

Storytelling can be used for listening activities where we read a short story or use a recording of a short story to engage our students. We cannot just read in a monotone voice. We have to breathe life into the characters as well as ask questions while we’re reading to ensure our students retain their interest. We also need to prepare interesting and meaningful activities involving all four skills. These can include changing the story to a role-play, having students read the story aloud or anything else you can think of that promotes interactive work.

In a humanistic, communicative classroom, it is imperative for students to tell their own stories. Getting our students to tell their own stories is also great for practicing listening and speaking. Therefore, you can ask them to make up their own stories about whatever subject you are studying in class or whatever subject they want and get them to tell them, read them or perform them. Traditional oral storytelling involves knowing a story and being able to tell it without using a book. Perhaps students have favourite stories from their childhood that they can tell to the class in English. To encourage their imaginations, they can create visuals to accompany their stories.

I hope that now you have more insight into the reasons for using these fun activities in your second language classrooms, you decide to make the most of music and storytelling in your lesson plans.

Summary

The use of music is an excellent tool to improve student’s pronunciation. Even though the order of the lyrics and the pronunciation might differ from the way that we use them in spoken language, they are extremely helpful in making students speak. Also, songs are a form of poetry so we can study the meaning and story behind the lyrics. Another way of using music to help students to improve their speaking skills is playing music in the background of the class; it has been shown that the use of background music helps learners to relax and to have a better understanding of lessons. Other practical activity is to give students a blank piece of paper and markers, so they can create pictures that come to their minds while listening to the music in the background and create a story with them, consequently when they are explaining their drawings they are using a form of storytelling; combining music and storytelling. The use of these strategies should be prepared, questions should be asked and life should be brought to the stories to engage students. In summary, students should be encouraged to tell their own stories, or to make stories about their favorite subjects in order for them to be interested in this type of activities.

About the author of the article:

Roberta King, Mexico

Roberta King has been living and working in Hidalgo since 2001. After nearly 30 years in the business world, she decided to pursue teaching English as a second language when she finished her B.A. in English in 1999. Roberta received a TESOL certificate from the Houston-based International TESOL College in 2000 and left a lucrative post in the business world to fulfill a dream to teach in Mexico. Since then, she has received an MBA and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in TESOL. Roberta works at Hidalgo State University (UAEH) in the Language Self-Learning Centre. E-mail: ttrking@hotmail.com

Link: http://www.hltmag.co.uk/apr10/sart05.htm

Conciseness

Conciseness means brevity and completeness. The entire underlying premise of it is to omit needless words.

Exercise on Page 100

Adam Smith, the founder of Modern Economics, proposed controversial theory in the eighteen century. Smith of Scottish descent, wrote the first study of political economy. The wealth of nations was published in the same year that Americans declared the independence from England, in 1776. Smith’s book pointed out the interdependence of freedom and order, economic processes, and free trade laws. Although his thinking did not really affect economic policies, its influence in the next century was considerable. “The invisible hand” and “Laissez-faire” are synonymous with Smith’s name. Business people will smile and make a response like “ He was a good man- really understood how business works” if you say “Adam Smith” the opposite will happen if you say his name to liberal reformers, they will say “ He was an evil man really sold the average citizen down to the river”. Both reactions are extreme but they responses indicate how controversial Smith’s ideas are now.

Sentence reducing strategies

Sentence reducing strategies

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Smart house

In the article “Smart House” , Speak up 169, Schenke claims that in the future, thanks to technology, houses will be networked making things easier. Internet will connect electronic devices and they will have chips to control activities like housework, communications, shopping, bills or people’s social life. The disadvantages of having a networked will be that people will have to pay some extra dollars for the chips, the internet connection and the security measures to protect the system against cyber pirating. They won’t have to afford the mainteinace since the services will repair themselves. The money people can spend will not mean much considering all the benefits of having a smart house.

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Study

This study went over 1,600 marginal and end comments written on 110 first drafts of eassys by 47 university ESL advanced students, considering the pragmatic goals for and the linguistic features of each comment. The eassys improved because of an examination of the drafts of each individual eassy which showed the influence of the first draft commentary on the students’s revision and asses the changes made to the teacher’s feedback. A proportion of the comments led to substantive student’s revisions and there were particular kind and forms of commentary that were helpful than others. The results suggest implications for L2 writing instruction and for future studies on a vital but surprisingly neglacted topic.

Paraphrasing What is paraphrasing? It could be defined as expressing someone else's ideas using your own words, that is, to rewrite their ideas without changing the meaning of them. Exercise 1 1. Despite their massive size, elephants are known for being agile. Elephants are known to be fast despite their size 2. Because elephants consume up to 500 pounds of food a day, they are able to strip a forest bare in no time. Elephants consume a lot of food daily so they could make a forest disappear really fast. 3. Over the centuries, lions have been used in art to represent power and magnificence. Power and magnificence is what lions have represented in art pieces, throughout years. 4. Lions are social animals with one dominant male in each pride. Lions live in groups but only one is the leader. 5. George Washington Carver was a dedicated teacher, in addition, he was known as talented artist, musician, and researcher who made valuable contributions to his people and his country. George Washington who made great contribution to his country was also multifaceted teacher. 6. Archibald McLeish, known for his poetry, was appointed head of the Library of Congress by President Roosevelt in 1939. President Roosevelt gave Archibald McLeish known, who was known for his poetry, the title "Head of the library of congress" Exercise 2 1. There is plenty of water of water on the earth. In fact, there is enough water in this planet for everyone to have a huge lake. The trouble is that the water is not always found in the place where it’s needed. In addition, much of water is polluted or salty, because of these problems. There are many people without sufficient water. Main idea: The distribution of water on planet earth. 2. New oil supplies need to be found to replace those that have been used up. There is a constant search for new oil fields. Oil hunters sink their wells wherever there are signs of oil. Each of these drillings costs thousands and thousands of dollars, and often there is not enough oil to make it profitable. Nevertheless, the search for new oil never ends. Main idea: The endless search for oil. 3. Quakers a religious group known as the Society of Friends, have always worked for human causes. Before the Civil War in the United States, they were against slavery and led the movement to help slaves escape from the southern part of the United States and seek for freedom in the northern part. Today, they fight hunger and disease around the worlds and still aid people fleeing tyranny and war. Their beliefs are based on the principles of pacifism and simple living. Main idea: The humanitarian work of Quakers. Exercise 3.Students rights. Thesis: Students are the ones that will spend part of their life at University and they ask to their leaders to let them participate in issues that affect their lives throughout the university lives. I Main Idea: students fight for their inclusion in university matters as faculty selection, curriculum planning and scheduling. II Main Idea: the selection of the faculty members. III Main idea: student’s interests in the material that should be used to study. They fight for the permission to participate in the curricula planning that should be implanted in the university.

Paraphrasing

What is paraphrasing?

It could be defined as expressing someone else's ideas using your own words, that is, to rewrite their ideas without changing the meaning of them.

Exercise 1

1. Despite their massive size, elephants are known for being agile.

Elephants are known to be fast despite their size

2. Because elephants consume up to 500 pounds of food a day, they are able to strip a forest bare in no time.

Elephants consume a lot of food daily so they could make a forest disappear really fast.

3. Over the centuries, lions have been used in art to represent power and magnificence.

Power and magnificence is what lions have represented in art pieces, throughout years.

4. Lions are social animals with one dominant male in each pride.

Lions live in groups but only one is the leader.

5. George Washington Carver was a dedicated teacher, in addition, he was known as talented artist, musician, and researcher who made valuable contributions to his people and his country.

George Washington who made great contribution to his country was also multifaceted teacher.

6. Archibald McLeish, known for his poetry, was appointed head of the Library of Congress by President Roosevelt in 1939.

President Roosevelt gave Archibald McLeish known, who was known for his poetry, the title "Head of the library of congress"

Exercise 2

1. There is plenty of water of water on the earth. In fact, there is enough water in this planet for everyone to have a huge lake. The trouble is that the water is not always found in the place where it’s needed. In addition, much of water is polluted or salty, because of these problems. There are many people without sufficient water.

Main idea: The distribution of water on planet earth.

2. New oil supplies need to be found to replace those that have been used up. There is a constant search for new oil fields. Oil hunters sink their wells wherever there are signs of oil. Each of these drillings costs thousands and thousands of dollars, and often there is not enough oil to make it profitable. Nevertheless, the search for new oil never ends.

Main idea: The endless search for oil.

3. Quakers a religious group known as the Society of Friends, have always worked for human causes. Before the Civil War in the United States, they were against slavery and led the movement to help slaves escape from the southern part of the United States and seek for freedom in the northern part. Today, they fight hunger and disease around the worlds and still aid people fleeing tyranny and war. Their beliefs are based on the principles of pacifism and simple living.

Main idea: The humanitarian work of Quakers.

Exercise 3.Students rights.

Thesis: Students are the ones that will spend part of their life at University and they ask to their leaders to let them participate in issues that affect their lives throughout the university lives.

I Main Idea: students fight for their inclusion in university matters as faculty selection, curriculum planning and scheduling.

II Main Idea: the selection of the faculty members.

III Main idea: student’s interests in the material that should be used to study. They fight for the permission to participate in the curricula planning that should be implanted in the university.

Here’s an excellent exerciste to practice the topic and main idea (Click on the link)

http://steckvaughn.hmhco.com/HA/correlations/pdf/l/LEr5_topic.pdf

Topic and Main Idea

Identifying Topics, Main Ideas, and Supporting Details

Understanding the topic, the gist, or the larger conceptual framework of a textbook chapter, an article, a paragraph, a sentence or a passage is a sophisticated reading task. Being able to draw conclusions, evaluate, and critically interpret articles or chapters is important for overall comprehension in college reading. Textbook chapters, articles, paragraphs, sentences, or passages all have topics and main ideas. The topic is the broad, general theme or message. It is what some call the subject. The main idea is the “key concept” being expressed. Details, major and minor, support the main idea by telling how, what, when, where, why, how much, or how many. Locating the topic, main idea, and supporting details helps you understand the point(s) the writer is attempting to express. Identifying the relationship between these will increase your comprehension.