Last year in December, Ms Carolyn Graham and I had another workshop tour titled: "The "VERY" Special Workshop vol. 4" which was held in the three cities of: Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. This is the 4th year to hold this workshop tour in Japan and the time has really flown by since we held the first series of these workshops. This year, in addition to teaching how to create original chants, we added an additional teaching objective for the participants; we decided to take the concept of chants and stretch it further into "chants as a tool for self-expression". Due to the overwhelming positive response by all the participants we are now arranging "vol. 5" for 2010.
In the morning session, Carolyn taught the participants her philosophy on using chants and the basic rules and patterns of her chanting method. Next she had the students create and present their own original works. She then critiqued their work and gave them suggestions with explanations for improvement. In the afternoon, the students worked in groups and decided themes and functions to use for their group chants creations and created some masterful works. The participants came to the workshop knowing little or nothing about creating chants but by the end of the workshop they could have confidence in their ability and believe in Carolyn's words of constant encouragement that, "Anyone can learn how to make a chant." In all of the workshops every participant created their own chants and presented them to the group. They were all original works created by the participants during the workshop and to say that they were "unbelievably interesting" does not convey the creativity and self-expression shown by the participants. You really had to be there!
In the morning session, we used the Longman Young Children's Picture Dictionary Poster Pack as the basis for vocabulary and visual practice for the first steps of the participants creating their own original chants. Picture dictionaries are great material for inspiration when we make our own chants because the words in picture dictionaries are carefully chosen for their respective target student ages, and the words themselves are already grouped into categories.
In preparation for the workshop, I used the Longman Young Children's Picture Dictionary posters with my students and made some original chants. Here are some of the chants made by my students who are in the first grade of elementary school.
Beetle, butterfly, bee
Beetle, butterfly, bee
Beetle, butterfly, beetle, butterfly
Beetle, butterfly, bee
(by Kento)
Spider, butterfly, worm
Spider, butterfly, worm
Spider, butterfly, spider, butterfly
Spider, butterfly, worm
(by Yuto)
This type of chant is called a "Vocabulary Chant". Let me explain the simple process to create a vocabulary chant.
First, choose a category of the words you want to use. In this case, I chose the insect page from the Longman Young Children's Picture Dictionary Poster Pack. Then, have the students listen to the words carefully and count the syllables. Next, group the words by the number of the syllables in them.
One syllable words: bee, worm,
Two syllable words:
Three syllable words:
After grouping the words ask the students to choose one word from each of the three groups. Next, arrange the three words in the pattern of 2-3-1, 2-3-1, 2-3-2-3, 2-3-1 where the number represents the number of syllables in the word. Finally, enjoy listening to the Jazzy rhythm with this simple chant!
The next step in creating your own chants is to expand the vocabulary used in the chant. For example, you can add some adjectives like colors and sizes. Then they become "Phrase Chants". In my class, I used the photocopiable Activity Resource Book pages from the Longman Young Children's Picture Dictionary and had my students color the insects first. They then used the colors they had chosen to add to their chant. Here are two of the Phrase Chants my students made.
Light green beetle, red butterfly
Light blue bee, light blue bee
(by Kento)
Purple spider, blue butterfly
Orange worm, orange worm
(by Yuto)
My students very much enjoyed imagining colors that can-not-be-real for their insects.
I played some piano instrumental music by Scott Joplin, which was suggested by Carolyn Graham, for my students to chant their original chants. They liked presenting their own chants in such a rhythmical way. In fact, using this kind of music along with spoken English, the children remembered the words and phrases with no difficulty. An interesting benefit was that they were singing the chants while they were working on the next activity in the class - further reinforcing the language by themselves.
One of Carolyn Graham's many works includes what she calls a "Spelling Chant". This is a chant using jazz rhythm to remember the spellings of words. An example that I made of this follows.
How do you spell bug?
B-U-G
How do you spell bee?
B-E-E
How do you spell ant?
A-N-T
How do you spell butterfly?
Don't ask me!
My students really liked the last "Don't ask me!" part and wanted to repeat the chant again just to get to that part!
This is a bit of a digression but, when I put this first year elementary class together, I told the students' parents that this class is for the children to have a lot of different experiences in the classroom. Therefore, there is no set curriculum for this class. We also don't follow the "generally accepted logical steps" of teaching the children the alphabet, followed by new words, and how to spell them. In previous classes, I have asked students to write their names, read picture books to them, and used picture dictionaries having my students draw pictures and write the name of the picture. However, with this chants experience, it triggered my students to suddenly have great interest in the sounds of English and how they relate to the written language. In the last class of January, I showed them a calendar and asked them to "read" the name of the twelve months. Well, their reading was not perfectly correct but not far off from what it should be.
By having my students repeat the sounds of English and using posters and other materials as well as writing letters and words the children began to become aware of the rules of phonics. Instead of "teaching" by trying to "put the knowledge in" these activities have sparked an interest within my students and a desire to know.
In the class we not only used the posters to categorize words, we also used the posters which have the story of "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". With the stories I used the following chants.
Once there was a girl, a good little girl.
A good girl, a little girl, a good little girl
Along came a wolf, a big bad wolf.
A big wolf, a bad wolf, a big bad wolf
This chant is not only to introduce the characters that are introduced in the story but to expose my students to the order of adjectives in English.
One more thing, something else about using the posters is that the children have an interest in the characters, and we can make chants based on the picture(s) as an introductory step to the story.
What does the girl have?
A basket.
She has a basket in her hands.
What does the wolf have?
A hat.
He has a hat on his head.
By first introducing the short answer to the question we can help students say the answer in a sentence with the correct stress pattern without verbally explaining the rule as well as drawing attention to the article system of English. Based on this chant, we could explore further by talking about the real situation of who has: what, where – using "in" and "on". This was a really fun way of "learning" new target language for my students. Also, this chant will help learners "discover" the rule about third person "s" in the future.
In this way, we can use chants in the process of teaching English to make it interesting and enjoyable for our students. Needless to say, the teacher who accurately understands their students' needs and is able to use chants as a tool for student learning will dramatically increase the effectiveness of the learning experience.
When making original chants, please pay attention to these three points:
1) Is the English used "real and natural English" that would be used in that situation?
2) Is the language appropriate to the age of the students?
3) Is the content of the chant interesting for the students?
The chants created by Carolyn Graham are, by her own admission, "to teach American English, as spoken by an educated English-speaking native, to non-native speakers of English in a way that the learners can master it". Therefore it is not acceptable to have: grammatically incorrect content, unnatural language, unnatural rhythm, unnatural intonation, or language that "is not natural but will be understood". The language should be age appropriate for the learner's level and content that the learner can use in any social situation without fear of offence. The natural rhythm of spoken English perfectly matches to the Swing Jazz Rhythm. It is therefore important to play around with sounds and words of English using the Swing rhythm as the base.
Carolyn Graham will be conducting one-day workshops in November and December, 2010. If you and your friends have interest in attending the workshop please check the JJ Fellowship website time to time for updates (www.JJFellowship.com) or email Mayuka Habbick at Mayuka@JJFellowship.com to be put on the mailing list for the event.
Mayuka Habbick
JJ Fellowship organizer, teacher and teacher trainer, workshop and seminar organizer and presenter for parents and teachers, and events for children. Director of E for ju:, certified trainer of LEGO Education Center.
