Teaching English through music: A report of a practicum based on musical genres

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1 Teaching English through music: A report of a practicum based on musical genres 76 Introduction This is a report of an English II Disciplinary Practicum project that happened at the Florinda Tubino Sampaio High School located in Porto Alegre. The group in which the project was carried out is the 1 st grade of high school and there were 10 regular students, but in many classes, there were only 7 or 8 students. Lessons took place at night, with most students that worked during the day and studied at night. The project was based on different music styles. In this way, we studied the following genres: jazz, blues, rock, reggae, and hip-hop. The practicum was carried out in ten classes of two periods each. Goal As presented in Referenciais Curriculares do Rio Grande do Sul (2009, p. 131), one of the objectives of the additional language classes should be to create opportunities for "a formação do cidadão, um cidadão capaz de participar criticamente do mundo, apto ao trânsito nas sociedades complexas contemporâneas e preparado para o enfrentamento com a diversidade e o trânsito intercultural". In this way, the objective of our project was to allow students an understanding of the world through music, making the students to reflect on historical and socio-cultural issues that surround different musical genres that were chosen and think about how these genres reflect and influence culture. According to Souza (2012, p.4), music is something that

2 permite ensinar a língua e a cultura de forma contextualizada, expondo o aluno à(s) variedade(s) cultural(is) da região e/ou país onde foi produzida, através dos diferentes temas e variantes linguísticas presentes na sua materialidade verbal e dos elementos constitutivos da sua materialidade musical, como os instrumentos e os ritmos típicos de um dado gênero musical. 77 In this way, we believe that a project that uses music as a textual genre can assist students on having an understanding, not only linguistic, but also cultural and social from the places where music styles emerged. As the classroom is "um espaço para os participantes interagirem e, na busca por soluções, para alcançarem os objetivos propostos, lançarem mão de recursos linguísticos já conhecidos e aprenderem outros à medida que se fazem necessários" (Referenciais Curriculares do Rio Grande do Sul, 2009, p.30), we tried to develop the project based on the knowledge that the students already had in English and their own world knowledge. In this way, they could interact in classes through identification with the songs and with the themes proposed.

3 Methodology 78 Previously to the practice, we observed some classes to realize how they worked and to know the group. Then, in the first class, we questioned students if they would like to study English through music and then we started the choice of genres and songs that we would work. The group teacher did not ask for any specific content, just a few grammar items for the project. In this way, since they were working with English verb tenses, this was the grammatical topic that we selected, a topic that was always studied from the texts that were taken to the class. Classes were divided into steps that tried to cover students different abilities: warm-up, reading, post-reading, listening, post-listening, and speaking", which were not actually individual activities but skills present in others, since students should talk in English at different moments in class. Some classes also carried out the "writing" step, in which students wrote texts at the end of the activities. The idea of using music in English classes emerged as a way to bring students closer to the language through something they are interested in. In this way, different songs that dealt with different moments of musical history were taken to class, always using social and historical context to understand the musical texts. In addition, we analyzed grammatical and linguistic contents in the songs.

4 In the group we were working, there were different levels of English since some students had an advanced level while others were in a basic one. An evaluation was 79 carried out in a continuous way, with an evolution of students as the main evaluation method. Two texts were also written: a written text in the form of a biography and a final product, which was a fanzine that was presented to the whole group. Description of classes A brief description of what was done in each class is reported below: Lesson 1: The first class started with a game so we could know students and they could get to know us. There was a moment in which we sat in a circle and each student picked up a piece of paper from a box in which there were questions like: What is your favorite movie?; What is your hobby?; etc. Then we did an activity to contextualize students' knowledge, and to find out what they knew about the English language. For that, we took a map of the world so that students could visualize and locate the countries geographically. We asked them a few questions: a) Which countries do you know that have English as official language? B) What do you know about these countries? C) Who colonized these countries? D) What are the religions of these countries? E) What habits do you know from English speaking countries? F) What bands and musical styles have emerged in each of these countries?

5 At the end of the lesson, we asked the students what musical styles they liked, which bands and groups they preferred, and what they would find interesting to study 80 in our classes. Lesson 2 and 3: In these classes, we started the project definitively. We began to study the blues and for this, a text that dealt with the origins of that music style was taken, also a map for the students to visualize where it emerged within its historical and geographical context. In addition, linguistic and text interpretation activities were performed, and then we heard Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" song and students had to fill in the gaps in the text as they heard it. Lesson 4: In this class, we studied jazz, and for this a text about the main differences between blues and jazz was presented, since the two genres are often confused by people. After that, we heard the song "I love You baby" in two versions, one by Frank Sinatra, an older version, and a more modern version by Lauren Hill, Can t Take My Eyes Off of You. From this, students had to talk about the differences between the two musical rhythms. In this class, we studied adjectives in English because the lyrics of the song contained many of them. Lesson 5: We studied rock music. In this lesson, a text about the history of rock in the world was taken, and then students did an activity of numbering sentences according to the paragraph information. There was also an analysis of the use of Present Continuous from Chuck Berry's song "School days".

6 Lesson 6 and 7: In this lessons, we studied reggae music. For that, we read Bob Marley s biography and listened to the song "Three Little Birds". One of the activities 81 of text interpretation was to fill a table with information about the life of the singer. In order to finish the class, students had to write a biography about themselves. Lesson 8 and 9: The final product that students had to do for the project was a fanzine about some artist, event or style of music that they enjoyed. So, in these classes in which we studied hip-hop, we, teachers, made a fanzine about hip-hop, so that the students could visualize how their final product should be. In this fanzine, there were different texts that were used as support for the class. There was one about the origin of hip-hop that was used for linguistic and text interpretation activities and a song by Tupac Shakur: "Changes" was also taken. Lesson 10: In this class, students presented their fanzines and the project was closed. Conclusion We believe that new ways of teaching English should be built in public school. Music and different textual genres should be brought into the classroom in order to change traditional forms of language teaching. As Schlater (2009) states, it is the role of the school to create reading opportunities that deal with different discursive genres and, from this, to create several opportunities for students to communicate and produce from the textual genre that was studied. Furthermore, the author also affirms that relevant and challenging texts should be taken to enable discussion and expansion

7 of their linguistic repertoire. In this way, we believe that the project with music was something that made possible the debate, the reflection and the learning within all the 82 cultural and linguistic possibilities that music has. Thinking about the objectives of the practicum, we believe that they were achieved. Something to consider about the experience, and that was quite challenging, was the difference between students English knowledge. Some of them were at a fairly advanced level of language while others were at a more basic one. We tried to solve this problem by helping students with more difficulties through individual assistance, which was possible because of the small number of students in the group and because we were two teachers. As stated earlier, the main objective of this project was to take to the English classes a different way of teaching that would involve students and motivate them in classes. We also wanted that students shared their own world knowledge. In this way, we believe that the results were positive. Since all students were challenged and participative in classes, we did not have any evaluation problem.

In: IX Congresso Brasileiro de Linguística Aplicada, 2012, Rio de Janeiro.

8 Two fanzines produced by the students as their final products are attached below: 83 References: COELHO DE SOUZA, J. P.. Canção: letra e música no ensino de português como língua adicional. In: IX Congresso Brasileiro de Linguística Aplicada, 2012, Rio de Janeiro. Anais Eletrônicos do Congresso Brasileiro de Linguística Aplicada, v. 1. RIO GRANDE DO SUL (Estado). Secretaria de Educação. Referenciais Curriculares: Lições do Rio Grande. Volume I. Porto Alegre, Disponível em: < >. Acesso em 10 dez 2016.

9 SCHLATTER, M. O ensino de língua estrangeira na escola: uma proposta de letramento. In: Calidoscópio, 2009, p , vol. 7, n.1. 84

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