students' work

students' work

ale7 25 Jul 2008 16:14

Marta says "We have to think of ideas about how to work in a collaborative way: maybe with WORKSHOPS as in European Lab???? or mixed groups of different nationalities????"

I think both solutions may work. If students from different nationalities choose the same English song, they could work on it together. They can use the wiki to do it: forum, discussion, cooperative pages. When they have to work on "national" songs, the others might ask them questions about them, particularly when asked to translate them into their own language. Or we could choose to get students work at the same time on different steps of the project, in different groups and so, ways. I suggest updating our draft with the new ideas, adding a part called Methodology. Then we can use the page discussion to exchange opinions. Does it make sense? :)

Re: students' work

PMarta 28 Jul 2008 14:41

So maybe they should agree on a same song/s and work in cooperative groups (that's what etwinning is intended for!).

Another idea that has been in my mind for some days is that students could talk about "THE SONG OF MY LIFE" . It means asking different people, different ages, generations, nationalities.. about the most representative song in their lives; what it means for them, when they first heard it…. They can propose questions, then agree on different ones and write about it in the forum.
What do you think????

Re: students' work

ale7 29 Jul 2008 19:15

yes, I like the idea. I think we could propose every idea to the students and then let them choose what to work on. The project is so rich in ideas and proposals, do you think one year will be enough?

Re: students' work

Tanya M 30 Jul 2008 09:13

Hi Marta and Alex

Have finally found my way here - never used this space before:-)

Have been reading your ideas about organizing project work. I very much like the idea of asking students what they think. I know this can be time-consuming but much more rewarding because a) students can be full of creative ideas, and b) if they take ownership of these ideas, they will be motivated to do a good job.

re one song or different songs - I guess both ways would work fine. Here's my thinking aloud - whichever approach we decide to choose, we need to give our students the tools with which they could analyse this song - call it a framework, a list of items(questions to answer), or a generic model to apply in order to find out and share they findings in a meaningful(and more structured) way. I'm sure there are a lot of sites which offer such ideas, we just need to agree on one(or modify a few).

Also, was thinking about the aim we would be pursuing - what do we want for us and our students to have achieved by the end of this endeavour? As one of you suggested, the topic is so wide, could take more than a year, so I think it would be good to narrow down our focus, work out our objectives, and then plan the activities accordingly.
(e.g. the language benefit is obvious; however, the cultural one is less so; also, the 'critical reading' skills are transferrable ones, same aprroach could be applied to film, art, etc. so lots to exploit in this project)

Maybe you have thought about those already so would be good to know more about that.

See what you think and we can continue the discussion when you are back from your holidays.

Enjoy:-)

Tanya

aims/objectives

Tanya M 30 Jul 2008 09:32

The aim of this project is

to explore songs as cultural representations in the EFL classroom.
The objectives are:

for students

to gain better insight into the cultural implications of songs as a medium of expression of values/ideas
to compare and contrast the values represented in songs from diffenert cultures
to practise and enrich their English
to exchange information and create e-frienships
?
?
?
Have sent this somewhere else, am sending it here now, maybe it doesn't matter but:-)
Tanya

Re: aims/objectives

PMarta 31 Jul 2008 07:19

Hi Tanya!
Glad you have found your way here! It's a bit difficult at the beginning. I'm still getting used to it! I think it will be good if we know how it works before starting working with our students.

Very good thinking!!!
I absolutely agree with you: I cannot commit myself to work with the same students for more than one year: so we have to design the project so that we can work on it from October to May; and I'm planning to work with my students one hour every two weeks.

We should make a list of all possible topics to work on, and then decide which ones would be more interesting and easy to work with, and lately discuss it with our students.

I also agree with you on the issue about giving students a framework, a model to work on, with precise instructions; otherwise they feel lost.

Another idea to add to the project, a more cultural one, could be to explore on songs, music… that tell something about each country's culture. Now I am thinking of political protest songs by Catalan/Valencian singers, very popular ones in the 60's-early 70's against the Franco regime (dictatorship): they became hymns for many people all over Spain, and still are. They could ask their parents, or even grandparents. Or rock/pop songs which denounce, condemn social problems; I'm sure there are plenty.
Songs of these kinds in every country are to be found in every country, so students could work in collaborative groups: let's say: POLITICAL PROTEST SONGS (one/two students) from each country working on the same subject, exchanging and comparing ideas, findings… and producing a final research work at the end.

If our students could meet in a chat, it would be great! WOuld that be possible?

CHEERS,
marta

Re: aims/objectives

Tanya M 31 Jul 2008 09:27

Hi again
Directly to some of your ideas - political protest songs sounds like one good idea to me. By exploring what people protest against, how, why,etc. we could learn a lot about each other's history, beliefs, values(which is all culture).

A song immeadiately comes to mind - the students in my school adore a song, called 'An Oath' - it is from a Bulgarian film, set in communist times, about teenagers in a language school. The fiml was released about 20 years ago, and since then, the movie song has become the school hymn so to speak - our students keep singing it at the end of the annual Talent show, and at the end of every graduation ceremony - why this is so, why they all identify with the lyrics, why they need to do that, and have been doing so for so long is interesting to reflect on. BTW, the song is about fierce loyalty in frienship - 'I swear to God and to Devil to never betray you when you are in trouble'(my liberal translation of a line). You may check it out - bad quality though, sorry:(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym3lr6HtAh8

How about formulating a Q like 'If you had to present your school community to a group of international students at a Youth conference/Forum, which song would choose?'

or 'If you had to choose a song to represent you to people in 2200(?) in a time capsule, which song/CD/DVD/clip would you choose?'
Makes sense?
:-)
T

Students' chat

Tanya M 31 Jul 2008 09:50

Forgot to reply to your Q re possibilities for chat - yeah, this is possible. do your students use 'Skype'? This is the easiest here.
:-)
T

check out...

Tanya M 31 Jul 2008 13:17

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=979

Re: check out...

Tanya M 31 Jul 2008 13:21

http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson979/ProtestSongResearchGuide.pdf

Re: check out...

PMarta 01 Aug 2008 15:55

Hi Tanya,
You seem very enthusiastic, which I like a lot. Thanks for the link, I think it's great; with plenty of ideas and what I like: very guided.
Yes, PROTEST SONGS (either political, social…) can surely bee a good way in which to present our country to the rest. And students could translate them into English (another useful linguistic exercise).
I guess we will have to redefine our project and make it more "cultural" in scope: our country through music/songs. Then PROTEST SONGS would fit perfectly. Also, THE SONG OF MY LIFE thing.
I am thinking also of a very good excercise on STEREOTYPES: which songs/music do you identify with each country?; ie. foreign people think of flamenco music when they thinK of Spain, but this kind of music is from Andalusia, in the south of the country. Why not decategorize people's stereotypes????

We should make a new draft and post it here, too many ideas, I need to visualize them in an organised way.

New draft/organize your ideas

Tanya M 03 Aug 2008 12:04

Hi Marta
It's good to organize what is emerging - I just think we need to brainstorm a bit more. When the other two ladies are back they would probably comment, expand, etc. on what we have been discussing these days.

Maybe if you just put down what we have done so far? Like
Aim/Objectives
(use my suggestion, we can edit it any time, easier when you have something as a springboard)

Theme/Topic/focus
(here we have brainstormed quite a bit - keep the draft ideas, and add the new ones( protest/my country/my community/my school/my song to share with you…)

I have added my comments to the draft, keep them so nothing is lost, and then maybe once we have all said what we think, we could begin to narrow down/get rid of the ideas. I would be open at this stage to all that is emerging - btw I love this stage when we brainstorm, it is soooo productive/creative:-)

if you want me to do this btw I could do it, or we could email drafts until we come up with sth together?

Hope this was clear enough.

PS Stereotypes is great, it would be a nice element of the whole thing. Identity is another one - personally I believe in the idea that we have complex identities(ethnic, national, gender , musical, etc just one of the many). We are culturally unique just because we are simultaneously 'members' of a myriad of social groups(Spanish, Catalan, your town, your school, your family, your musical interest, your political affiliations, your background and experiences,…..). If we go along these lines, we would avoid generalisations(which I hate). This is one reason why I wouldn't be so keen on formulating the task as 'My country - my song' - this would imply that country=music(the flamenco example you give). Instead, we could say - a song you identify with, which you would like to share with participants from various cultures at a musical forum(or sth like that).

Let's keep it open/keep talking - when we have times, and ideas of course:-)

T

Re: students' work

Mcristina 04 Aug 2008 12:05

Hello Marta, Tania and Alex

As I am completely new here, I think I need some time to get used to it.
I have just signed in and I started reading your ideas, so I'll catch up with you shortly.
A special greeting to Tanya, whom I met last year in Lancaster (I hope I'm not wrong.)

Hi Cristina:-)

Tanya M 04 Aug 2008 13:12

Great to have you here! Hope our time is as enjoyable as it was in Lancaster:-)
I know it takes time getting used to this new technology - it is new to me too but we will be learning(and Marta and Ale seem to know more, so they will guide us I am sure).

Speak soon!
xx
T

Title(another idea)

Tanya M 04 Aug 2008 15:17

My song, your song, our (shared?) identities

new draft 1.1.

PMarta 06 Aug 2008 12:14

I've uploaded file in the "project draft section". Please check if you can open the file as I cannot.

marta