Day 5-The Power of Music with Lisa Reyes and Barb Watson

Benefits:
· Listening: natural speed, native accents
· Effortless reps on enriched phrasing-“I had that song stuck in my head all night long!”
· Full engagement for all students
· Confidence-concrete evidence over time
· Flexibility of mind: grammar and vocab
· Customized to your class-Beyoncé in Spanish for a black kid who said he couldn’t learn Spanish because he’s black
· iPods: I downloaded that last night!

Purposes:
· Success breed success
· Listening as CI-teach specific phrases. Not necessary to understand every word…just focus on your target structure
· Differentiation
· Full-engagement

Basic elements
· Daily listening
· Cloze challenge
· Daily sentence puzzle

Choosing music
· Pace/speed
· Popularity
· Timing (holidays, novels)
· Curriculum/culture
· Grammar
o Chosen by curriculum
o Obvious in lyrics
o High-frequency phrases
· Students’ requests

My (Lisa's) song prep
1. Prepare cloze activity with word bank
2. Select 10-15 familiar phrases (high frequency!)-context helps them to acquire the phrase (ex. En mi casa me dicen v. en mi casa)
3. Create 5 puzzle sentences (ex. En mi casa me dicen….In my house, they tell you) Puzzle sentences are sentences with blank spaces to help students focus on grammar points without getting drilled

Weekly plan
· Day 1-Translate high frequency phrases, listen one time each day(cloze)
· Day 2-6-Listen (cloze), 1 sentence puzzle per day-go over as a class
· Day 3-6-star easy phrases (set goals)-the quiz is to translate the high frequency phrases “Pick 4 that are easy and you know and star them)
· Day 6-show video
o Give participation grade (both sides)-Go around while the song is playing
o 2 minutes for review
o Quiz is 15 sentences…count out of 10 and allow for extra credit
o Correct together; be generous
o Collect for grade (# correct)

Differentiation
· Strong students fill in everything and can’t wait to share-You could also encourage stronger students to fill it out without looking at the word bank later in the semester.
· Regular students fill in some of the words and wait
· Weak students fill in a few, and wait to write in most answers with you-Make sure that they aren't just waiting by walking around and encouraging them. Also, there is a word bank, broken up by stanza to help the weaker students.

Madame, I’m done with my song! This is what you can have students do after the song is filled.
· The cloze activity
· Read and follow along
· Sing along
· Sing without looking
· Completion of all steps is not required

Ripples
· I can’t get that song out of my head!
· I put it on my iPod!
· Can I pick a song for class?
· We get a new song today, right?
· What’s the next song?
· Can I burn a CD of our songs?
· YouTube, with caution, of course
· Quiet time for teacher to check homework. Start the music and they happily settle down

I love this idea!! I usually try to use music in the classroom, but this is a great classroom routine that allows me to use music every day. If you want to share songs that have worked well in your classroom, please post!

I have used Chanson pour Marie during domestic abuse awareness week. It's really cheesy, but I had a group of boys who LOVED it and begged for it every Friday.

Of course, Sympathique by Pink Martini is AMAZING. It goes so slowly that I could use it in the first couple of weeks with my beginners.

Parlez-vous Freezepop by Freezepop offers great practice for "Nous Sommes..." and is a really catchy dance number

Any additions??