Hello again, this week I want to share
with you one technique called “Jazz Chants”. To be honest I didn’t
know about this, until we worked with it last Wednesday in class. However,
since the first activity that we did with it, I realize that this can be a
wonderful technique to develop speaking skills in children. In fact,
it was created 35 years ago by Carolyn Graham and still
be widely use nowadays.
Firstly, this technique consists of linking
the rhythm of the spoken language with the rhythm of music. Through this,
you will help your students to improve their fluency, pronunciation and
many other aspects related to the spoken language. In fact, it can be use in a
variety of fun ways in order to practice greetings, review vocabulary
or grammar, practice stress and rhythm, and so on. Besides, it
is not necessary that the teacher create all the chants, the students can also
create their own ones. As a matter of fact, Children are extremely
creative and if we prepare a suitable environment with proper scaffolding,
they will be able to make it without any problem.
Moreover, you can scaffold the activity in many ways depending on their previous knowledge about
the topic and their cycle. On top of that, this tool is used not only for
children lessons, but also it may be implemented in any kind of ESL class.
That is why, Carolyn Graham recommends to establish a set of guidelines for the
proper development of the activity, nonetheless you may adapt it depending on
the needs of your students. You can find this guideline and more information here.
- Practical Application:
For instance, if you want to practice the
vocabulary related to the parts of the body, the farm animal, the fruits and
vegetables, etc. using a cumulative chant, a good way of work with
it can be using TPS (Think, Pair, Share). First you should ask them
about the parts that they remember and then they must write them on a piece of
paper. After that, they can work in pairs or threes in order to compare their
answers and make a list. Finally, all the groups can share their answers to
check if there some parts missing.
After that, you can show them how start,
following and structure and a simple rhythm (you can set the beat tapping your
fingers on the table), like:
“What
are the parts of my body? (From the top to the bottom)
In
my head, I have an eye.
In
my head, I have an eye and I have a nose.
What do you have?
In
my head, I have an eye, I have a nose and I have an ears.
…
Then, the students have to add more and
more parts following the same structure and the rhythm. After this example you
can encourage them to create their own chant
and also to perform it with gestures.
To conclude, and as far as I'm concerned, the possible
applications of the Jazz Chants in class are endless. What is more, this tool
offer strong benefits to the students such as, their develop of High Order
Thinking Skills at the time that they should create their own chant using their
previous knowledge, as well as the improvement of their fluency and
pronunciation, among others.
If you want to know more about the "Jazz Chants" click
on the link and watch the video:
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| Teaching Jazz Chants - Carolyn Graham |
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