Re:The Power of Songs -홍성은

The Power of SONGs   It seems true that few people doubt the effectiveness of songs/chants in foreign language classroom.   Minkyeong does!   So do I! The reason, Seong-eun, has to do with THREE sources of meaning, that I want to look at today:   a) ICONIC meaning. If something ONLY stands for itself, we say it is ICONIC. Music is an icon.   b) INDEXICAL meaning. If something stands for something else that it TOUCHES or POINTS TO or COMES FROM or has some NECESSARY relationship to, we say it's indexical. Smoke touches fire, a compass points to the north, and typhoons come from warm air over the ocean.   c) SYMBOLIC meaning.If somethign stands for something else because of a LAW or RULE or ABSTRACT CONVENTION, we say it is symbolic. A word is a symbol.   So is a number. But not ALL numbers. Look:   IIII      IV     4   One is a symbol. One is an index. One is an icon. Which is which?   Now, songs have ALL of these things. All of them! But where?    hat's because music is likely to be absorbed into our subconscious quickly and subtly, and songs are the powerful medium for acquiring knowledge of second language and for reinforcing already-known language properties(such as pronunciation, meaning, grammatical aspects, etc.).   Good--but WHAT in music is absorbed into the subconscious? Is it iconic meaning? Or indexical meaning? Or symbolic meaning? And how does it work?     Songs have some features in common with spoken language. Both songs and speech are vocally produced, therefore they use particular tempo, beat, rhythm, melody, stress, intonation to convey the expression‎! of feelings and the intent of the speaker. Songs also have meaningful discourse which seems like a short simple opera made up of interactive dialogue.   Notice how Seong-eun's analysis goes from ICONIC (vocally produced, melodious) through INDEXCIAL (intonation) through SYMBOLS (meaningful discourse). But notice something else--the idea of opera suggests the idea of ROLES. It suggests that we have to give some kind of answer to our Whole Language Question:   Who says what to whom and why?    That should be one of the reason we teachers and learners consider the method of using songs/chants innovative and exciting in foreign language classroom.   Minkyeong disagrees! I'm not sure I consider it innovative. I'm also not sure that teaching techniques SHOULD be exciting.   Of course, it's good to have a happy class, and it's bad to have a sad one. But if I cancel my class this afternoon, my undergrads will be VERY happy.  Will that make it a good class?   We know that LOTS of "good" classes are simply fancy shows. The kids like the techniques, but they ignore what we are teaching. They eat the meat, and throw away the bread.   Can this happen with songs? Of couse it can!   Now I'd like to talk about how I usually invite a song to the English class and feed it to the children without explicit instructions, through ROLE-PLAY and GAME like activity, soliciting the children to notice some particular sound-patterns and to internalize how each letter sounds.    The following is the song titled "Whose Boat Is This?" which is supposed to introduce for the lesson 9 of 5th grade textbook. My students and I seemed to have digested the song successfully with no burden or stress(It was just a series of interactive oral discourse for learning 'possessive case and pronoun' added with much excitement of rhythm, melody, beat, etc.). The song goes like this: Whose Boat Is This? Mom/Ann: Whose cap/car is this? Whose is this? Ann/Dad: It's mine. It's mine. Mom/Ann: Whose boat/bag is this? Whose is this? Ann/Dad: Oh, it's not mine. Oh, it's not mine. Oh, it's not mine. Mom/Ann: Whose boat/bag is this? Whose is this? Dad/Mom: That boat/bag is mine. Firstly, I introduced the song to the children and checked which item is whose after talking about three characters("Who do you see?", "Who is he/she?", "What are they speaking/singing?", etc.) in the song; Ann, (maybe)Ann's mother and father. The song was repeated a couple of times without losing Ss' interest/attention till Ss fully understand what's happening in the song and how the song goes.   Notice that Seong-eun INSISTS on roles. I think she's the ONLY one who does. BUT...   Who says what to whom...and why?   You can see that Seong-eun has answered the FIRST part of our Whole Language Question. But what about the LAST part?   Why doesn't Mom know whose cap it is? Did Ann just buy it?  Why doesn't  Ann know whose car it is? Perhaps her Mom and Dad are divorced? Secondly, I let three teams stand up, take each role and sing with picture cards/real objects(cap, car-shaped pencilcase, book instead of real boat, bag, etc), and then switch the roles. After singing team by team by..., Ss do this process individually(S-S-S), that is, three volunteers are asked to come up to the stage(front) and play a beautiful(?) opera with some props(cards or real objects). It's not just a simple childish boring song to lose grown children's(upper grader's) interest and attention but easy complicated fun frustrating parts of musical I think, that is to say, for children, especially for grown up children, only listening to the song(simple sounds) without having to think is too easy and boring but speaking/singing through the song that needs complicated mental process(thinking) is not.   Notice that Seong-eun adds meaning by adding OBJECTS (or indexes). What KIND of meaning is she adding?   When you ADD this kind of meaning, does it WEAKEN the symbolic meaning or not?    Lastly, I put some game element into the song to play games with my poor(?) students. I've got(actually stole) a couple of stuffs from each team to fill my box called Lost & Found and foster a imaginary situation of a very realistic nonfictional OPERA. The teacher start the opera/song like "Who's water(showing a water-bottle to Ss) is this? Who's is this?" and the owner of the water stands up to speak/sing like "It's mine. It's mine.", coming up to the stage/front, T gives the water back to the owner and pick up one more thing and speak/sing to the owner of the water like "Who's watch is this? Who's is this?" and the owner of the water responds like "Oh, it's not mine. Oh, it's not mine. Oh, it's not mine." and so on.   Great! Now, let's see what we mean by the word "realistic". Consider the following ways of presenting Seong-eun's activity:   a) T: Look! This is a box. I'm going to put in ONE thing: my watch! Now, YOU are going to put in one thing. Now SHE is going to put in one thing. Everybody!   b) T: Look! This is a box. This is a LOST and FOUND box. I'm going to LOSE this watch. So it goes in the box. Now, YOU lose something.    c) T: Oh, no! It's an EARTHQUAKE. Everything's all mixed up. Now, we are going through the mess. Hmmmm....it's a pen. Whose pen is this?   Which is MOST realistic? A, B, or C? Why?     The first team that is given back all stuffs by speaking/singing without mistakes will be the first winner or get points as the number of things the team gets back. If they make mistakes in speaking/singing or show me no response, his/her stuffs(such as book, bag, pin(hair pin), pen, water, watch, etc.) will be really stolen by the teacher!   Mischievous teacher!   Additionally, the teacher could make a little effort to lead the children to notice how a particular letter sounds by doing when stealing some stuffs like this; S1: Teacher, Teacher, mine. Here. (He seemed to beg T to steal his pencil case.) T: No, no. I have a Book. I like B-words. B, B, B, do you have anything for B(drawing the alphabet B in the air with a finger)? Belt? Bag? Boat? Box? Bottle? S2: Teacher, ball. This. Ball. T: Wow, thank you. It's a ball. B, b, ball.   Let's lay down some principles.   a) The principle of imaginary situations: a game has to create an imaginary situation b) The principle of unnecessary difficulty: a game has to be hard, not easy, but it can't be hard work c) The principle of consequential outcomes; a game has to have some visible result that matters   Which principle is Seong-eun using here? When the teacher picks up a thing from a Lost&Found basket to give it back to the owner, she doesn't do that randomly but advertently to make Ss pay attention to the first sound/consonant of each item. The words which have the same beginning sound are shown together in the song to get children's attention to another English language feature/appearance -sound pattern.   Good! It's unnecessary from the children's point of view. But not from the teacher's poitn of view.   Ss will also notice something about "syllables" feeling that it's not easy or smooth or natural to sing the song if the item word is substituted with long(multi-syllabled) words(pencil-case, mechanical pencil, water-bottle, etc.).   True--but it can be a LOT of fun to have too many syllables to sing--particularly if you are LIP SYNCHING! I'm a little surprised that nobody has tried a lip synching game.     Songs are being considered really attractive and effective for most of the teachers and learners in language learning. I couldn't agree more that the potential of Songs and chants in the foreign language classroom increases in value, however, I'd like to point out some weakness of the property. That is, so many redundancies(Oh, it's not mine×3) in the song/chant are quite different from real authentic oral speech.   I think that Seong-eun, more than anybody else, is concerned with the Whole Language question.   Who says what to whom? Why?    There seem to be found unnecessary repetitions or unrealistic, exaggerative and metaphorical expression‎!s over the song/chant far from our real life, and that's what we teachers/learners should not ignore when depending on the songs too much. Bravo!