Throwback Thursday...
***This post was originally written on 2 September 2014. I accidentally saved it a different folder than where I keep posts, so I didn't know it was there. Now that I've found it again, I'm uploading it to the blog. Enjoy!***
If you’ve never heard it before, here’s a link to hear what we showed them:
The Casper Slide is a great song to teach learners who are learning English as their first additional language. It’s catchy and the lyrics are instructions to dance.
Guillermo and I wrote the lyrics/instructions on the chalkboard. As the song played, I pointed at the various instructions so the learners would connect the words visually and auditorily. Guillermo and I then modeled how to perform the dance moves associated with the instructions. This is where the fun part came in – we had the learners then start dancing with us! They fumbled a bit at first; like most first-timers do. However, after a few repetitions, the learners danced quite well.
One of the times they danced, I ran to the classroom next to mine to see if the instructors were okay with my learners performing for their learners. The instructors were on board, so I ran back to my classroom and told my learners what they were going to do. My learners were excited and nervous. When the music started, they started dancing, and the other class went berserk. The other learners thought it was so cool that my learners were dancing and, further, dancing for them. My learners had a blast learning the dance. As they exited the classroom at the end of the day, I could hear some of them humming the song.
This is so cool! What a great way to integrate something you know and love into an educational lesson. It's awesome it was dual for sharing culture and language. And way to be thinking on your feet to take advantage of the classroom win for them learning the dance by creating space for them to showcase their skills to another bunch of learners. Keep being awesome, you two!
ReplyDeleteHi joe and Michelle! I just came back from the fall career fair at UWT! I was talking to Surtida about you and I thought "I should look them up and see if they have a blog" and voila! Google provides! I read them all on the bus home. :) it seems you're doing brilliantly and I see a lot of familiarity in here! -Kristi Moses
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