What a wonderful world…music
Lesson purpose:
Developing socio-cultural competence in:
• the target culture (the USA);
• the world culture penetration processes;
• analysing and comparing skills, defining the language group.
The aim of the lesson:
• Pedagogical – teaching tolerance through the idea of one universal culture;
• Encouraging intellectual appetite for the culture aspect;
• Developing – improving skills in analysis while hearing non-verbal information;
• Teaching – improving skills in listening, eliciting information and making a monological speech reflecting personal preferences and using active vocabulary.
Audience: 10–11 formers of secondary schools, Upper-Intermediate level.
Academic source: Opportunities Course by Michael Harris, David Mower, Anna Sikorzynska, Pearson Education Limited, 2002. Upper-Intermediate. Culture Corner 4. The USA. Part 2. “The History of Popular Music.”
Personal methods: Audio-visual acceleration of creating language images in a foreign language.
Description of the lesson:
This lesson is organized in such a way as to help pupils appreciate it not as a series of traditional exercises but to encourage their thinking in a foreign language without any extra effort. The audio-visual materials used in the lesson must activate the pupils’ thinking, focusing their attention on finding answers to questions about culture, history and music and thereby activating all the background information they may possess. In the current political and economic climate it is extremely important to demonstrate that the rapidly changing world still remains one small place where people must live in mutual tolerance. The approach adopted in the lesson must show that many cultures have converged to form the music of the USA and, in turn, that the music of the USA is one of the major factors influencing world culture at the present time. Following this logic we can divide the lesson into three parts:
1. The making of the music culture of the USA  2. The music culture of the USA in the 20th century 3. Some examples of American cultural influence on national cultures.
The teacher can compile his/her own set of musical extracts according to the tastes and interests of the group and his/her own preferences.
Part 1. The making of the music culture of the USA
This is the warming-up part of the lesson so it must be short and dynamic.
Ask pupils to say what facts they remember about…
• The making of the American nation;
• What nationalities this nation consists of;
• What caused different waves of immigration;
• When the immigrants arrived in the USA;
• How immigration to the USA influenced world history.
It might be a good idea to use a world map and ask pupils to point out the immigration routes.
As the aim of this part of the lesson is to activate the background information the pupils have it is not necessary to ask all of them everything they remember – the teacher should only stimulate recall of the important things.
When choosing the musical extracts for this part, the teacher should seek tunes which are not too obvious from the pupils’ point of view (ethnic African, Indian or Jewish tunes, etc.). It is highly desirable to use folk songs, not just instrumental music, as analysing the phonetics may help the pupils define the language or at least the language group. A successful answer should not be limited to geographical considerations (country, language) but should also provide additional information. It will add to the pupil’s answer if they give reasons for their conclusions.
Part 2. The music culture of the USA in the 20th century
This part of the lesson contains listening exercises (a radio programme) – ex. 1–3 p. 100 in the Student’s book. The instructions are given in the Teacher’s book p. 116.
Part 3. Some examples of American cultural influence on national cultures
A music quiz (ex. 4 in the Student’s book p. 100) can be illustrated with some musical extracts (again songs are preferable as the original language can provide a useful hint). This exercise is a logical link between the previous and the final parts of the lesson – the exchange process between cultures is still going on. To help pupils come up with this idea the teacher should demonstrate several different tendencies:
a) songs with no ethnic characteristics but with a national language (for instance, Chinese pop-songs);
b) songs in English performed by non-native speakers (ABBA);
c) songs performed by non-English-speaking Americans (Jose Feliciano).
After each extract the teacher should ask the pupils to define the country and the language.
After the lesson the pupils may be given the task of describing their musical preferences (genre, group, composer, performer), deducing the roots of the music (either via information or by guess work and feelings about similarities). The talk about personal preferences and the discussion of them in the group can be a good basis for the next lesson.
By Anzhelika Maksimenko,
Gymnasium No. 1520, Moscow
Edited by Christopher Nicholls, B. Litt
|