Making Curriculum Pop

Okay, this is being posted on behalf of a friend.  She's Ukrainian teaching English in Peru.  She was asking about how I graded their listening and since I don't have to (I teach regular ol' English) I thought I'd throw it out to you wonderous people...

Do you have any cool "pop"tacular strategies for the listening section of your ELL/ESL curriculum?  She was wondering about any songs or video clips?  She has access to youtube.

She teaches ninth graders and they vary in English ability.

Thank you!

(I'll try to get her to get signed on to mcpop, but until that day comes I'll pass on any replies.)

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I do quite a bit of listening with music lyrics. We often start with a cloze exercise (fill in the blank) that really has them trying hard to pick up the words. I think it is fun to see passersby peer into my room to see what craziness in going on with the loud music, only to see students hunched over papers, pencils poised, working hard. After listening several times and getting the lyrics, you can move to fun reading practice as they sing along (I must see eyes on the paper, lips moving), word meaning, grammar discussion and correction of "poetic license. Music easily moves to critical thinking about what the songwriter is saying and what do we think about that topic.

Listening as you read along with audio books is useful for getting the rhythm of the language and listening to movies, commercials, etc., then deciphering and discussing, would also be useful for the same.
Thank you very much! I'll pass this on.
I'm not sure how advanced the students are, but with my lower level Spanish classes, I would have them listen to a song and then take the words in it and rewrite a new song incorporating new vocabulary that we had been using. This works best with hip hop music because students can then "sing/rap" their song...especially since hip hop beats without lyrics are pretty easy to find. I work with the textbbok Realidades and you can access their "canciones de hip hop" with and without lyrics on the companion websites for the textbook.
Thanks! I'll pass this along.
One way to improve listening in any language is to have them listen to a brief monologue by a great speaker or actor. They would then read the same monologue or speech aloud a few times to imitate that speaker. Practice three or four different speeches or monologues varying them throughout the year so that they hear the pronunciation correctly. Over time it will make a great deal of difference in both how the speak and how they hear the phonemes pronounced well. One great example is President Obama's speeches. He articulates well and used clear examples in plain English; yet, at the same time uses advanced grammar constructions. I've heard from some colleagues abroad that his speeches are being used in Asia to teach English listening and pronunciation.

Good Luck!

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