The repetition of chants can deliver new language deeply into the kids’ minds better than practically anything! Really good chants, chanted from the gut, get past the kids’ minds into their bodies via the repetition. This works wonders for language gains. In my view, chants are even better than songs because they are shorter and more visceral.
How do you know what to chant? If you chant high frequency words, to reinforce them, it won’t work so well because then you will be using the chant to “teach” something and my position is that you can’t “teach” a language, you can only share it and dance around in it with your students. Your real motive in class should always be to deliver comprehensible messages that are interesting and on the good days compelling.
You want to just keep bringing in comprehensible input that is “alive”, that grabs the kids’ attention.
The good kind of chanting can occur anytime and will never be pre-planned. You will hear the quality, rhythm, the beat of a certain sentence during a story (usually this happens about one time per class) and if you are open to it you will feel a certain gut reaction to that one sentence. Chant that one.
You can do it. You’ll feel awkward at first but keep trying. Some people don’t have the bubbly personality to start a chant with a bunch of kids so don’t fake it. Don’t be who you’re not. BUT be open to it. Once the trust is high enough in the classroom anything can happen.