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The Other Kind of Chanting: Little Chanting
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3 thoughts on “The Other Kind of Chanting: Little Chanting”
“In my opinion, it is more important for us to be happy in our instruction than that our kids learn a lot. If students sense that we are not happy in our instruction, they won’t learn much at all.”
Words to live by in the classroom. My inner tyrant is always suspicious of too much fun or happiness in the classroom. It is that insecurity that we won’t be respected by the students. Also, it is the constant suspicion of student motives. If they respond positively to something with (even appropriate) laughter or enthusiasm, it must be stopped, because they are trying to derail the class. I am also battling the instinct to “get back to the lesson” that is, to get back to the stuff they don’t enjoy, but is part of MY plan for them.
“If one sucks, the other will suck”
I think that we are in one of the few professions where we can really spend much of our work day playing, but we choose not to, because we have been told that it is not okay, it is a waste of our time and our students’ time. But the opposite is actually true. If we’re not playing, that’s when time is wasted. Also, we have the research to back us up when we remind ourselves and parents and administrators: if there is no play and no joy, there cannot be any language acquisition either.
Here is an example of a Little Chant:
Let’s say I use the verb has in French in a discussion. Even though they have heard it used over a thousand times in context and can process it unconsciously as long as words surround it, if I ask them what “a” means in English, they get stymied, tripped by the rude pulling of unconscious sound out of their deeper minds and having it pointed to as a hard question from the teacher who is asking for a conscious response from them, a translation.
So when they trip over the question, “Class, what does ‘a’ mean in French?” I do a little chant as per:
A -TIENE – HAS! A -TIENE – HAS! A -TIENE – HAS! A -TIENE – HAS! A -TIENE – HAS! A -TIENE – HAS! (the tiene is because 98% of my kids’ first language is Spanish).
I don’t care if any of them go with me. I’m doing a little chant and I am going to let my freak flag fly. Some go with me. We get a rhythm going. After the seventeen seconds it takes to little chant that sound input into their deeper minds, we go right back into the CI. The little chant blipped in and blipped out.
This is one of the greatest parts about teaching another language is the fun we get to have chanting, singing, acting and really making fools of ourselves in front of our students (at least I do anyways-they think I’m nuts in a good way.) I am constantly blown away by how often the students play and sing along with me. I sometimes forget to play with the 8th graders, thinking that they might not want to play.