Teaching with Jazz Chants

Teaching rarely looks the same from one classroom to the next. Some teachers lecture, some discuss, some dig in to activities with their students and others take a different approach based on their own interests. Noel, a WorldTeach Thailand volunteer, explains how he uses the rhythms found in Jazz Chants to teach his students English.

One of my favorite ways to help kids acquire vocabulary and a sense of the rhythms of the English language is with songs and Jazz Chants.

Jazz Chants were first created and named by teacher and pianist Carolyn Graham in the 60s. She started published her Jazz Chant books in the 70s and is still out on the road teaching others how to develop and use Jazz Chants. There’s a nice article about her here.

I stumbled into Jazz Chants early in my teaching career and loved them, as did my students. I dare say there are some young adults out there somewhere who were in my classroom in Oakland many years ago who can still recite “Shoes and Socks!”

Once you get the hang of Jazz Chants, you can create them from any topic or word list, and for any purpose. I started the year in all my classrooms with a chant and clapping game called “My Name Is” which I taught at different levels of rhythmic and language difficulty from K – 6th grade.

Here is a video of my 4th graders at Thai Samakee school doing the “Who has a name that starts with G” Jazz Chant, which is a modification of one of Carolyn Graham’s chants:

Who has a name that starts with G? from Noam Szoke on Vimeo.

Do you have a unique way of teaching students? Learn more about WorldTeach Thailand programs here!

Helping Students Soar

Erin, a WorldTeach Guyana volunteer, reflects back on her first term as a teacher. She takes a look at the highs and lows in her personal and academic lives and realizes that the best part of being a teacher is watching her students succeed.

As the weeks have progressed, my experience got better and better. I began getting to know the kids and began to learn about their lives outside of the school compound. While giving a quiz to one of my 10th grade classes early in the term I told them to turn over their paper and write me a note, story, or ask me a question when they’d finished. I promised to respond. One boy, Kevin, chose to ask me about my views on evolution. There is a large population of missionaries in and around Port Kaituma. What I’ve noticed is that they have ingrained in many of the people that evolution is entirely inconsistent with divine creation. Sharing my views on this topic with my students has certainly opened the door for many interesting conversations. I’ve also begun corresponding with two of my students via “note” – so high school. At least twice a day Zorina and Ronaldo will drop by the staffroom to deliver me a new note notes telling me about how they are feeling about the school day and how they spent the weekend. I also became responsible for a new class – 11A. These students are in their last year of secondary school and they are preparing to write the CXC exam at the end of second term. I adore my class. In large part, this class has been responsible for making my transition from “white teacher” to “Miss Erin” successful. Part of Guyanese culture is to assign a callname (better known as a nickname to those of us from the USA); my 11thgraders now call me “Goldie Locks” because my “hair looks gold-ish in the sunshine.” Most of the joy I gather from working at PKSS does not come as a result of actually standing in front of the classroom and teaching, but rather as a result of getting to know my kids and spending time laughing, joking, and talking with them outside the classroom.

Step Outside

Mike, a WorldTeach Colombia alum, gave these wise words of advice to recent college graduates.

"Don’t be afraid to go outside your comfort zone. That’s been the theme of my life this year. If you’re comfortable, you’re probably not doing something right."

He stepped outside of his comfort zone and had a life changing experience teaching in Colombia. Read an interview about his time with WorldTeach here:

http://ucdavismagazine.ucdavis.edu/issues/win12/alumni_youngcareers_hower.html

Step outside your comfort zone and see how being a WorldTeach volunteer can change your life. Learn more here.

Classroom Personalities

When you begin teaching, you may quickly realize how each of your classes becomes a small community. As each class develops their own individual personalities and quirks, you too must develop and certain way of interacting with them. John, a WorldTeach Rwanda volunteer, recounts the traits of his individual classes as he prepares to say goodbye to them.

As the end nears and I begin to contemplate my final week of teaching in Rwanda and thus prepare a highly awkward and blabbering goodbye speech to my students (which will no doubt be met with blank stares and silence!) I feel it may be a good time to provide you with a little evaluation of each of my four classes. We’ll start with the youngest and therefore the loudest.

Senior 1

What can I say about these little rascals?! Embarking upon their first year in a Rwandan secondary school, they’re full of the excitement, trepidation and naivety that greets any child when beginning life in a ‘grown-up’ school having left the safety and security of the primary years. Add to that the fact they’re now enrolled in a boarding school and therefore for months at a time their new guardians/mother figures are Catholic nuns and they’ll spend their days, evenings and weekends praying, washing floors, fetching water, praying, debating, playing sport and praying. To make matters worse, just days into this bewildering and daunting new experience, into their classroom walks a strange, tall, white teacher in a tie clutching a notepad and a small box of chalk who claims he’s here to teach them a brand new subject entitled ‘Entrepreneurship’. A recipe for disaster. I feel I’ve managed to avert an actual disaster but at times it has felt as if we’re all hurtling towards the rocks leaving nothing but an unsalvageable wreck! Senior 1 has proved to be an undulating teaching experience with bouts of immense triumph and total misery in equal measure. The age range of the class is fairly broad. There are a few students who fit the senior 1 image perfectly. Tiny, nervous-looking souls who peer at you with eyes that say ‘help, I don’t know where I am’! There’s a boy who fits this description perfectly and I’m not sure I’ve heard him speak all year. These students are in the 12-13 age group I imagine. After this it’s difficult to put an age to many members of the class. There are a couple who rival me in height and I generally think that a handful of the students may well be in the 16-17 age group. I only actually teach this class for two fifty minute periods each week so in general I don’t know nearly as much about them as my other classes but nevertheless I’m still fond of them, even though they’ve driven me to near insanity at times.

The main problem I’ve experienced with Senior 1 is maintaining their interest for any extended period (i.e. beyond five minutes!). Entrepreneurship clearly isn’t a strong priority for them and why should it be? They seem more interested in shooting paper at each other through the end of a pen, passing notes across the room, sleeping and having their own little discussions which I strongly doubt revolve around the benefits of savings or the legal obligations of a trader. According to the curriculum I have to teach them about commerce, banks, ‘supply and demand’, buying and selling goods (including the use of order forms, invoices, delivery notes, receipts, etc), trading and other such interesting topics. Don’t get me wrong, all of these will potentially be of use to them in the future, it’s just a mission endeavouring to convince them of this in the present. So, in short, teaching them entrepreneurship is in all honesty a nightmare! It got particularly bad a couple of weeks back as I attempted to explain the notes on the board and it dawned on me I was wasting my breath. So, in the next lesson I spent the entire fifty minute period writing the notes on the board whilst saying absolutely nothing. At the end I asked them if they understood the notes and if there were any questions. When two or three hands went up I exclaimed, ‘too bad, if you don’t want to listen to the explanations I give I won’t answer your questions’. They were silent for the first time in fifty minutes. One girl appealed to my good nature, ‘Teacher, forgive us’, she pleaded. I told them we’d see how the next lesson went. The following Monday I began the lesson, wrote a few notes on the board and as I stood there with my back to them writing on the blackboard it suddenly occurred to me...you could hear a pin drop! I couldn’t help smirking to myself but as I turned around and they sat there scribbling away in near silence it felt a little strange. They’d lost their character. I felt like I’d destroyed their spirit and it unnerved me. At the end I congratulated them on their much improved behaviour and rewarded them with a five minute Q+A session. This is generally the only time I ever get the whole class listening at the same time as I let them ask me anything they want. As a class they’re pretty good at this as they’re an inquisitive bunch. Their favourite topic is generally family and more specifically, Jack, the border collie. In summary, if I’m honest, I probably won’t miss teaching entrepreneurship to Senior 1 but I will most certainly miss them as people. They frequently make me laugh (often unintentionally) and their hearts are in the right place. When I described my ant and wasp problems to them they offered to come to my house at the weekend and battle the intruders on my behalf. That’s loyalty!

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays to our volunteers, readers, supporters, students and friends near and far! Wherever and whatever you are celebrating, we hope you enjoy your holiday. Come back for new updates from us after the new year!