MIWLA Connect

Question:  What do you call a person who speaks three languages?  Answer:  Trilingual.

Question:  What do you call a person who speaks two languages?  Answer:  Bilingual.

Question:  And what do you call a person who speaks only one language?  Answer:  An American.

I hate this joke.  It's not funny.  In fact, it kind of pisses me off.  Sure, many Americans only speak English (and it's American English and its many varieties, not the Queen's English).  But it's not like we're not trying.  Many more schools and states are now requiring language study to graduate from high school, and more colleges and universities want to see a world language study on a student's transcript before acceptance th their institution.  ACTFL is very involved in training language teachers to make language study accessible for all students.  I could sit and defend our beloved country all day...

But it hit me between the eyes last night as I was watching the Beyoncé special on television.  Beyoncé recently completed a world tour that covered six continents. (The poor penguins in Antarctica didn't get to see her!)  No matter where she performed, be it Rotterdam, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi, Beijing or New Jersey, the members of the audience were able to sing her songs when she pointed the microphone at them.  People from all over the world (with maybe the exception of the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (or Mahmoud I'm a Nut Job, as Jay Leno says) love American Pop music.  They download it in vast numbers, listen to it over and over, follow along with English lyrics from the Internet, find a translation in their own language, and sing it until they have it memorized.  Not only does this help their English speaking and pronunciation skills, it gives these students from all over the world and intimate insight to our pop culture.

Music is a powerful tool in language learning.  It stimulates many different parts of the brain that normal speech does not touch. There are many ways to use music in the World Language Classroom.  Play classical or folk music while your students are working.  Find a song that is simple enough for your students to sing.  If you feel a song is too difficult, teach them the vocabulary.  Do a cloze activity where students fill in the blanks or choose from a multiple choice or matching list.

Find a song that emphasizes a grammar point that you are teaching.  Give the students extra points for singing the song in front of the class either solo or in a small group.  Tell the students that if all the students in the class sing, they'll get an extra point or two on the next quiz--they will police each other!  Teach the students some simple dance steps, push the desks aside and let them dance to break up the class period a bit!  I'm sure that many other teachers have some ideas on using music in the language classroom and may like to leave a comment at the end of this blog.

And then maybe we can stop telling that stupid joke!