Check out the possibilities offered by music with Songs, Language & Culture
Title: Songs, Language & Culture.
Educational stage: Post-compulsory Secondary Education.
Subject: Foreign languages, Technology.
Songs, Language and Culture is a project coordinated by teacher Marta Pey from IES Jaume Callis Secondary School in Cataluña and ITAS D'Annunzio (Italy), which were later joined by other secondary schools. Music is the axis around which cultural and social aspects of the partner countries revolve, and it is also an attraction to make students work and communicate in a foreign language using ICTs.
Typical tools in Web2.0, such as PowerPoint and Slideshare presentations, audios with Slidecast and Voki, videos with Youtube, photos with Picasa, surveys with Polldaddy or Widgets like Clustrmap and Vodpod have been used to show song lyrics, songwriters, current singers and all-time famous artists, as well as to provide a context for the topics: the protest song, problems in societies and the lack of freedom are some of them. Beyoncé and Metallica, Madonna and LLuis LLuch, Rihanna and S-Kape have shared the same stage and have sung in key.
Students organised mixed-nationality teams; they were really motivated by the topic chosen and the content of the songs and they have gone even further: they have presented their surroundings, relevant characters, national symbols, gastronomy, leisure, etc. The level of satisfaction and the students' interests about the topics chosen have promoted the use of English without any doubt as a communication tool in a real context.
The publishing of the materials produced is very well organised and is easy to access: an excellent model for other projects. The Twinspace tools (notice board, inbox, forum and chat) and the blogs (national and international) have stimulated partners' responsibility in the creation of documents, the presentation of results and the fantastic level of coordination in spite of the large number of partners. It was structured through a wiki so that teachers, based on a general scheme written on the notice board, could suggest ideas and make decisions, which were then reported weekly via email to the different partners.
Do young Lithuanians listen to the same music as Italians? Do young Latvians know the song L’ Estaca? And who would venture to sing it in English? And what if all participants did it together? Take a look at the project, which was awarded in the Summons to eTwinning Awards 2010, and you will find out.
Links:
Wiki
Blog
Spanish teacher's blog
Czech Republic group blog
