John's+Page

Hey guys. I will fill in more detail here at a later date, but for now, here's one of the ways I teach English at Sydney English Language Centre (SELC):

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Just to reiterate what was said in the video, the students wrote the song themselves (of course, with guidance!), focusing initially on lexis (via brainstorming vocabulary related to a 'theme' of their choice, in this case 'Life at SELC'), then moving over the course of 2 full lessons to the notion of rhyme and rhythym, chunking, and finally writing verses. I provide an original melody within which the students try to write to match. It's a challenging few lessons, but always full of great fun, LOTS of interaction between the students and, ultimately (and this might involve more or less 'tweaking' on my part in order to arrive at a finished product in 2 lessons) a song that they perform at the monthly graduation ceremony - not one group (and I have done this with literally dozens and dozens) has refused to sing. They are SO proud of themselves.

This recent song was subsequently used as a cloze exercise for another class:

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Not quite an interaction with digital critical literacies, but great fun using the 'old fashioned' ones!