Things are going really well and I am feeling more confident every day. We spend a week/topic (very brief, I know!) but I make an extreme effort to continue to review past topics and incorporate them into the topics of the day. Language builds upon itself, right?
Today we did our last review of the present simple tense and I closed the reading activity with a singing of Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight".
This song uses ALLLLLLLLLLL of the verbs in the Present Simple and uses various versions and even question forms! I was going to use "Lucky" by Britney Spears, but they use the tricky "Isn't she lucky?" question form, which I wanted to avoid at all costs....I also had an overwhelmingly NOOOO reaction from some of my friends after I posted this idea on my Facebook. My students were at least able to sing and understand the first strophe of the song and they seemed to get what I wanted them to get out of the activity.
One student raised his hand and said "Well, teacher, the problem is that all the words in English are all glued together in the songs." I responded, "But of course! It's the same in Portuguese! I had to listen to my first song in Portuguese a million times before it made total sense to me. This is only your third listen of this strophe... you have about 999,996 left before it makes total sense!"
This was it. Barboletas by Victor e Leo.
The chorus says "Não sei dizer o que mudou, mas nada está igual. Numa noite estranha a gente se estranha e fica mal. Você tenta provar que tudo em nós morreu. Barboletas sempre voltam e o seu jardim sou eu." I don't know what to say, or what changed, but nothing is the same. On a strange night, we didn't get along like before and things weren't right between us. You try to prove to me that everything in us died. Butterflies always return and I am your garden. (sorry, translations of songs suck almost 100% of the time...but you get the idea)
The song was perfectly perfect for me at that moment in my life as I was going through huge transitions, closing old chapters and beginning new ones. And yes, I listened to it on repeat until I was able to correctly (or at least as close as I could get considering the não, and any other word with a tilde, for that matter, drove me insane) pronounce and understand the song in its entirety.
However, this all made me remember back in high school how I struggled (and hated) Spanish. I just couldn't understand this whole "conjugate verbs" idea and it made my head spin. I also failed more than one exam, started skipping class and not doing homework and of course, found myself in detention. Yep. my only detention in my 13 years in school was for my performance in Spanish class. Who woulda thought I'd end up majoring in it! Anyhow, even though my teacher always brought songs into class I continued to struggle until I had Spanish with Dr. Glisan in college. The first song that I ever learned (and understood) in Spanish was "Si Tu Te Vas" by Ricky Martin.
Remember this, girls??
I feel that as language learners and now language teachers we are forced to reflect upon our own struggles and victories as see the same frustration and elation in the eyes of our students. We know exactly what they are going through and we want to get them from point A to point B as quickly and painlessly as possible.
When my students successfully sung with me "It's late in the evening....she's wondering what clothes to wear..." I began to see the light turn on as they worked through the pronunciations and I think they were on the right track. Some even smiled. Their homework is to fill in the blanks that I had put in the lyrics of the song and to practice singing it, as we are going to sing it all together next class. Let's see how that goes.
However, looking back on my song selection for today....maybe I should have chosen a song in English sung by a someone who is more attractive. That might help at least the women study a bit more...I mean, just look at those ABS ladies ;)
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