Music is a Bridge

Sometimes the best classroom experiences are the ones that you least expect!  Case in point—on Thursday afternoon, I was tasked with leading my second ‘Topic Class’.  This is a 90-minute lesson, in which the teacher is responsible for all fourteen students, ages 8 to 17, and with varying English proficiencies.  This of course, presents an issue—What can you do with a group so diverse as this and keep their attention for the entire time?  I had already tried storytelling earlier in the week. This was successful for about 50 minutes and then we really struggled to fill the next 40 minutes.  I couldn’t take the kids outside, as it was 94˚ with a heat index that made it feel like 102.  Then it hit me—Music! 

I read somewhere once that music is ‘an international language’ everyone speaks.  “Why not,” I thought.  So, I enlisted the musical talents of my daughters, Nora and Maya, and had the children all sit in a circle.  We began with some easy ones: ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little’ Star’, ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’, ‘I Like the Roses’, etc., and then we advanced into some more interesting songs.  We sang ‘Let it Go’ from the Disney movie, Frozen, ‘Do a Deer’ from The Sound of Music…we sang some Whiz Khalifa (‘See You Again’), and the Beatles’  ‘Hey Jude’. 

 
We even taught them the chorus to Styx’ song ‘Come Sail Away’!  Then, the students chose English songs that THEY liked and sang them for us.  We took turns singing the Chinese version of ABC’s and the American version, noting the differences, and we sang songs that taught the English words for the days of the week and the months of the year. Before I knew it, the class was over.  Everyone was laughing and smiling. Yibo, the 17-year-old boy, said, “This was the best class!” and one of the girls, named Annabel, said, “Thank you for singing. It help us to relax.”  I think I would have to agree with Annabel.  That was the least stressful thing I had done all week!