An Old Exercise: From SMALL TALK, Carolyn Graham, OUP 1986
Mario Rinvolucri, UK
Mario Rinvolucri teacher, teacher trainer and author. He has worked for Pilgrims for 32 years and used to edit Humanising Language Teaching. Regularly contributes to The Teacher Trainer. His books include: Creative Writing, with Christine Frank, Helbling, Multiple Intelligences in EFL, with Herbert Puchta, Helbling, Unlocking Self-Expression through NLP, with Judy Baker, Delta Books, New edition of Vocabulary, with John Morgan, OUP, Humanising your Coursebook, Delta Books, Using the Mother Tongue, with Sheelagh Deller, Delta Books, Ways of Doing, with Paul Davis and Barbara Garside, CUP, Imagine That with Herbert Puchta and Jane Arnold, Helbing, Creative Writing with Christine Frank, Helbing. Mario's first CDrom for students, Mindgame, was written with Isobel Fletcher de Tellez, and engineered and published by Clarity, Hongkong in 2000 . E-mail: mario@pilgrims.co.uk
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How long does it take?
I'm sorry I did it. I shouldn't have done it.
You look marvelous- you haven't changed a bit
Follow up?
In the mid eighties of the last century Carolyn Graham from the USA introduced jazz chants to the EFL tradition. Her genius lay in a strong sense of rhythm and her realization that less words are more.
Her work is particularly appropriate with the huge classes our colleagues face across China (a quarter of World EFL) where memory work and large group chorusing fit well with local classroom culture.
Here are a few of these beautifully crafted rhythm poems from more than 20 years ago:
How long does it take?
It takes a long time.
How long does it take?
It takes a long time.
How long does it take?
It takes a long time.
It takes a long long time.
It takes twenty four hours.
That's a long time.
It takes fifteen days.
That's a long time
It takes three and a half months.
That's a long time.
That's a long long time.
Graham orchestrates her chants so that it is natural to get half the class chanting one half of the text in dialogue with the other half. Musically confident teachers will divide their classes up into four blocks and get the dialogue going in canon.
I'm sorry I did it.
I shouldn't have done it.
I'm sorry I did it.
I shouldn't have done it.
It doesn't matter.
It really doesn't.
It doesn't matter.
Honestly.
I'm sorry I took it.
I shouldn't have taken it.
I'm sorry I wore it.
I shouldn't have worn it.
I'm sorry I wrote it.
I shouldn't have written it.
It doesn't matter.
Honestly.
I should have told you.
It doesn't matter.
I should have told you.
It doesn't matter.
I shouldn't have done it.
It doesn't matter.
It really doesn't.
Honestly.
One neat way of inculcating the beat of a jazz chant is to get the whole class to chant the first line out loud, the second silently, the third out loud, the fourth silently and so on.
You can get people to yell their chant, to whisper it. You get them to yell and whisper alternate lines. There are a hundred wakeful ways of using these Graham gifts to language learning.
You look marvelous!
You haven't changed a bit.
Neither have you.
Neither have you.
You look marvelous!
So do you.
You look wonderful!
So do you.
You look terrific!
So do you.
You haven't changed a bit.
Neither have you.
I wonder whether you feel that jazz chants such as these are more or less useful as pronunciation practice than tradition nursery rhymes such as Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, or Mary had a little lamb? Maybe both have their place.
The Creative Methodology for the Classroom course can be viewed here
The Methodology and Language for Primary Teachers course can be viewed here
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