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Hey friends, this question in going to be a little weird but, what could be the objective of playing a song in portuguese to english learners? (If there can be one...) I mean, it is just that I think it will be good for them to "train" their listening skills. It was just an idea that came into my mind a couple of minutes ago. But, as I am just starting my carreer as a teacher, I do not know if it will be something good, bad, effective or unworthy at all... If you can give me your opinion, I will appreciate it. Thank you very much!!!
It would be pretty unconventional. There are probably better uses of the time (in my opinion). If you want to do it though, you could have them listen to the song and then discuss/translate the lyrics into English. The students would have to haverelatively good English skills (upper intermediate?) to be working on direct translations.
Just my view on it--you never know for sure until you try,
I agree with you Douglas, it�s a little unconventional...
I�ve just finished using �The Rose� as a fill the gap listening activity with my 3rd years (junior high school). We looked at rhyme & metaphor.
Next, we looked at 3 translations of the song into Japanese. The differences in translation helped to emphasise the benefit of being able to understand the original song before considering or relying on the translations themselves.
I would recommend using a simple English song & using a similar approach.
How old are the students? My son�s teacher often uses German, Spanish or English versions of the French songs they sing with the intention of training the ear, getting them used to listening carefully to the differences in sounds etc. The children are 4-6. That�s not in an ESL context, though, just everyday school.
Everything is possible and can be effective when in context!
Personally, I believe that we cannot, and should not, analyse a teacher�s choice for a particular task without knowing the context. I mean, it�s not fair!
A creative bunch, we are... but if your class is in an ESL context perhaps teaching English listening skills with Portuguese songs is a little too far outside the box. : ) (for me anyway)
But then again, what is your aim? ie.train the ear means what, exactly to you? What is it that you feel a Portuguese song will do better than an English song? Perhaps what you need is an english song that can accomplish what you want the Portuguese song to do?
When we work on listening you know we
follow steps (pre- while - and post) and the "listening" lesson
usually becomes an "integration of skills" lesson. May be you found a
great song with a meaningful message and you can develop a great class with
discussion or reading in the pre
listening some writing or oral presentations or role-play in the post
listening. You will miss the while listening step and all you can do in it; but if you have time and
you think it will engage your students and there will be some learning then, go
ahead!
By the way, once I attended a seminar by a
well know teacher in my country and she worked with a song in Spanish �Una rosa
es una rosa� and we loved it!
UNCONVENTIONAL DOESN�T MEAN USELESS. I�ve been thinking about the question and if a teacher uses a �Portuguese song (and they aren�t Portuguese, but Italian , for example) once, at the beginning of the year, maybe students can understand some words or even ideas that are expressed in a similar way in their own language. They may be ready to try with other languages as a game. Perhaps to make them notice that learning a new language ( English, in our case) is opening ears and minds, and it doesn�t matter if we have a previous knowledge of it. Interesting topic ! Nice day for everybody!
