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We have Arrived!Yesterday, my classmates and I were welcomed with the most wonderful greeting from the students and faculty if the San Giovanni Bosco primary school. The emotions were overwhelming. We could see the children cheering and eager to meet us from outside the gates, but walking in made me feel famous. As we walked through the crowds a few of us introduced ourselves to students. The first group of students I spoke too laughed at me because I didn't know how to speak Italian. I tell myself they were laughing because they were fascinated by English, but they kept asking m to speak Italian and made fun of me when I pronounced things weird. I was sad, but the next group of students were much nicer and definitely more forgiving. I quickly learned the 3rd grade students practiced saying "My name is..." and we so eager to answer "Come ti chiami?" Which was one of the only Italian phrases I knew at the time. We took a grand tour of the school and met our cooperating teachers. Everyone was so lovely and the students were ADORABLE! My cooperating teacher does not speak any English, which made me extremely anxious for the next day... We have taught...Today was one of the most nerve-wrecking, yet amazing teaching experience. For some background information, Christine and I wrote a book about Buffalo winters prior to arriving in Italy. We are doing research along with gaining teaching experience with these lovely students. We are currently researching how music is used as an education tool when learning English vocabulary. Christine is an exceptional education major, while I am a music teacher. Coming from very different backgrounds knowledge, we put our heads together and made it work! We are placed in a 2nd grade classroom, with the cutest students; so full of energy and expression. My favorite pronunciation of an Italian name today was "Dante". My heart literally melted. We were totally thrown into this... Christine and I were definitely not expecting to teach today. From our understanding, we believe we were going to be observing. We did bring a copy of our book and teaching tools just in case. THANK GOODNESS. We walked into the classroom, the teacher cleared her desk and gave us the floor. I was sooooooooo scared. Not only does our teach only speak Italian, I was totally unaware of the capability of the children. Christine and I went for it though, and it ended up being an unforgettable and educational experience for both us and the children! Our lessons as a glance: We started with a Hello Song in Italian, which is often at the beginning of every music lesson. I started off singing in English and doing simple "steady beat" movement such as tapping on the knees and shoulders. The children looked clueless, making me more nervous. To modify, I starting singing the same song in Italian repeatedly. The teacher caught on immediately which encouraged the students to at least hum along. During the song, the teacher sings "Ciao, Ciao _____" and the student fills in their name. The first student did not respond immediately, so the teacher asked "Come ti chiami" to which the student answered. Then everyone repeats "Ciao, Ciao ____" with the name. The students caught on the the repetition very well, but did not sing along to the chorus. For tomorrow I have bigger and better plans to get them singing this song and to say "My name is____" in English! This not only supports our research, but presents a great opportunity for these students to learn something new in English! Musically, I taught a lot today. After the Hello Song, I taught “Winter Wonderland” which is a connection between our book and music! Our book is about Buffalo’s Winter. When teaching, I used a neutral syllable for most of the song. I did sing “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” on text. I held up a vocabulary card with the English words “Winter Wonderland” and a picture to help guide the students. I kept the students engaged in movement during the song, but t was difficult for them to sing “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” on pitch and in rhythm. I broke down the words by phrase. This did not help so I broke it down even more by syllable. Students were eventually able to chant the phrase, but not sing. Instead, I did more movement and repeated the song a few times. After reading the book though, student response to the phrase was much better! Christine had a vocabulary card with both the Italian and English translation. I think this helped students with translanguaging. When we revisited the song, students we able to chant the phrase with much more ease. I was able to put the words to pitches for them! I broke it down by syllable and by pitch. Therefore students were able to sing along with more accuracy. I thought this was the end of my teaching for the day, but wait! There’s more! I used a song I would used with younger children and manipulatives such as shakers to teach English vocabulary. I introduced the song without lyrics, but included the end which is “And….stop” on the musical pitches “Sol...Do”. I taught the word “stop” by holding up the vocabulary card and having students move and chant the word. They caught on super fast! I’m pretttty sure stop is a word they already knew, but let’s just pretend I taught them that! I used the same strategy to introduce the words “Dance, Jump, Walk and Run”. In addition to students acting out the word and chanting it, I gave the word pitches so the students could sing part of the song. In one of the videos posted below, you can see how I did this with the word dance. I sang “Dance dance dance” on “Mi re do” and repeated on “mi fa sol”. The children sang back beautifully! I thought this was a very successful lesson. The next step is going to be the retainment of the new vocabulary! Overall, I loved this experience. I was ready to conquer my lesson for the next day and learned the children are so ready to learn and explore their potential. I cannot wait for the rest of my teaching plans to come to life!
2 Comments
Kathy Doody
1/10/2018 01:38:57 am
Krissy - it sounds like you are having an amazing time!! I love that some of you have been partnered from students in other disciplines. You'll be able to learn so much from each other, such a great opportunity.
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Tamara (SOE)
1/10/2018 10:20:43 pm
I love the videos!
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AuthorI am a senior Music Education major and this is my first trip to Europe. I am excited to dive into Italian culture and to learn from my Italian students, while making memories to last a lifetime! ArchivesCategories |