Teaching "literature with a small l" with songs and ICT

• Target learners: mid teenagers  (or adults) at B2 level
• Textbook: Davies, P. and Falla, T. (2014). Cambridge English First Result Student's Book. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Unit 12 "Make a difference"
• Unit theme: social issues (e.g. poverty, juvenile delinquency, homelessness). 
• ICT resources integrated: “AnotherDay in Paradise” (first recorded by Phil Collins in 1989; recently covered by several singers); Google images; Fakebook
• Skills: mediated by ICT: reading and writing - not mediated by ICT: speaking
• Linguistic aims: Narrative tenses (present and past)

 NOTE: this lesson plan was originally submitted as part of an assignment for "Estrategias de la Enseñanza de la Lengua Extranjera", wihile I attended "Licenciatura en Educación" at Universidad Virtual de Quilmes. 

---

Before reading: Brainstorming

“In this lesson, we’ll work with a song called ‘Another Day in Paradise””.  The chorus goes like this:

“it’s another day for you and me in paradise”

Look at the result of a search for images on Google using the keyword “paradise” (if there is access to the Internet in class, the search will be carried out in real time by the students themselves).

·         What do you imagine the song will be about?

·         Who is singing (i.e. who is “me”)? Who to?

·         Where are they? How long have they been there? How long will they stay?

·         How do they feel about it?

The images presented have intentionally been selected so as to mislead my class in their expectations, with the intention of deepening their comprehension of the issue at a later stage.

While reading:

Work in small groups. Then, report your answers to the class:

Read (and listen to) the first stanza:

A.   Does it match your predictions? Why (not)?

B.   Who are the characters in this story? How old is the female character? And the male one? Where are they? Why are they there? How are they related? What are their feelings?

C.   What will happen next? How will he react? Read the second stanza and check your predictions.

I'll proceed in the same way with the other two stanzas, asking the class to discuss questions with a variety of objectives: finding specific information, stimulating cognitive and affective responses, drawing inferences and speculating outcomes. (e.g. Why is the girl homeless? How can this affect her everyday life?)

To round off this stage, students might enjoy watching the video clip as they follow (and perhaps sing) the lyrics on their notes:

NB: I love this video clip because of the images, but it's 9 minutes long. There are shorter alternatives available on the Web.

After reading:

1. Discuss (class as a whole):  Have you ever lived a similar situation (being asked for help by someone in the street)? How did you react? Could you have done something differently?

At this stage, my main goal is to foster appropriation (Mc Rae, 1991) of the text, bridging the “relevance gap” between the text and the readers’ own world, and stimulating personal response (empathy) and evaluation.

2. Imagine you’re one of the two characters in the song. Go to https://www.classtools.net/FB/home-page and create a page for your character. (You can find a tutorial here).

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.    Use appropriate images to give a clear idea of their background and relations.

2.    Add five posts (two before the moment narrated in the song, one about the incident in the song, and two after that moment). NB: five is the minimum number of posts required by the site so that your work can be saved.

3.    Evaluate your own work using the checklist here.

4.    Save your work as .pdf, and upload your file here: https://padlet.com/gladysbaya/paradise.

5.    Comment on the work shared by at least two partners: a. identify one aspect you particularly like about their work; b. discuss one similarity or difference between their work and yours.

In this follow-up writing task, ICT is integrated into my EFL lesson because it “enhances the conversation of the classroom” (Richards, 20000, cited in Ferradas Moi, 2001:143). Fakebook.com provides a motivating, realistic –yet safe- environment for fluency practice, whereas the fact that work will be shared with the class as a whole serves to encourage students to pay attention to accuracy at the same time. In addition, the steps required to carry out this task serve to develop computer literacy skills students will need outside class as well as to develop critical technological literacy (Ferradas Moi, 2001:153-154).

REFERENCES: 
Ferradas Moi, C. and Thomson de Grondona White, C., (2001). “Literature in Language Teaching”, in Davis, E. et al. Estrategias de Enseñanza de la lengua extranjera. Bernal: Universidad Virtual de Quilmes, pp. 105-135. 
Mc Rae, J. (1991). Literature with a small “l”. London and Basingstroke: Macmillan Publishers. Pope, R. (1995). “5.3. Types of textual intervention”, in Textual intervention. Critical and Creative Strategies for Literary Studies. London: Rouledge. Pp- 196-202.