Suzy the MonkeyIn my flatthere lived SuzyShe liked to eat bananasunder the bedShe dreamed of friendsbut she can’t find.words and music by Alina Budko (age 11) and Ksyusha Gebennikova (age 11)

 

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The MonkeyThere lived a monkey.She lived in the jungle.She liked to eat bananas,and ride on the elephant.She dreamed of living like people,but the people didn’t want that.words and music by Artiom Tereshchenko (age 13)Minsk, Belarus. Artiom is on the right in the photo. That’s his cousin Nikita on the left.

 

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The Cockroach
In the kitchen
there lived a cockroach.
He liked to eat
inside the fridge
He dreamed of eating
all the fridge food
but the door is closed.
words and music: Nick Artyushevski (age 11), Minsk, Belarus

 

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On Kiselova Street in Minsk, there’s an after-school English school of sorts. Teacher Alla Kalishevich allowed me to work with her students aged, 10-13. I did one lesson with the kids (90 minutes) and by the end of this time they had all written lyrics for songs. In the following days I met with them individually or in pairs, and recorded their songs. The recordings took from 20 minutes to one hour.

The kids did all the creative work. They wrote the lyrics; compiled and arranged the music from loops (pre-recorded snippets of instruments), and they sang. I was the recording engineer.

The songs are fun, but useful too. I have even used them with adult teachers of English in Belarus—as listening tasks. There’s nothing wrong with learning and hearing English from non-native speakers. Think of the huge English-language hit “Dancing Queen,” which was composed and sung by Swedes.

Lovely Lively Mouse
In a cage
there lived a mouse
He liked to swim a lot of times
He liked to run away from a cat
Lovely Mouse, lively mouse
He liked to run away from a cat
He wanted to live with a big big bat
Lovely Mouse, lively mouse

words and music by Nastya Zhdanovich (age 13)
and Ksyusha Stankevich (age 12)
Minsk, Belarus

 

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The Bee
In your stomach
there lived a little bee.
She liked to eat some honey
and sing a song about a tree.
She dreamed of money,
but it is not free.
words and music by Dana Yastremskaya (age 10)
Minsk, Belarus

 

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A new little story, from July 1st, 2007, in Kyrgyzstan. Listen to the audio. Text coming soon.

 

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On July 4th, 2007, in Dushanbe, I met with a group of young English learners and we spent two hours together. First we did a listening activity based on a a short song that I wrote the night before. Then I told them they were going to write their own songs.

The students wrote their own lyrics, and set them to music–which they also wrote. Then they recorded the song–both music and vocal tracks–on my laptop computer.

None of these students had ever recorded before.

But during a single lesson they created the following songs from scratch (based on audio loops–short snippets of music that they cut and pasted together).

Students can create entire songs within the span of a single lesson.

The Crazy Cow
(by Dilya Umarova, Yasmina Inomova, & Manizha Batirova)

Between the rocks
the crazy cow,
she is alone
she wants to eat,
and broke her horn
and starts to cry.
She runs away
and falls in love

He’s really hot.
This is the end of story love.

Camp Love
(by Anvar Khamraev, Umed Nuriev, Sherioz Makhmidov)

In a camp I met a girl
I fall in love
She makes me blind

I lost my mind
By the time she loved me too
We walked together in the jungle at night

We came back late
We were happy
And it continued every day
Every night
Every day
That’s all.

 

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Here are two slide shows of the 2007 CATEC (Central Asian Teachers of English Conference).

The first is called “Smile,” and it’s shorter (1:17), and thus easier to play or download).

The second slide show is called “25 Years From the Sunday,” (3:51) because we hope participants will remember the conference that far in the future. Music is by Ed Kilban, lyrics by Kevin. Sung by Kevin and Christy McWilson. Photos by Kevin and Alex W.

 

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Meet Venera. She’s from Tajikistan. In fact, this is a great way to meet Tajikistan itself, a country that few people know about. You can learn some of Tajikistan’s recent history from Venera’s talk.

Some words you should investigate before you listen to the audio below:

civil strife, break out, freelance, shooting, skirmishes, take care of

1. Listen and decide which of these sentences are true.

Tajikistan was not a part of the USSR
It was always safe to go outside.
There was shooting on the streets.
Teachers were paid decent wages.
Life was simple and easy during these years.

2. Do the following gap-fill. (Sometimes you have to fit two words into a blank; that’s because the words form strong partnerships).

My name is Venera. I (1)________ be a high school English teacher. But then the (2)________ (3)________ broke out, so we had to (4)________ at home for a couple of years ’cause there was much shooting, (5)________. It was very dangerous to go (6)________.

When we were not paid any (7)________ I had to take care of my sons, so I (8)________ that and started giving (9)________ English lessons, and now I’m a (10)________ English interpreter/translator. My name is Venera. I’m from Dushanbe, Tajikistan. I like my place, my country.

Answers: (1) used to  (2) civil (3) strife (4) stay (5) skirmishes (6) outside (7) salaries (8) quit (9) private (10) freelance

 

 Venera, Other Voices [0:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (98)