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.

 

 Camp Love [0:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (108)

 

 The Crazy Cow [0:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (113)

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)

Teacher Halima Bobokhonova (School #1, Isfara, Sughd, Tajikistan) shows a PowerPoint game created by her students.

One student, Kombiz Sahobi, developed this PowerPoint show about the workshop we had in Isfara, in the north of Tajikistan.

An excellent project activity for students. Check it out…

 Material Development PowerPoint Project: Download (116)

Here’s how to do a Rotation Dictation. It’s a lot of fun.

1. Put students in teams of three or four. One person will be a Writer. The others will be Runners.

2. Explain about the audio they will hear. A Rotation Dictation is a short piece of audio—in this case 45 words. When it reaches the end, it begins again. The audio features a woman named Venera from Tajikistan, and she talks about herself. The audio will repeat several times, for a total of about 2 minutes.

Play the audio quietly in a corner of the room, or even a bit outside of the room. A single Runner from each team will approach the audio player and listen.

They shouldn’t listen too long. Their job is to take a piece of this audio—several words or a whole sentence—and bring it back to their team. The Runner then tells the Writer what she heard.

Meanwhile the next Runner can go to the audio player and listen. Only one Runner per team can leave home base to listen.

The team will try to rebuild and reproduce the enitre audio text, writing it down.

At the end of two minutes, or more if necessary, teams will compare to see who has written the text most accurately.

Beforehand, or during (by writing them on the board) you could introduce  students to these terms they might not get aurally: “shooting,” “skirmishes,” “civil strife,” “break out.”
Text: My name is Venera.  I used to be a high school English teacher.   But then the civil strife broke out, so we had to stay at home for a couple of years ’cause there was much shooting, skirmishes.  It was very dangerous to go outside. 

 

 Rotation Dictation "Venera" [1:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (73)