Interactive Song Analysis Challenge

In the last chapter in the English class for 12 graders, Song Analysis, I planned to have my students a team project by taking a challenge to conclude one album from a popular artist/singer. To make things easier and way engaging, I prepared some medias, such as:

Interactive presentation made on Canva, which is to brainstorm the ideas and a bit example before getting into the project. Here is an example of the PPT I made on Canva: Song Canva Presentation
Movie clips taken from www.youtube.com whose content are mastered by the teacher so that when students share their ideas, he/she may have a better confirmation towards the issue delivered. Teacher is advised to use www.padlet.com, www.whiteboard.fi, or simply https://classroom.google.com for them to share their finding. The most important thing is the teacher’s feedback.
For the team project, teacher had better prepare some albums for students to choose. The challenge is that he/she should have lots of information about music. In this case, I googled based on Grammy’s winner or recalled my memory when I was in the University. The most important thing of all is that the songs analyzed contain significant meaning.
Then get into the deciding of the album analyzed for each team. I was using https://www.fortunewheel.com/ by listing the artists/bands name with their album title. I did the roulette three times for each of the group so that they had still options to pick the most interesting one. This could prevent a dominative decision only made by teacher.
The number of students in a team determined the number of songs analyzed. If one team consists of three students, I asked them to analyze at least seven songs. If more students are on the team, I believe, you, as the teacher, may determine the number of the song analyzed since you know the capability and their management on the project.
There are at least five points they needed to deliver during their presentation. For instance: (i) brief biography and discography, (ii) music genre in the album analyzed, (iii) each team top song(s) from the album, (iv) lyrics analysis, and (v) conclusion. For different needs, teachers may adjust the content of the presentation.
Students were asked to make the presentation only, whether by using common power point on Microsoft or Canva. If possible, it is fine by having other different medias, like: Quizizz presentation or Inknoe Classpoint.
During their finding or working on the analysis, teacher was open to any question regarding their project. As for myself, I had their work revised before the presentation day. For some reasons, there were still some of misunderstanding on the target learning or the expected final product. Therefore, before getting into the team work, make sure you review all the information and instruction well. You may ask one or two students for this without any means of intimidation. Be careful!

My finding:

Students used lots of sources from the internet and made the analysis merely only by other people’s review. Make sure that they use their own words yet can be supported by other resources. This may need sources of reading by leaving them in the last slide of presentation to prevent plagiarism.
Students concluded things not from the analysis of each of the songs, yet only telling that the album was best-selling one or any other achievement without mentioning the content of the album related to the analysis. Make sure you give one example so that they do understand the instruction well. If necessary, review more than twice to confirm.
Spelling in the presentation sometimes still occurs which makes revision a good option before the big day.
Pronunciation becomes one of the issues as well since they prepare only on the content instead of the way they delivered their presentation. In this case, I advised them to have a trial and recheck everyone’s speaking. If necessary, they may use google reading to have an example on the proper pronunciation.

Achievement:

Most of my students enjoyed working on the song project since they found some revenues of music and the song related to their feeling; or even situation they’re dealing with. In addition, it is another interesting way to learn English text with melody; less boring but more meaningful. Hence, new vocabularies mastery is at grasp.

Good luck, fellow teachers!

Here are some of the presentations made by my students:

Presentation Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Presentation Celine Dion - Falling Into You

Presentation John Mayer - Heavier Things

Presentation Hoobastank - The Reason