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SK PETALING JAYA
ENGLISH LANGUAGE PANEL
SUBJECT LEADERSHIP
LEARNING PROJECT
Title:When Learning English Is a Song

Target Group:All members of the English Language Panel

Aims
1)Using songs to teach English language skills in an non-threatening atmosphere.
2)Conduct a workshop cum staff development with panel members to share ideas and input on the
topic and promote positive working communication among the members.
3)Make language learning fun and effective for pupils and teachers.

Whats it about-Descriptions of the project.
As I myself was in the midst of finding new methods to face lift my teaching strategies by incorporating
fun element as I strongly feel that I may have drifted from my training days where I stayed up late to
create interesting and fun-filled with over the top activities for my pupils. NOT blowing my own
trumpetI excelled doing all that ,pleasing my lecturers. Activities planned where totally pupils centred.
Then this learning project made me decide that I would want to reintroduce this point to my panel
members as most of us teach to achieve exam targets and neglect learning . As suggested in the
affective strategy in learning strategies(yes..I have been reading),teacher can help generate positive
feelings in class by lowering the anxiety level. I personally feel this can be done with using songs to
teach language skills. By chance I also came across a newspaper article in The Star dated 13 April 2012
titled When learning English Is a song.(Refer appendix).It was totally relevant and finally I used it as my
project title. The article was about a young girl Laura Lee setting up a Singlish Project which aims to help
students speak perfect English while also appreaciating it through music. She uses songs in her lesson to
teach skills like grammar.
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I want to have a workshop with the team to discuss using songs that can be obtained from various
websites in our ESL classroom which will make the class come alive. I had a senior teacher who would
help me in giving the workshop as she had already approached me much earlier before the subject
leadership course in using famous tunes to teach grammatical items like subject verb agreement. She
sang the tune to me and I wanted my panel members to practice it in their classroom because 99% of
my pupils are L1 speakers and find obstacles in conversing and applying L2.Songs are so catchy and has
universal appeal .It contributes variety and important in view of the short attention span children have.
Children love songs and what better way to make them understand this foreign language. I also
strongly felt this workshop would be fun for my members as it had that casual feeling to it. This would a
good opportunity to bond as colleagues as we hardly have time to interact during school hours.
I hope my panel members give a positive response to this project as I expect them to implement it in
their classrooms.

Implementation Schelude
Start Date End Date Activity Remarks
5 Mac 2012 Brief discussion with
Miss Gerardine
Antoinette Maria Raj
(senior teacher) to help
me out with the project

6 Mac 2012 Meet headmaster and
senior assistant on the
project.
Got positive
encouragement from
them.
7 Mac 2012 Collecting songs that
can be used in ESL
primary classroom and
having further
discussion with my
facilitator on the
project outline.
From various websites.
7 Mac 2012 Informed my teachers
about the workshop set
on 9
th
April 2012.

9 Mac 2012 Carried the project .
Did reflections on the
workshop.

19 Mac 2012 30 Mac 2012 Implemented the ideas
in the actual lesson in
the classroom.
Used songs to teach
personal pronouns with
year 4 class(level of
proficiency-average)

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Monitoring
During the workshop
The facilitator briefed the teachers how to use catchy tunes to teach language skills.We made a chart to
teach subject-verb agreement using tunes from a famous song.(Refer appendix for pictures).Year 1 and
2 teachers also shared their ideas to teach phonics using rhymes. Facilitator helped by giving tunes to
the rhymes.
Teachers were shown the websites where songs can be obtained to teach grammar items in a relaxing
manner.Videos from you tube was also helpful showing other educators in the world using this method
in their ESL classroom.A small activity was held to write simple descriptions on pupils pets using the tune
of Mary had a little lamb.

The aftermath
The Strength
The workshop ended on a happy note. I felt I learned many things from my colleagues. The members
shared their English classroom tales. We gave each other pointers to improve our teaching and learning
which we experienced in our own class. And we also laughed during the singing sessions. It was a stress
buster exercise. This is something we hardly ever do and this session gave us that chance. No man is an
island and with this session I felt being more thoughtful in my leadership. I felt so good when I saw
them seeing my vision for this learning project even when we do have our differences in implementing
them.
The challenges
When I first told my teachers of the project, they were a bit hesitant as some said it was something they
already know and have been doing but with word of persuasion and channeling my vision and objectives
gradually they agreed.
We also time constraint during the workshop as it was held after school in between of our morning and
afternoon session on Friday giving us a two hours duration. I couldnt do this project on a Saturday as I
myself with the facilitator as on involved in the year 6 UPSR classes. We had to rush with the activities. I
would love to have more time carrying out the activities as a mini micro teaching with my staff.




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Post session
I had a good opportunity to actually use the activity in my year 4 English classroom . This class has low
proficiency level and cant communicate in the language.I used a song to teach personal pronouns. I
recently felt this class of 38 pupils could not relate personal pronouns in their sentence constructions
even after doing this grammar skill with them So I decided to repeat the lesson using songs as it have a
lot of in-built repetition of structures and this is good for consolidation and internalization of the
grammar item. And truly the class came alive. The song involve physical activity and this made them
happy. The song(refer appendix) was simple yet effective in making them understand the concept of
pronouns. I could see that could answer the exercises much better post the song activity.How I wished I
had captured the moment on my camera.
I hope to see my panel members apply the same in their classroom. I do intend to sit in their class if they
have intergrated it in their lesson to see the outcome on pupils learning which in the long run would
improve the standard of English language in my school. I intend to nurture the flame ,one flicker at a
time.
References
1.http//genkienglish.net/pronouns.htm
2.Cohen,A.D(1998).Strategies in learning & using a secong language.London:Longman.









Dont be afraid of walkingbe afraid of standing still.
In the middle of difficultieslies opportunityAlbert Einstein
NIRMALJEET KAUR

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