In the last two posts, I spoke about teaching English rhythm to students in order to improve their spoken English pronunciation.
To help get this concept across even further, I offer this --one of the greatest things on the internet!! (At least to an English as a Second Language teacher.)
Adriano Celantano is an Italian comedian who created a song that sounds like an American English song but consists of nothing but nonsense words with English sounds and rhythm. I've included two versions of the video of the song. The first has just the song. The second has the Italian language set up that frames the joke and explains the song. Basically, if you can understand the Italian, students in an Italian music class ask their teacher how one can sing a foreign, English language song if you forget the words. Is it possible? He assures them that it is and then demonstrates.
Language has rhythm and different languages have different natural rhythms.
When students (or other humans) learn a new language, to speak it well, they need to learn to speak it with the appropriate rhythm. Each language, and often different dialects of the same language, have distinct stress patterns. People who wish to learn to speak a second or addtional language need to learn to speak it with an appropriate rhythm.
But before they can do this, they must become familiar with the concept of language rhythm and how to recognize it in different languages.
Hip Hop is a form of music where people speak in rhythm. Therefore it seems a natural tool for exposing students to the idea that different languages have different rhythm.
Therefore, for that purpose, I have collected a wide variety of hip hop videos in different languages to use in class.
The students should be told that American hip-hop videos often contain bad or impolite language and non-standard or poor grammar as well as sometimes offensive subject matter. It is not always a good tool to teach English but it is a good tool to teach rhythm.
PLEASE NOTE --I HAVE NOT WATCHED EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THESE VIDEOS FROM BEGINNING TO END. ALSO I DO NOT SPEAK ALL THESE LANGUAGES. THEREFORE IF YOU FIND OR HEAR SOMETHING THAT IS OFFENSIVE IN ONE OF THESE VIDEOS OR THAT YOU THINK I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ON ONE OR MORE OF THESE VIDEOS, PLEASE MESSAGE ME AND LET ME KNOW OR PUT SOMETHING IN THE COMMENTS BELOW IF YOU PREFER. I WILL TRY TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE WHEN IT HAPPENS.
Although they are primarilly in other languages, often there are parts where the rappers rap in English. This is useful because it can be used to show the different accents and how the sounds and rhythm of their first language carries over into the second language, English. (The Burmese and Karen one are particularly good for this.)
On the other hand, the English sections, in standard hip hop fashion, often include offensive Engish language and students should be warned (it's best not to play some of these videos if your students will be offended by "the F word" or other offensive words.) So be warned.
Also, and an additional warning, it is the nature of hip-hop videos that they often contain sexy young women dressed in skimpy clothes who are objectified and treated as prizes. Although I've tried to minimize such images, it is the nature of hip-hop videos that such depictions of women will be found here. Now, honestly, I would prefer it if the videos showed depictions of brainy women (who are also healthy and nice to look at) doing impressive things that are beneficial for society but I did not make these videos I just collected them. If the usual depictions of women as often depicted in hip-hop offend you or your students, consider playing these videos without the images.
As stated above, if you find something that is considerably offensive, please let me know either by private message of in the comments below and I will do my best to attend to it.
English
First, Mr Wendall by Arrested Development, a clean video with a nice message.
If you listen to the rhythm of the words, there is sort of a "one TWO one TWO one TWO one TWO DAP DAP DAP" rhythm to much of the speech.
Queen Latifah is another example of English language with a hip-hop that has a good message.
(And for the record, yes, they are both old. I am NOT using hip-hop in the classroom to show how cool and "with it" I am. I gave up on that long ago. I am using hip-hop to teach the concept of rhythm in language and to stress that when a language student learns to speak a new language they should strive to change their speaking rhythm to match the rhythm of the new language, not the old language.)
This video shows samples from hip hop videos in Mandarin and Vietnamese, two very different but "isolationist" languages where the rhythm is more monosyllabic and does not change to the same extent as in English.
Although they switch back and from English to their own language, making the contrast in rhythm particularly noticeable, the rhythm is more of repetitive "bop-bop-bop-bop-bop" as they speak . *
Japanese and Korean
Japanese and Korean have their own rhythm that is distinctly different from Chinese or Vietnamese. Even if you don't know a single word of the languages then you can easily learn to distinguish them through the rhythm.
This one is in Russian
Russian
This one is in Mexican Spanish.
By comparing these two, students who do not know either Spanish or Russian should be able to learn to distinguish between the two -And be able to do so without knowing a single word of the language.
Punjabi
Swahili
Turkish
Cambodian hip hop (starts about 1:15pm)
Burmese
I thought this one was particularly good for explaining the concepts.
Notice how his English sounds like his Burmese.
Karen song
The Karen are a hill tribe that lives primarilly on the Thai-Burmese border. There is a lot of fighting in the region as many Karen wish to split off and form an independent state and the Burmese government resists this. Therefore many Karen have come to the USA and other Western nations as refugees. I have several Karen friends and acquaintances which is one reason I included this video which was made in the USA.
Navajo
I went to youtube looking for Navajo language hip-hop. Lo and behold, I found some.
Lest the students become confused about whether or not Native American Indians speak English or not, here's some English language Native American hip hop from the Navajo reservation (although the rapper is half Sioux by ethnicity/)
Tibetan
I enjoy the Taiwanese rapper MC Hot Dog. He was big at one point when I lived on the island, so of course, I had to include him here.
Languages have a thythm, each and every one of them. And this rhythm varies from one language to the next. When people learn a second (or additional) language, they have a tendency to speak with the rhythm of the first language. For this reason, it's a good to teach them not only that spoken American English has a distinct rhythm and stress pattern, but what that rhythm is.
Fortunately, like so much else, Youtube has a wealth of videos on how English should be spoken.
The following are some of my favorites. I offer them without other comment.
More than once I've been hired to teach writing to students who often needed help with the basics.
This is a collection of materials I've found on the basics of writing good sentences.
This second one is good too, but it's worth mentioning that Mark Roberts is Canadian and pronounces the word "pasta" differently than most Americans would. (We would say PAH-sta, with an "a" like in "taco" but he says PA-sta with an "a" like in "cat.")
Sentence fragments are a big problem with many students, both foreign and native speakers.
Run on sentences are another big problem.
If you'd like to practice corrrecting sentences and check your understanding of grammar, here is a collection of sample quizzes and practice sheets you can use.
