4 ESO: Learning with songs

The group of 4 ESO are 15 people doing a support course (crèdit variable) during this term. They try to improve their English through songs. I began observing this group and found it very interesting, so I decided to follow this course twice a week and to make my Practicum with them. The teacher, Núria, has a lot of experience with this course, as she has been teaching this "crèdit variable" for years. She has a great variety of songs and materials to work at class, but she also tries to get new songs every year.

I have been observing the following lessons:

• 30.10.2007: Something Stupid, Robbie Williams & Nicole Kidman http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=5T7fynhnmQ8
• 6.11.2007: Another Day in Paradise by Phil Collins http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=ftlYLcEW_I4
  
• 8.11.2007: Wonderful World by Sam Cooke http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=HNoUoyzCh2k
  
• 13.11.2007: Stand by me by Ben E. King (First session) http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Y6ARjIL-E
  

During these lessons, I have been helping Núria and the students, as we normally go around the class and help them with the activities.
The routine consists on listening to a different song on each session. The warm up activity can be ordering the sentences of the song or filling the gaps.
It was particularly funny the day when we were working with the song What a Wonderful World and each student had to choose two of the school subjects mentioned on the song. Every time they heart the name of the chosen subjects, they had to stand up or sit down. The result was a funny situation because they were all like crazy standing up and sitting down at different times. But the most important is that Núria got the attention of fast all of them, as only two or three of them did not completely understand the activity.
In general, they are a passive group. They don't get easily involved with learning. Some of them are interested and ask a lot of questions during the lesson. The others seem to be still sleeping (the lessons are at 8.00 and 9.00 o'clock in the morning!).
Furthermore, around the 50 % of them are recent newcomers and they neither speak Spanish or Catalan.
Bryan is ordering the sentences of the song while listening to Stand by me.
I was pleased to see that they all have heard to the song before and really liked it!