Musical Roots: An Exploration

Welcome to the video page for the course!

1. Working the field - Tanzania, Africa.

2. Call and response - schoolkids in Kenya - Watch from 1:30 to the end

3. Negro Spiritual - Roll Jordan Roll

4. Work song - I be so glad when the sun goes down (prison song) (Watch from start to 1:30)

5. Delta blues - Robert Johnson - 1936 (Watch from start to 1:30)

6. Maybelline - Chuck Berry 

7. Etta James - I'd rather go blind

7. Amy Winehouse - Rehab 

      

Population Pyramids enhance the integration of language and content in speaking and writing

Demography is an interdisciplinary field, which is central to different degree programs such as finance, government, International Relations and Economics to mention a few. When population pyramids and diagrams are used in the EFL course, they are meaningful because they conjure content material from the student’s area of study. Furthermore, a range of language related to addressing present, past and future are used by students as they look at population pyramids.

This is part of an ongoing class project, which students have found interesting and useful as they have been able to put their academic skills to practice. Furthermore, students realize the importance of transcending the disciplines in order to provide a complete explanation for the demographic trends and transformations.

Population Pyramids present the size of a female and male population of a given area by age groups or cohorts by 5 year intervals as can be seen in this pyramid of the world’s population profile for 2017

(source: https://www.populationpyramid.net/: copy permission granted by site manager)

The website, https://www.populationpyramid.net/ presents population pyramids at a global, regional, continental and national level. The user can look at pyramids for a place from the past, predictions for the future.  Dr. Martin De Wulf, the owner of the site, happily guaranteed the right to copy graphs for academic purposes. This would enable students to use them for slides or poster sessions to discuss and analyze population changes.

Talking about the past

As students compare the size of a certain age group to another, they can develop language related to speculation such as models. Irregular patterns in pyramids, such as certain disproportionally large or small cohort triggers an interest the factors contributing to this phenomena. It here that knowledge from mainstream courses such as history, current affairs, sociology and others comes to use in student discussions. For example, this pyramid of Oman brought up the issue of migrant workers as there cohort for males aged 30-34 does not conform to that of most countries. Students who have been studying migration suspect the presence of a large migrant labor force given the age. Moreover, questions about the factors that pull them there and their place of origin arise, Comparatives and superlatives come in useful as students look at the cohort in light of its female counterpart.

 

Discussions about the future of a country in terms of its working population and pension system are also triggered. Again, in terms of language, it’s yet another opportunity for practicing modals. Also, future conditionals can be practiced as students who have taken actuarial science courses predict what would happen to the pension system as in the case of Denmark.

Conclusions

Students simultaneously practice language and content skills. Content  knowledge is constantly constructed as students reach into the different disciplines to explain the nature of a cohort in its present, past and future forms. Students always ask to look at different countries and also learn about countries they would never probably never have studied. From a language perspective, they subconsciously drill grammar forms as they speculate and compare cohorts and countries.  Not much research has been conducted on the dual learning that occurs through population pyramids in the classroom, making them an interesting tool for areas such as PBL and CLIL.

Student magazines: well worth getting involved in

At first glance, the idea of a student magazine may seem like a remnant from a forgotten world. Surrounded as we are by mobile phone-wielding students, why would they be interested in actually writing for a paper-and-ink publication?

The truth is that taking part in such a publication is still massively worthwhile and has various benefits for students in terms of this creative process.

First of all, it's a valuable way for students to learn to actually create something, and be (in 21st-Century parlance) "content providers". All too often we see our students slipping into a certain passivity, where they see their role as being consumers. Whether through computers, mobile phones or TV, our students tend to focus on absorbing information, often at best responding with a retweet, but seldom thinking that they too can be the originators of articles or information of interest to others. 

When students are encouraged to take part in writing for a student magazine, they appreciate that they too are capable of producing content, and that, vitally, the ideas, passions and concerns that they carry in their heads and hearts are valid. They then become more than consumers lapping up what information is thrown to them, but see that their voices are important and are worthy of a platform.

This is particularly important when we look at writing for a student publication, as this represents a semi-authentic project for them to sink their teeth into. Students should approach such a project as an opportunity for them to not only write about what is of interest to them, but a chance to polish their work through a process-writing dynamic which enables them to develop as writers. After all, an important element of the student magazine is the semi-authentic setting of it, which involves students competing on content. When students draft and re-draft an article, and finally manage to get it into the magazine, knowing that theirs was chosen ahead of articles by other students, they can be rightfully proud of their industry.

Having a physical magazine really pays off at this time, as students can feel the magazine itself as a concrete manifestation of their work. There is a prevailing idea that our students live out their lives in cyberspace, which has some truth to it, but our students are still much more motivated by materials that have a tactile aspect. It's much harder to get students excited about a blog entry than it is about a printed magazine!

Not to say that these electronic formats don't have a place; the combination of making the magazine available as a printed version, a pdf, and a blog allows for multiple possible access points, and facilitates students sharing their work with classmates, family members and even prospective future employers. This last point here is often an unforeseen perk for students years down the line; when asked by a company or graduate course about how they can show that they are the enthusiastic student and English user that they profess to be, such an article provides valuable support.

In all, writing for a student magazine is a rewarding process which students may be apprehensive about at first, but which they soon see the relevance of. Long live the student magazine, and the hard-working writers who contribute to it!

Hello!

...and welcome to this new blog!