Carolyn Graham is considered the creator of
the jazz chants. She was teaching ESL in New York University during the day and
playing piano and singing old jazz in the night. So she realized that this
music has a very strong one, two, three and four pitch. One night she was
playing in a pub and someone came and told her “cheers, good to see you. You
look wonderful!” and she imagined one, two, three, four. Next day in the
university she asks for a big empty room and she organized a free lesson for
every student who wants to practice the English language with jazz. Jazz chants
just born.
Carolyn Graham develops her chants simply
by listening. You don´t create anything, you just have to listen to the
language all around you. You operate the language that we use every day,
nothing fancy or complicated. Natural spoken English with an awareness of the
rhythm.
It
has a lot of advantages, one of the big ones is that you can work with any size
classroom and you don´t need any equipment, all you need is yourself
It must be real, useful and appropriate language
for each age and you can use it with everybody at any level
Formulas for a vocabulary chant:
Step one: Take a topic, for an instance,
fruits
Step two: Write down ten words related to
the topic
Step three: Separate the words according to
the number of sounds (most of the words are going to be one, two or three
sounds)
Step four: Follow the sound´s pattern 2 – 3
– 1 by picking from the list one word with 2 sounds, another word with 3 sounds
and one more word with 1 sound.
2 sounds: Che-rry
3 sounds: Pine-a-pple
1 sound: Plum
Start with the chant!
Cherry, pineapple, plum
Cherry, pineapple, plum
Cherry, pineapple
Cherry, pineapple
Cherry, pineapple, plum
With that pattern you can write any chant
(animals, food, body parts, etc) and you can add words to the chant, for
example:
Purple cherry, yellow pineapple
Purple cherry, yellow pineapple
Purple cherry, yellow pineapple
And violet plum!
And violet plum!
Jazz chants are an innovative
way to teach spoken English. At the beginning I thought it was just to teach
vocabulary and pronunciation but after this post I realize that you can also learn grammar and structures creating
more complex chants. For example:
May I turn down the air conditioning?
Do you mind if I lower the blind?
Is that alright if I put away this staff?
I don´t mind, I don´t mind, I don´t mind!
Is it alright if I switch off the light?
Do you mind if I close the door?
May I switch off the fun?
Sure, sure, sure!
In this chant the students can learn apart
from vocabulary and pronunciation some structures about how to make a question
in a very polite way.
May I … ?
Do you mind if … ?
Is that alright if … ?
As you can see, you have to play with the
rhythm, that’s why I choose to change the order of the sentence in the second
part of the chant
(1) May I turn down the air
conditioning?
(2) Do you mind if I lower the
blind?
(3) Is it alright if I put away this
staff?
I don´t mind, I don´t mind, I don´t mind!
(3) Is it alright if I switch off
the light?
(2) Do you mind if I close the door?
(1) May I switch off the fun?
Sure, sure, sure!You can use any content in a jazz chant so you can develop any cross-curricular área.
Hello Edu, you have a nice blog! and the first comment is about Jazz Chants, just like me. The problem is that I cant upload audios and there is no way you can hear my two samples of Jazz chants. It is well explained although I recommend you to use or upload a video which demonstrate of what you are talking about.
ResponderEliminarI have a question for you, would you ever use Jazz Chants in the classroom?
Marina Barrera
Hi Marina you are right. As you said I tried to upload some audios but I couldn´t manage.
EliminarAbout your question my answer is definitely YES. For instance, yesterday I was using it with two kids of seven and nine years old. They are brothers and they have almost the same English level so I could work with both the same jazz chant. As we were working on the kitchen´s staff I made a chant with “kettle, microwave and sink”. They had quite more fun than in the traditional way of learning and I think that they won´t forget these words.
Hello Edu, you have a nice blog! and the first comment is about Jazz Chants, just like me. The problem is that I cant upload audios and there is no way you can hear my two samples of Jazz chants. It is well explained although I recommend you to use or upload a video which demonstrate of what you are talking about.
ResponderEliminarI have a question for you, would you ever use Jazz Chants in the classroom?
Marina Barrera
Sorry Edu, this is the good Blog! I'm going very crazy!!
EliminarHi Marina you are right. As you said I tried to upload some audios but I couldn´t manage.
EliminarAbout your question my answer is definitely YES. For instance, yesterday I was using it with two kids of seven and nine years old. They are brothers and they have almost the same English level so I could work with both the same jazz chant. As we were working on the kitchen´s staff I made a chant with “kettle, microwave and sink”. They had quite more fun than in the traditional way of learning and I think that they won´t forget these words.
Great post, Edu. It is both clear and informative. Remember that it is always a good idea to include the references of those links you have used to get information about the topic. This will help the reader find more information about the topic. Keep up with the great work!
ResponderEliminarThanks for the feed back Raquel, I will include all the references in the next posts!
EliminarHi Edu, I love this post, it is very informative and if someone does not know nothing about Jazz chant can learn all that they need to create one. In my opinion, the information is completed with the examples. The Jazz chants are good resources for teachers, they are easy to create and we can use it in any topic, furthermore I think that children learn more with rhythm.
ResponderEliminarFrom my point of view this resource is not known in schools, because it can be very useful in all levels of infant and primary even in E.S.O., like routines or to learn the contents related with different subjects.
I am going to use Jazz chant in my classes because I think that it is an amazing way to memorize the contents and structures of the curriculum, and not only in English, maybe it is interesting to try it in a Spanish class.
Hi Patri! Thank you!
EliminarI am in sympathy with your opinión. In fact I´m already creating jazz chants with some of the kids I´m giving private lessons and we are having a lot of fun with a little effort.
Hello Edu, I'm doing the same thing! The topic is about preposition of places and some vocabulary. The impressive thing is that you can work with Jazz Chants in the different levels and even with adults...
EliminarI can post the lyrics, but I think that I will have to sing it for you:
Where can we find these objects?
Where is the mouse?
Is in the house
Where is the cat?
Is taking a bath
Where is the jacket?
Is next to the racket
Where is the door?
I want some more
All together now,
Where can we find these objects?
Do you like going to the sea?
I prefer to watch TV
Do you like going to the zoo?
I prefer to play with you
Do you want to dance?
I prefer English and Maths
Well, what would you like to do?
I would like to go to the moon
Come with me and have some fun
Indeed, children enjoy it a lot. I have a place in my house which is the kitchen...and I call it the audio studio. They really like it anytime I say Lets go to record at the Audio-studio!!!
Hajajaja you are a great with jazz chants Marina! I love it and the idea of the audio-studio! I´m going to look for a place at home and créate my own audio-studio!! Thank for the idea Marina!!
Eliminar