USE OF SONGS IN TEACHING

In our previous class, we learned about the usage of songs in teaching short stories. The short stories we had got were The Bridge and the Ghost. Before, we read the stories, we had to watch two video clips entitled It Coming Back to me Now and My Heart will go on by Celine Dion. The purpose was to make better understanding when we read the short stories.

A unique thing about this lesson, we had been given freedom to insert the song in any parts of the story that we found suitable. I liked it because I learned to be more particular when reading. I started to look on details so that I won’t put the song at wrong place. Finally, I chose part where she tried to commit suicide to insert song My Heart Will Go On and part where her boyfriend saw ghost ‘It Coming Back To Me Now’. I found out many of my friends put the same too. Haha, what a coincidence!

I think the lesson would be beneficial to be done in classroom. I am sure students will love to listen and watch video. A stress free learning environment should exist so that student can get interested to learn. However, make sure the songs are familiar so that, they can feel the attachment during the lesson. So far, I have no comments about Dr Jaya’s class. He is very creative teacher and I do learn a lot from his teaching’s activities. Hope to be like him in the future. A great teacher should learn from great teacher too!

EVERY SONGS TELL STORY

You can get the lyric here :
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/michaeljackson/blackorwhite.html.

Yeah, a good song must have purpose. My group choose a song by Michael Jackson entitled Black or White.

We decided to choose this song because the message was clear. The song was about discrimination happened in America. As we know, America was a country that applied slavery long time ago. The status of black people and white people were far different because white people were seen superior. White people had more rights and they oppressed black people in every aspect such as in education, job, lifestyle, law and many more. That was why we felt this song appropriate to be learned in classroom. Students will be exposed to world’s history. Furthermore the video was interesting and had many examples of discriminations happened during that time. I loved the part where two babies, black baby and white baby sat together on the globe. It was very significant and I think it symbolized hope and peace Michael Jackson wanted to portray in his song.

Beside that, I enjoyed my classmates’ presentation on their selected songs especially Kiram’s group. They choose a song ‘Wind of Change’ by Scorpian. I would say a very good selection of song. The melody was so nice and I got to know that the song was dedicated to Germany. Very magnificient. Well done to all my classmates. After all I liked the activity and it was such an awakening to know that every songs tell a story.

SPEECHES BY ADOLF HITLER AND WINSTON CHURCHILL

Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill were two prominent figures in world’s history. Adolf Hitler was a great leader in Germany, he led Nazi during world war two against other Europe countries such as Britain, United States and France. Britain during that time was under Winston Churchill’s power whereby many decisions were under his rule. Both characters hated each other and they cultivated the same feeling towards their citizens.

Like the character of the Major in the animal farm, these two figures shared the same language when they delivered speech. From my classmates’ presentation in front f class, I noticed that they actually aimed for same expectation; they wanted loyal followers to fulfill their dreams. Although in the speeches they brought the issue of patriotism to raise human spirit, the truth was, Hitler and Churchill used their citizen in order to make Britain or Germany ruled the worlds. I perceive them as selfish leaders. They neglected the importance of peace to spread power, and permitted war and created destruction just to make their dreams came true. I amazed with the similarities because I never expect it will be same. Now I realize that every piece of works could tell us story behind them. Interesting topic to learn!