More than one way to teach a class...

Yuck - today was one hell of a depressing day...it was raining, the sky was covered in dark clouds that made it so dark that the street lights never did switch off, it had been a long, long week at work, we had government inspectors in my department so everybody, including students, was stressed and HELL guys..on top of that it's January.

Great way to start off a 9am class, huh?

Anyway, about half an hour in the students were working on a task that I'd given them that required them to work in pairs in order to prepare some mini-presentations that they would deliver towards the end of class. They sat there and it was all I could do to make them engage with each other at all. I knew how they felt. I myself would rather have been in bed to be honest, which is very unusual for me as I usually teach with so much energy that I bounce off the walls. It was as though somebody were pumping anaesthetic into the room and we were all suffering from its effects.

I needed to find a way to inject some energy into all of us and the best way that I know of doing that is by listening to a bit of music. So..music it was. I went to the PC that is hooked upto the interactive whiteboard, went onto Youtube and soon I had a lovely bit of Queen pumping into the room. The students seemed a little bemused by the whole thing to start with but once I'd found the right volume level they settled down to their work and not only did they start to engage in their task but I could almost feel the energy flooding into the room. The realy nice thing was that a couple of the students asked me to play their favourite songs, so before long we had the likes Rhianna and Beyonce playing, and then a lovely thing happened. There were only two students in the class who I thought may not appreciate my attempts to liven up the room - one is a very mature student (she is in her 70s) and the other is a rather quiet lady from Iraq, who is usually pretty quiet and reserved. I needn't have worried though, as first my elderly student requested "She loves you" by the Beatles and then my Iraqui student asked me if I'd mind putting on a bit of J-Lo. Priceless.

Anyway, in all we listened to music for almost an hour and each and every student produced some outstanding work. Then some smart ass asked if we could dance a while too. I said that sure we could..as soon as they had all done their presentations. They said that they felt it would be MUCH better to have a little boogie before their presentations though so I went with the flow and told them that we could all have a little dance around as long as each person in the class agreed to join in and dance to my choice of music...oh and I said that they would have to try and copy some ot the moves on the video too...I'm sure that they thought I was joking, so they all agreed. Oh dear oh dear...they really should know me better.

That was it then..I played the song and projected the video onto the whiteboard (I hadn't done that while they were working..way too distracting), they all stood up and slowly but surely they all joined in. By the end, they were all relaxed, energised, laughing and COMPLETELY ready to do their presentations, which went exceptionally well and which all of the students said they had very much enjoyed presenting.

All lesson objectives were completely met (in fact they were exceeded) and I had seen some rather interesting and someshat bemusing 'moves' from my students..oh and they from me. My choice of song? That will be THIS!! :)