STORYTELLING AND MUSIC. PART 2. «HELP ALICE!»

CREATIVE STORYTELLING AND MUSIC PART 2.

The Beatles and Alice in Wonderland.

In the previous post related to the creative use of stories and music, we borrowed the wonderful music in “Stand by me” to sing the story of Alice in Wonderland with young FL students. Similarly, we highlighted that using both stories and music brings about the benefits of two essential resources in FLT simultaneously.

In this case, we present a similar proposal with older children who worked on writing the story of Alice in the musical context of “Help”, by The Beatles. Obvious as it may seem, the methodological strategies to develop a complex task with these ages imply a more active role on the part of children. One way to ensure motivation and engagement goes through giving them a “guided autonomy” to make them feel real and purposeful use of English.

Similarly, the relevance given to the children´s product shall directly cause an impact on their willingness to continue investigating and practising with the language. In this light, sharing their performances in a digital learning community is very likely to be one of the shortest paths to favour parental involvement and instil a sense of achievement.

Dörnyei (2001) identifies three indispensable conditions to arouse and maintain motivation amongst children: appropriate teacher behaviours and a good relationship with the students; a pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere; and a cohesive learner group with appropriate group norms. In our view, linking stories and music to come up with a new educational product is a prime example of integrated task which fosters the development of several key competences at the same time.

In this kind of elaborated projects, children are expected to mobilise their intelligences and cooperate towards a common goal. The story of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol shall be our contextualising element to generate a series of tasks that eventually will lead to round off this unit with a version of “Help” in which Alice is the main character.

We hope you enjoy this second post on music and stories.

Dörnyei. Z., & Kubanyiova, M. (2014). Motivating students, motivating teachers: Building vision in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

NEW LYRICS MODEL:

HELP. (Alice´s versión)

Help, Alice is her name; help, listen to her story; help, you will feel amazed…help

One day this little girl is sitting under a tree

and before getting bored, a white rabbit she sees;

She gets into a rabbit´s hole, and her adventure starts

so listen to her story, it will touch your heart.

 

When Alice eats a cake she grows more than a tree;

and when she drinks she gets smaller than a pea.

But every now and then she finds herself in trouble,

and every problem seems bigger than the double.

 

Help me, help me Alice cries so loud

‘cause she feels she´s floating up high on a cloud,

wake up, wake up Alice don´t you cry

and you´ll see a calming blue sky.

 

The caterpillar sometimes is a little rude,

and Alice listens, but she´s not in the mood.

The Queen of Hearts wants to condemn the Cat,

but then it vanishes, as if it was a bat.

 

Then Alice is invited to a mad tea party,

she doesn´t like and leaves, because she is so smarty.

And finally she feels like going home,

her dream is over, like a bubble made of foam.

 

Help me, help me Alice cries so loud

‘cause she feels she´s floating up high on a cloud

wake up, wake Alice don´t you cry

and you´ll see a calming blue sky…blue sky, blue sky yeah.

 

Find the real recording we did at school at:

http://aliciaenmicole.blogspot.com.es/