The teacher sings FOR the students while students are involved in a body percussion activity. Then, once students have heard the song a number of times, they begin to sing the song, firstly by singing just the ‘chorus’ – phrases 1 and 4 and then, over time the whole song. It’s active and engaging and scaffolded gradually over a number of lessons for the learning to unfold.
This is an active 7 step process to teach a new song suitable for the middle years – Years 5 – 8. It’s especially good for students coming into the classroom who have little music experience. The best process to learn a song is to listen to it sung over and over by the teacher as you are involved in an activity. Only once they’ve heard it many times, will they be ready to ‘catch’ the song and sing it independently. This is when students sing it FOR the teacher. The teacher does not need to support students any longer!
