MC Hammer school of English (video)
Daryl Caesar, an ESL EFL teacher in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, shot this adorable video of children learning to speak and spell in English using the time-honored "Hammer Time" method. Video Link to their on-stage performance, and here's another clip of the kids practicing in the clasroom: Video Link. (via Souris' tweetstream)
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I was hoping parachute pants would be involved. Who remembers MC Hammer pants?
Hilarious stuff.
time honored, indeed. When my father visited Germany in the early nineties, he found a surprising number of english speaking germans who could perfectly recite the lyrics to "rapper's delight," because it was something they had to learn in English class.
Sorry to nitpick, but if he's teaching in Taiwan, he is an EFL teacher, not ESL.
ESL = English as a Second Language, e.g. Mexican kids in US schools. They are learning English in the context of a society that speaks it. They are expecting and expected to use it every day, but it is not their first language.
EFL = English as a Foreign Language, e.g. Taiwanese kids. They are learning English wholly as a foreign language, to be used later, if at all. They have no day-to-day contact with the target language save the English class.
It may seem like a trivial difference, but in terms of language acquisition, it is an entirely different ball game.
This is a very creative way to learn English.
The kids in the video seem to have fun learning in this very unusual way. Good to see education being so successful with MC Hammer.
Anyway, the song is very easy to learn :-).
Yours Sincerely.
I teach a lot of young kids, and this musical performance really looks like an awesome component to get kids learning English. I especially like how one kid is belting out "can't touch this!" above the entire group!
So very cute. Whatever theories float around, one thing that never changes is that (most) kids love to sing and dance, and that making English class fun with these kinds of things helps immensely. Suddenly English class isn't about obsessing over potentially embarrassing grammar mistakes, it's (at least sometimes) about rocking out.