When I tell people I do a lot of chanting in my English lessons, they automatically assume I mean Jazz Chants (as of Caroline Graham, Jazz Chants). However, I would like to remove the word ‘Jazz’ as it implies that there is some kind of singing involved. I am not against singing, I enjoy singing and include a lot of singing in the classroom, so there is a definite place for singing in the classroom, and especially in the YL classroom. The objectives of a song are quite different to that of a chant. As soon as the voice is required for it to become a song, a significant portion of the class may be excluded. Not everybody enjoys singing, or indeed can sing. It requires more effort in terms of pitch and tone and being able to carry a melody as well as requiring more confidence to sing in public, which is what a classroom is. It is also more difficult for teachers to lead a song if they too are not confident singers. Finding a song which suits the pitch and voice range of both teacher and children can also be a problem, as can relying on recordings of one sort or another. When creating songs there is a tendency to make the words fit the tune, rather than the other way round, which means that often the stress patterns, intonation and indeed pronunciation in general, become distorted. Although not everyone can boast a good sense of rhythm, they are more likely to have a go at a chant if a tune is not involved.
Chants are different as they focus on the rhythmic expression and sounds of natural language. A chant should just be the exaggerated stress pattern and intonation of a simple phrase.
Can chanting help students feel the rhythm of English?
English is a stress-timed language rather than a syllable-timed language. This means the stressed syllables are said at approximately regular intervals and the unstressed syllables shorten to fit into the rhythm. This is why English has contractions and the most common vowel sound is the schwa. It also means that it is possible to fit in many unstressed syllables between each stressed syllable. A good example of this is the traditional poem, Three Blind Mice. The first line contains only 3 syllables and builds up to the penultimate line with 11 syllables.
Three Blind Mice (4/4)
Three blind mice (_).
Three blind mice (_).
See how they run (_).
See how they run (_).
They all ran after the farmer’s wife.
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife.
Have you ever seen such a thing in your life.
As three blind mice (_).
The ‘content’ words are usually given the main stress (shown in bold). This helps children identify and remember such words. Whilst the unstressed words are more ‘function’ words grammatically, and these maintain the rhythm. This is one of the reasons why English lends itself to Rapping.
Using these exaggerated patterns in class, not only leads to more natural speech, but helps learners remember target vocabulary.
The foundations of literacy are formed as familiarity of rhymes and chants increase an awareness of sounds, word patterns, rhythm and stress. ‘Poetry is easier to remember than prose because of the underlying ‘pulse’ which keeps going like a ticking clock’ (Lenneberg in Aitchison)
Can we define a chant?
- A chant is a series of short, easy to remember phrases which are repeated in a memorable fashion.
- The chant should have exaggerated stress, rhythm and intonation.
- The rhythm, stress and intonation patterns should resemble closely a native speaker in natural conversation.
Isn’t a chant a monotonous drawl?
Chants can easily become a nasal, monotonous drawl if the teacher lets it (think of school assemblies or church services). When it gets slow and predictable there is very little value to chanting. In order to stop this happening we first have to acknowledge why this happens (you cannot change what you don’t acknowledge).
- It is natural to drawl when there are large groups of people saying something together
- If the children are unsure about what they are supposed to be saying they start to mumble to hide the fact, which results in a drawl.
- Just like an orchestra there needs to be a ‘conductor’- often teachers forget to ‘count in’ the students. Train your students to react to your gestures.
- The energy in a chant can drain away (…but it can also accelerate and create more energy.)
- The focus becomes on ‘getting it grammatically correct’ rather than sounding natural in English. So the model sentence may tend to have even stress on each syllable such as ‘They-are-play-ing-foot-ball’ rather than They’re playing football.
- Teachers often lack confidence and comment, ‘I feel like I’m making a fool of myself’. This may be true, but the students need to see you doing it if they are going to be prepared to make a ‘fool’ of themselves too.
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