“Winter in America” on Day 1

Pre-, During, and Post-Listening Language Learning in the Context of Emergent Curriculum and Culturally Sustaining Andragogy

In my Advanced Listening and Note Taking class on Tuesday, our song of the day was “Winter in America” by Gil Scott Heron. None of the students were familiar with the song or the artist, but in the pre-, during (shout out to Dr. Jennifer Lacroix!), and post-listening activities, they engaged deeply with it. A student from Cameroon said, “This is about being Black in America and the injustices.” Another from the Ukraine said, “He is talking about democracy.”

Afterwards, we created a rotating schedule of students responsible for brining our warm up song of the day to class. “No rap, right?” a student from Vietnam asked. “Why not?” I replied. “It’s fast,” he said. “We can slow it down,” I answered — “look, YouTube let’s us drop it to 75% speed.” “A lotta slang,” he said. “Yeah, but isn’t it important for you to learn ‘slang’?” I asked. “Yes! I love rap!” he said.

“Can we only choose American music?” the student from Cameroon asked. “No!” I replied, “choose music from anywhere. It should just have between 1 and 100% of the lyrics in English. Maybe at least 50%, ‘cuz this is an English class, right?” “Very good,” he replied.

I can tell this is going to be a very special group.