Grammar through Rock and Pop Music

Oral Listening

Keywords:
Culture, Discussion, Grammar, Listening, Speaking, Vocabulary, Music, Music Genre, Pop Music, Rock Music

Delivery – Fully Online (授業の実施形態: 完全オンライン)

Students will be asked to have their cameras on during live sessions.

Course Description

This course is a combination grammar, listening, and communication course suitable for students with a TOEFL Paper-Based Test score of up to 459, or for students who have successfully completed the Gateway English course.

Throughout this Grammar through Rock and Pop Music course, students will be exposed to and be given practice with various grammar points through cloze activities based on rock or pop music. Vocabulary related to rock and pop music and genres will also be looked at through the course. The grammar points will topics will be introduced through listening to rock or pop songs, and at the end of the course, from tasks developed by the students themselves. The course involves pair-work and small group group-work to complete tasks, exercises, and activities.

All or some of the homework for this course will be done online through Moodle. Students will require access to a computer and the internet.

Student Selection

This course is best suited for students who:

are comfortable taking instruction and participating in English
are happy to perform pair and group work
are looking to develop grammar and listening skills
enjoy rock and pop music

Instructions:

In addition to regular participation both in class and on-line, students must complete all assignments (and complete them in a timely manner) to pass the course.
Students must pay attention to this university’s attendance regulations in this class.
Some or all of the homework for this course will be online in Moodle, and or uploaded in digital format. Students enrolling in this course will require access to a computer or at least a smart phone, and the internet. On occasion, students may be required to bring a computer to class.
As 40% of the grade for this course comes from participation, students enrolling in this course will be required to actively participate in pair work and small-group discussion and be prepared to talk in class.

Feedback:

Feedback for this course will be provided by the instructor verbally during class, online through Moodle, or by e-mail. Homework will be checked and graded, and feedback given automatically through Moodle. The assignments will be graded manually by the teacher and feedback will be given through Moodle, by e-mail, or verbally. Periodic updates on each student's grade condition will be provided by the instructor.

Course Objectives

The primary objective of this course is to give students exposure to and practice with grammar points. To this, vocabulary regarding the rock and pop music, and well as grammar terms will be introduced and practiced. At the end of the course, students should feel more comfortable using the grammar forms introduced. Other objectives include:

broadening understanding of rock/pop genres
developing a comfortable affiliation with English

Attendance and Participation: 40%
Homework: 30%
Song Cloze Assignment and Presentation: 30%
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1	Session 1 (Thu. 1 Oct. ‘20) Course Introduction, Class Rules, and Moodle Enrollemtn Grammar through the Best of Rock and Pop from the 1950s – The Parts of Speech
2	Session 2 (Thu. 8 Oct. ‘20) Grammar through the Best of Rock and Pop from the 1960s – Articles
3	Session 3 (Thu. 15 Oct. ‘20) Grammar through the Best of Rock and Pop from the 1970s – Determiners
4	Session 4 (Sat. 17 Oct. ‘20) Grammar through the Best of Rock and Pop from the 1980s – Pronouns
5	Session 5 (Thu. 22 Oct. ‘20) Grammar through the Best of Rock and Pop from the 1990s – Prepositions
6	Session 6 (Thu. 29 Oct. ‘20) Grammar through the Best of Rock and Pop from the 2000s – Conjunctions
7	Session 7 (Thu. 5 Nov. ‘20) Grammar through the Best of Rock and Pop from the 2010s – Adjectives Song Cloze Assignments due
8	Session 8 (Thu. 12 Nov. ‘20) Grammar through the Teacher’s Best Songs – Adverbs
9	Session 9 (Thu. 19 Nov. ‘20) Grammar through the Student’s Best Songs – 1 Homework 1
10	Session 10 (Thu. 26 Nov. ‘20) Grammar through the Student’s Best Songs – 2 Homework 2
11	Session 11 (Sat. 28 Nov. ‘20) Grammar through the Students’ Best Songs – 3 Homework 3
12	Session 12 (Thu. 3 Dec. ‘20) Grammar through the Students’ Best Songs – 4 Homework 4
13	Session 13 (Thu. 10 Dec. ‘20) Grammar through the Students’ Best Songs – 5 Homework 5
14	Session 14 (Thu. 17 Dec. ‘20) Grammar through the Students’ Best Songs – 6
15	Online Session - Assignment (Due by 14:30 on Thursday, 17 December 2020) Create a Grammar Worksheet

Grammar is usually considered to be a very dry subject, but I plan to spice it up by developing understanding of the grammar point through listening to some good rock/pop songs. On top of this, there will be discussion about genres of rock and pop music, comprehensive look at cloze, and then developing your own cloze activity. I am sure you will find it interesting.