2nd Lesson - 16th April

Benedict here, I'll be posting for this lesson.

This post will be rather... long, but I feel that it fulfils our "research requirements" - from the report part, anyway. Detailed data logs, you know...

As a random piece of trivia, this post is 2,062 words long (including this line).

We loaned a tablet PC from RI's Aesthetics dept. for its capability to let us annotate, and probably will be doing so for the upcoming weeks as well. It was signed out by Benjamin, but is currently relaxing in my room. I'll be bringing it back Monday recess.

Attendance - Wen Ye wasn't here today, other than that the rest of us were present. Benjamin and I arrived at Grace Orchard at about 2.20 to set up everything first. Isaac came at about 3.

Ah yes, I almost forgot to mention - Isaac and Benjamin took over Wen Ye's teaching job for today.

We began by reacquainting the students with our team members (refer to slide "we're back~ ! who's who?"). They were able to identify us each by name, which was good. Following which, we went on to warm-ups.

For this post, I'll be listing each activity as we carried it out - well, in chronological order. Since that's pretty much how I've taken notes. There were 14 activities today. I'll start off with the warm-ups section, followed by the main lesson. The format will be arranged as follows - main points and sub-points, followed by elaboration (much like that of movesets on the smogon.com forums, for those who know)

1) Breathing Exercises
- Snake Hissing
- Candle Blowing
- Dog Panting

Overall, these activites were well carried out. Our new teacher(s) did a very good job, despite being generally less well-prepared, I suppose? Our choristers actually remembered each warm-up from our previous lessons. Whether this was due to the warmups being frequently used, or to their own memory - it's quite hard to be sure at this point in time. The transition between each exercise was good, except that a few people had problems changing (hissing when they're supposed to be blowing candles?)

2) Ma Me Mi Mo Mu
- Varied pitch
- Volunteering
- Pitching problems
- Timing

Okay, this was our second warmup. We began by calling for volunteers, and there were actually students who took the initiative. Not bad at all. However, when we started to vary the pitch (from middle C to about A, then back down), they were unable to hit the same note five times in a row (as required by the warmup). Their pitch went off a couple of times, which we tried to correct. Weren't very successful.

3) Solfege
- Revision - Sol Doh Mi
- Improvements
- Competition/Confidence training
- Involvement

We began by revising what we did last week, with the hand　signs and all. Again, we called for volunteers, with a positive response. The choir had a rather big improvement, compared to last week - when they were just learning the ropes. After our teaching, we asked them - which sign is which sign? - and I suppose it turned out ok.

Then, we had that little competition thing. Call a representative from each bench to the front, and such. We got the people sitting down to join the representatives as well, as a form of getting them to be more used to the signs. This also boosted the representatives' confidence, as it involved going up in front of the class and doing things. We clapped even though they could have been much better - but this is also part of encouraging them to want to improve.

I feel that putting this right after #1 Breathing Exercises might work - we can teach them that #2 Ma Me Mi Mo Mu is actually the same note - this might help them to pitch better. Comments anyone?

4) Our little game
- Jump 10 times
- Jump & Clap

(16th April slides - time to loosen up!)

This was slotted in between Solfege and #5, Hello, How Are You. It was actually to let the students loosen up a bit, as Solfege was rather dry, with just us teaching and them following. No offense intended anywhere. So, we made the students jump 10 times, repeatedly - followed by the jumping and clapping activity. It helps the students to focus more, I think. The activity served its purpose in the end, so all's well.

5) Hello, How Are You?
- Line-by-line
- Volume decreasing
- Mixing of lines
- Question-and-response (benches)
- Singing "happily"

We did this song line by line. Which isn't saying much, as there are only two lines to this rather short "song"... Referenced to Solfege here as well. Then, we got them to face each other by benches, as last week. Then, we switched their roles (ie. first bench sang reply). After a while, they started mixing up their lines (blue bench sang yellow benchs' line). Well, they started to sing a little more 'sadly' as well - lack of enthusiasm, boredom perhaps. "We must sing happily!".

6) Laughing is Contagious
- Memory
- Tempo Increase
- Pitch Variation

Well, perhaps it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that our choir was able to remember all the lyrics of this - we, after all, have done it quite a few times. Still, this is something worth mentioning...

We changed the tempo, making them sing faster and faster. They were able to keep in time, for most of it... until we reached a certain point, then it was observable that most of them could not keep up with the pace. I think we'll have to work on this and try to increase their maximum speed.

Ah, and the pitch variation. Since this warmup of sorts actually has a 5-note range, which is rather large compared to our other warmups, we might try to get our students to sing higher. As in, in different keys - this may also help them with the concept that solfege is actually relative pitch.

7) [New!] Volume Control
- Imitation
- Volunteering
- Encouragement

Here, we (extensively) made use of the tablet's annotation capabilities. Drawing curves and everything (reference: pitch cards) we *tried* to get the choir to vary their volumes. This wasn't really very successful, but it's acceptable as it's just out first try. Improvements can be made on this in future lessons.

Like the previous activities, we called for volunteers again. This is a good way to bring out some of the quieter students in our class, I suppose. It's also good that we had different volunteers most of the time. Encouragement is needed to push our students further...

8) Break Time

Nothing much to be said here, everyone went to fill their water bottles and the like. The classroom was unusually empty today, though.

9) Recap - Volume Control
- De/crescendo
- If you did it before...?

We found it useful to do a recap on what we taught before the break. Softer then louder, louder then softer - we used the tablet again to draw those curves again. When a few members weren't able to follow, Benjamin encouraged them by saying, "Let's try again. If you did it before..." - which I suppose, was good. After a while they caught up.

10) Grace Orchard: Volume Control
- Volunteering
- Application

Much like the previous activities, we called for volunteers. What is rather strange is that it's different students volunteering each time - it would be expected that the same few students would dominate the class. However, it's not that this is a bad thing...

We applied the volume control thing here again, writing lyrics and then writing the de/cresc signs above them. I think this went quite well, the students were able to follow us. Meaning, teaching pace was OK.

11) Pitching Activity
- Repeated curves

This is perhaps where we have room for improvement - like Ms. Phoon mentioned, if we first used the curve-thingies to teach the students volume control, they'd get confused if we re-used them for pitch. Perhaps we can look into using different colors for annotation (isn't really much of an issue, as we have the tablet with us).

Other than that... the students generally understood after a while.

12) Bugles' Calling
- Revision of words
- Volunteering (again)
- Solfege application
- "We'll do the first line."

We begun revising the words. Bugles' Calling is relatively new compared to things like Laughing Is Contagious, but the students were still able to remember the lyrics. That's a good sign, isn't it? The volunteering thing was repeated, and I think it has produced quite good results. Since it's pretty much different people volunteering anyway.

Applied solfege to this song, since it's rather simple and covers only 3 different notes. The choir followed us rather well here as well. Following which, we tried to get them to sing line-by-line, but resulted in them singing the whole thing. Singing the whole thing well. This is a big improvement from last week.

15) Grace Orchard
- Marking de/cresc, difficult words
- Repeat words 5 times, defined
- Revision of most difficult line
- Blacking out lyrics
- Volume control, emphasis

Our final activity, the school song. We started off by marking out the changes in volume throughout the song, using the de/cresc signs we used in the Volume Control section. Then, we revised the 'difficult words' - humility, integrity, and another one which I can't recall. We said them five times each (slowly) to help the students with their timing, I suppose... then we defined them, hopefully to give the students a greater impression of the words. We then revised the most difficult line to sing (a person of integrity, ---). They did this very well.

Next, we started to black out lyrics using the tablet's annotation thingy. They could still sing the song fluently, with no detectable pauses or confusion. This was really good. We wound up blanking out the whole song, but they were still able to sing it. Whether this was due to our teachers singing along and guiding them, or their own memory - this, we should be testing next lesson.

14) Rounding Up

We briefly ran through the whole lesson again, going through everything. This served as more of a refresher course for the earlier part of the lesson, which the students may have forgotten already. Saying our goodbyes, we dismissed them at about 5, in time for their assembly.

Now that the data log is done, let's move on to implications/learning points.

Generally, the students' performance today was very good. They're willing to learn and everything, so I think that we won't really have that much of a problem teaching them. Perhaps, what would have taken them a month to learn before would take only three weeks now?

Another point I'd like to note is our lesson order - we could move Grace Orchard's volume control part to the end with the whole song itself. Teaching them the volume for just two words, Grace and Orchard, might actually disrupt the flow of the lesson. If we took that and put it at the end, then it'd flow from our recap on volume control to Pitch Variation.

Ah yes, and volunteering. We noted that many of them were actually eager to volunteer today. This is a good sign, as they're actually building up their self-confidence through this as well. We might have to actually call on the quieter students as well, as they may not be as enthusiastic (for the lack of a better word) as compared to the other students.

And as mentioned above, the thing about using two different symbols for pitch/volume variation. Perhaps, different coloring might work. We'll have to experiment with that, though. I feel it'll help the students grasp things better - "oh, the teacher's using blue now, that indicates pitch!" - and will also make our lives simpler.

It would seem that their memories are actually quite good, as they've exhibited multiple times this lesson. As mentioned previously, this might help us achieve our goals faster - the faster we teach them the songs, the more we can do revision and stuff.

Well, that's all for this lesson - sorry for the *rather* long read.