Music to work to?
I like to have music in the background when I'm working but I get bored with the usuals. Anyone looked at the music offered for studying? Whale song, harp music, sea sounds - nope!Very familiar music from seventies and eighties is distracting because it keeps jerking my memory back, not good.
Boring music makes me sleepy - not good.
Lively music makes me restless, I want to jump up and dance. Not good.
Any suggestions before I just switch off? It's so QUIET if I do! And I'm studying at the moment, a bit boring but I have to concentrate.
Housework music is so easy - driving anthems, the louder the better
The huge advantage of choosing something I knew in the 70s and 80s is it wakes up my teenage brain (which is still fairly shiny and unused). Now if I can just get my inner teenager to settle down to some work ...
Comments (76)
Anything else would distract me, in either a good or a bad way
Bagpipe music worked once, but after 2 hours I had a headache for two days afterwards
Right now I am trying Demis Roussos. I am on the edge of tears. He was a pretty miserable man, wasn't he?
Bye Demis. Sunny sun-
Things like Bread have worked in the past. The Bee Gees? worth a try?
2. Jigsaw reading
Cut a long reading text into three or four sections and make each section into a separate handout.
Divide the class into small groups (one for each section of the text). Give the students in each group a copy of the same section of the text (so students in Group A read section A, students in Group B read section B, etc.).
Emphasise that later in the lesson students will have to report what they have read to students who have not read the same text.
Students read individually, highlighting important points, new vocabulary, etc.
Students then discuss what they have read with other students who have read the same text. The group agrees on the meaning of the text and makes notes to use when they report it to other students (again, it is important to emphasise that everyone will have to report to the others).
Re-group the class so that each new group consists of one student who has read each of the different sections.
The new groups tell each other about what they have read and work out the original order of the different sections.
This approach can also be used for different texts on the same topic, e.g. different newspaper reports of the same story. This is a useful way of providing texts of different levels of difficulty if you have a mixed-ability class.
You can also do jigsaw listenings using the same procedure.
Mozart, Wagner, etc. never boring
How about the Gypsy Kings?
For students, read bloggers?
Pat, music to cut wrists to? Seriously? I might as well switch on Leonard Cohen while I'm at it. But will try (cautiously) after Volare
But of course, everybody's music taste is different
Molly you are a GRADE A GENIUS you've just given me a song for future teaching. Gipsy Kings do A Mi Manera (Comme d'Habitude) - known to us very very well as My Way. Yes yes yes!
Seaworthy, ha ha, music to be patient to
If I could get away with it, I'd be listening to girly disco music all day.
a) I am working at home
b) I have a scarily cantankerous bulldog who reserves dumps in the shower for herself and would take you out
100%
IT WORKED. You guys are the best.
And got to see their graves too
When it is on shuffle, I sometimes see visitors looking at me when it goes from Bach to Eminem to Juan Luis Guerra
Not as eclectic as you, though, Molly. You roam far and wide!
Back when I was dating my chameleon he loved all my music. Every song I loved was his favourite too. I believed that, because of course they were all great songs, naturally. SOUL MATE ALERT.
Real life, I don't think a single person on earth likes everything, or even as much as half, on any other person's favourite list!
His own had good music only, so he shuffled off with that
And if he said he did, I would know that he was a liar, a kind one, but a liar!
youngnaive and I wanted to believe. It WAS fun, thinking I'd hit soulmate paydirt."Seriously? You really really like Frank Sinatra AND Adele? Oooh! Tom Jones? I don't like all of Tom Jones. You neither? WOW. Awesome!"
Every day I'm shuffling...