It's been a while since I last posted something and what came to my mind this morning was that it would be really useful for you if I wrote something more about rhythmical clapping.
What follows is actually a Music lesson, yet as "One Two Red Balloon - Let's play music and learn English!" attempts to combine the subject of English with the subject of Music, I think that anyone interested in using it, should familiarise themselves with the basics of Music theory and particularly speaking, with RHYTHM!
To begin with, let's have a look at the table below that is an introduction to rhythm.
As you can see, there are some terms like whole note, half note, quarter note and eighth note. These terms are actually called music values. What a music value expresses is duration, that is to say, how long a sound should last.
A whole note is equal to four beats. In other words, we clap our hands once and we say ta-ah-ah-ah.
A half note is equal to two beats. In other words, we clap our hands once and we say ta-ah.
A quarter note is equal to one beat. So, every time we have a quarter note we clap our hands, one clap for each quarter note and we say ta.
An eighth note is equal to one half of a beat, ti. In other words, two eighth notes are equal to one beat or a quarter note. So, when we have a pair of eighth notes, we clap our hands for each eighth note and say ti-ti. Eighth notes are faster than quarter notes! Imagine that when we have quarter notes we walk, whereas when we have eighth notes we run!
Now, how can all this information help us when teaching pre-schoolers English? Of course, you shouldn't burden yourselves with the terms, but you should definitely be able to practise rhythmical patterns when it comes to introducing new words by means of rhythmical clapping.
For example, let's have a look at the lyrics of the song "One Two Red Balloon"
One, two, red, balloon,
three, four, white horse,
five, six, yellow ship,
seven, eight, blue train,
nine ten, grey hen!
The first thing you should keep in mind is that rhythmical clapping does actually follow the number of syllables each word has.
For example, in the lyrics above there are one-syllable words like one, two, red, three, four, horse, six, ship, blue, ten and hen. In order to clap these one-syllable words and drill them with the Ss we can either use quarter notes (ta) or half notes (ta-ah). I prefer half notes because they are slower and longer and hence, the words can be articulated much more clearly.
Apart from one-syllable words, there are also two-syllable words like balloon, white, five, yellow, seven, eight, train, nine and grey. In this case, we will clap one quarter note (ta) for every syllable and consequently, two quarter notes for every word. Of course, there will be differences in terms of word stress but this shouldn't worry you.
Now, let's have a look at how the One Two Red Balloon song would be performed with rhythmical clapping.
ta-ah, ta-ah, ta ta ta-ah
ta-ah, ta-ah, ta ta ta-ah
ta ta ta-ah, ta ta ta-ah
ta ta ta ta, ta-ah ta ta
ta ta ta-ah, ta ta ta-ah
or for music economy and expression reasons,
ta-ah, ta-ah, ta ta ta-ah
ta-ah, ta-ah, ta ta ta-ah
ta-ah, ta-ah, ta ta ta-ah
ta ta ta-ah, ta-ah ta-ah
ta ta ta-ah, ta ta ta-ah
You can practise rhythmical clapping further with the rest songs of "One Two Red Balloon - Let's play music and learn English!" but also with any song you like!
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