10 Ways to Use the JCDC Festival Songs to Practice Language and Literacy Skills

Independence Day has come and gone, but this year it’s left a parting gift — an album of 10 catchy, patriotic songs by a mix of veteran and emerging artists.

Thanks to the efforts of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) and the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sports, this year’s songs are more widely known — and frankly, better — than those of recent years past. The lineup boasts winner Buju Banton; veterans Toots Hibbert, Freddie McGregor and Papa Michigan; as well as Sakina Deer, Shuga, Nazzle Man, Xtra Bigg, Radix OB and the group LUST.

There’s been much discussion about the value of including established artists in the competition. What’s clear is that Minister Grange’s gamble brought the competition and the songs the eyes and ears they deserve. That’s a great thing for educators. I recently made a presentation on Building At-home Literacy Experiences the Caribbean Literacy Digital Forum hosted by the Jamaica Intensive Reading Clinic. I encouraged parents and teachers to incorporate the music their children listen to into literacy-building activities at home and at school. In contemporary Jamaican music, it can be tough to find songs that have the values parents and teachers might be comfortable espousing.

The JCDC songs are, for the most part, classroom friendly. All the songs are available online, with both official videos and versions that include the lyrics. They’re all Jamaica-themed with easy lyrics; well-suited for classroom singalongs. Your students are, most likely, familiar with them. And, they lend themselves well to fun, interactive literacy games.

Using music helps children build the listening skills that are critical to building and strengthening literacy. You can add songs to your ongoing reading session or use them on their own. There are literally dozens of activities you can develop for homework or in-class activity, solo or group work. As Adam Simpson, British Council Teaching English winner, explains here, how you use these activities depends on the age and reading level of your learners. Here are a few to get you started:

1. Treat them like new texts

Use the songs in the same way you’d use any new text or piece of assigned reading. Hand out a vocabulary list ahead of time so they can get comfortable with new words or have the students listen and write down new words. Have them trace or write the names of the singers or the songs. Practice writing or tracing the singers’ names and the song names. Adding the music gives you a great way to add spice to your usual vocabulary activities. Papa Michigan’s Jamaica Dance will get you moving in between vocab activities.

2. B is for Buju!

Challenge your younger listeners to find all the words in Buju Banton’s I’m a Jamaican that begin with the letter B. Birth, bop, boy, baker, breeze, blow, beautiful, bless, been, brave. You can have the class listen and write down all the words they hear. Students with lesser writing skills can simply write an x or move a counter every time they hear the sound b. Once they’ve got the list compiled you can add other vocabulary activities. (For example, which one of these words isn’t a noun?) You can repeat this activity with any initial or final letter or pair.

3. Sing-ng with Sakina

One of the challenges native Jamaican speakers have with English is the ng sound. We Are Jamaica is filled with many opportunities for practice. Strong, along, wrong, sing, song, looking — and Sakina’s signature pot cover sound: bang-balang-balang-balang. Don’t be afraid to discuss with students the fact that the song lyrics include both Standard English and Standard Jamaican English (SJE) or patois words as well as words that aren’t real words at all. It will help them to understand how language is constructed. You can do this with two groups and have the other group do Freddie’s song (strong, wrong, burning, rocking, skanking, keeping, belong, long, dung)

4. Rhyme time

Give the class a sheet with words from one of the songs and ask them to write down the rhyme for each word. For example, if you’re using Freddie McGregor’s Tun Up the Sound, your rhyme pairs would include: Know/grow; steep/deep; strong/wrong; dance/prance; know/show. You can choose whether you use the song on its own (to practise listening), or the video with the lyrics to practise reading. You can also ask your students what other words could have been used for each rhyme? Have them make up new lines for the song, using their new rhyme pairs.

5. Find the verb

Kick this one off with a reminder that a verb is an action word. You can ask your class to listen to a song and write down all the verbs they hear. Or, you can ask them to jump or dance or an action of their choosing every time they hear a verb. A great song for this activity is Nazzle Man’s Jamaica Nice. He crams more than 20 verbs into his three and a half minutes.

Challenge your students to find as many as they can. The list includes: love; do; put; jump; move; think; check; come; have; welcome; waa/want; know; mek/make; tek/take; cyan/can’t; seh/say; tan; meet; married; lef/leave; done. Most are in English. Some are in SJE. It’ll make for a good conversation about different parts of speech and the different ways verbs can be used in a sentence.

6. Read aloud

Whether they’re reading a story or singing lyrics; the opportunity to practice reading words out loud has the same benefits. The more often they do this, the more often they get to see a word they’re familiar with but might not be able to recognize in print. You can ask them to circle words or phrases that aren’t in Standard English. Have a conversation about how to express the same idea in English. Shuga’s One People is great for this.

For older students, you can use song lyrics to kickstart conversations on more controversial topics. You can use Radix OD’s The Place to Be to kickstart a conversation about topics like marijuana use and gender.

7. Translate to Standard English

Let’s face it. We live in a bilingual society. Some of our students need practice in code switching. Lust’s Wave Di Flag has short, simple sentences that lend themselves to translation practice. Have them practice the differences both in speaking and writing. Split the class in two: have half the class sing each verse, first as is, then the other half sing it in standard English.

8. Deconstruct it like a poem

My favourite for this is Xtra Bigg’s Jamaica a Paradise. Have the class discuss what arguments Xtra Bigg puts forward to back up his claim that Jamaica is paradise. Xtra Bigg’s description of Jamaica includes the beautiful line “Mother Nature live in concert.” What does that mean?

9. Map it

Give students a map of Jamaica and ask them to put a dot or shade in the parish whenever there’s a place mentioned. If you do this with Nazzle Man’s Jamaica Nice, you’ll end up with St Ann shaded (for Dunn’s River) and Kingston (for Port Royal, Rockfort, Ocean Mall downtown, Rae Town). Add Freddie McGregor’s Tun Up the Sound and you’ve also got St Thomas and Negril on the map.

10. Who said it?

Hand out worksheets with song lyrics and even signature hooks like Toots’ “Tam Ta Dam Ta Dam”; Radix’s “Aye hey aye” and Sakina’s “Bang balang balang”. Play the album and have the students match the line to the song. It’s fun and silly and a great way to practice both reading and listening skills.

All you need for these exercises is a bit of prep work, a wifi connection and a computer and projector in your classroom. And, most important, a willingness to have fun with it.

Remember to have your students come up with their own activities too. Share any new activities you come up with in the comments.