New Phat English Videos

 I finally had a chance to create a few demo videos for Phat English. Although originally, I wanted to do it with a group of students, due to the space constraints of the location I was filming in, (and the difficulty of securing a group of college age kids who actually know the song) the videos turned out to be a one on one treatment, but I was actually fine with that. I think they came out well. In both vids, we worked on the song, Decisions, Decisions.

The first video dealt with the first 4 lines of the song, and the second vid dealt with the next 4. This is generally how the lessons flow. Each song is broken up into 4 or 5 sections with each section consisting of 4 or 5 lines of lyrics. In doing it this way, students can can learn the songs bit by bit which is not only easier for them, it also gives the teacher a much longer run of material and a way to thread previous lessons together.

Now that the videos are completed, the next step will be seeing what I can do to create a regular video series, and also getting started on the ebook, with Apple's textbook publishing system.

At this point, it is really exciting to see how far Phat English has come along, and Im excited to see how things will continue to progress for it in the next year. Yosh!!

Teaching English with an iPad

Just published an article for gaijinpot detailing ways to teach English with an iPad. As Phat English is now available as an ebook and all the songs are on iTunes, it was also a great chance to discuss some of the different ways that Phat Egnlish can be used to teach as well. Thus far it`s been fairly well received. Feel free to check it out! Here's the link:

http://injapan.gaijinpot.com/2012/01/02/how-to-teach-english-with-an-ipad/

Gaijinpot Article

Just published an article for Gaijinpot.com (a website for foreigners living in Japan) putting forth a systematic methodology for how to teach English pronunciation. Naturally, as Phat English is the best way out there to do it, I had to include links to a few different exercises that teachers can get for free in there as well. Here's the link! Check it out! http://injapan.gaijinpot.com/2011/04/04/how-to-teach-english-pronunciation/#

Phat English on iTunes!

Phat English Listening CD1 has finally been accepted to be sold on iTunes. With that, and the fact that the Ebook is for sale as a digital copy through lulu, anyone can now have instant access to all that Phat English has to offer anywhere in the world.

This is particularly exciting for me as there has always been a demand for it as a product in Japan, but with the combined cost and delivery time associated with international shipping, getting it to customers has always been challenging.

Now Phat is ready to move forward full steam in Japan, and I look forward to seeing how well it can do.

On Self-Publishing...

Recently, I was contacted by Hall Houston, a University EFL teacher in Taiwan, and the author of Provoking Thought about doing a contribution to his blog about my experiences developing and self-publishing Phat English. I'm one of several authors who will be featured in the article, and he is writing it to contrast self-publishing with going through a major publisher, and the respective pros and cons of each. I'm also happy that he is giving me an opportunity to speak about Phat and hopefully continue to introduce it to people who haven't had a chance to see it and/or hear about it yet. Although I've already sent him my contribution, the it will be coming out sometime next month, and I'm really looking forward to reading the whole thing (in particular the experiences of other authors) then.

Phat Private

Was recently contacted about being the private instructor of a hip-hop dancer who is looking for a teacher to work with him privately. Was supposed to meet with him today, but he was unable to make it, so hopefully, I can meet with him soon. As he will be my 4th Phat English private student, and I've been actually teaching with it for 5 years anyway, I don't expect too many suprises when we are actually 'in the classroom'. At the same time however, as I've got all the tracks in both WAV and MP3 formats now, provided he has an MP3 player, he will be the first person to actually be able to carry them with him as he goes, and I'm interested to see if he dedicates time to learning and practicing the songs on his own, and if so, how that will affect his ability to integrate the pronunciation patterns he is learning from them into his usual speech.

This usually seems to take more time than students utilizing them on their own without prompts as they are singing the songs.

The MP3s are also nice because I can simply put it on my Ipod as well, so when I teach with it, we can practice the full listening/rapping exercises wherever we choose without necessarily making too much noise or having to bother anyone.

In general, working with him should be a fun and interesting experience, and as with each and every student, hopefully watching how he deals with Phat will give me insights into tweeking it into something even better.

Phat at Toin University

At present, I am working as an accredited English convesation instructor at Toin University Yokohama. Recently, I was given the green light to introduce Phat English as a part of their "English Challenge" (extra-curricular practice) curriculum.

Thus far, they seem to be enjoying it, and are getting it faster than I thought they would. This is encouraging because they are about as low as the students I worked with at ESP and Yokohama Design Gakuen, but without coming from the dance and vocal' majors as those students were.

These guys (and I do mean guys- there's very few women in the program I am working in), are almost exclusively athletes however, and insomuch as I've personally experienced, most high level athletes aren't exactly musically inclined. As such, I figure that if they can do it, and enjoy it, then anyone can. It's also interesting because I am doing the program with a myriad of other teachers from other backgrounds and it will be interesting to see how they interpret and use the text, exercises, and CD as well.

Phat at the BEA.

Recently, I was contacted by lulu, the self-publishing company through which I produce Phat, and they told me that Phat English was one of the books that they wanted to display on their bahalf at the BEA. (Book Expo America). As the BEA is pretty much, the biggest book show in North America, and lulu will have a large booth in a great location (right by the door) I was pretty excited about the prospect. It just goes to show just how far Phat has really come. I'm curious to see how it will be received, and given what I've heard so far, am expecting good things.

Essay 1: Why hip-hop music?

If someone were to ask me why I dedicated 6 years of my life to developing a way to use rap to teach English, I think some of the answers would be obvious: rap's global appeal to young people, it's use of a speaking voice instead of a singing voice, it's colorful and creative nature, it's history as a platform for storytelling, etc, the list goes on and on.

There are a multitude of other reasons however, that aren't so obvious, and those are the ones I would like to share with you in this blog. For one, as an African American myself, Phat English gave me the chance to both create and perpetuate a non-stereotypical image of an African American male through Phat's main character, "Trey" a college-educated fan of hip-hop who moves overseas to start his own business.

In addition to that, Phat's supporting cast, Nina, Brandon, and Kenta, allowed me to do the same thing with other American ethnic minorities, (who are also often stereotyped as having bad english) and more importantly, to not only respectfully portray their unique cultural backgrounds, but do so in such a way that shows that through it all, they are simply Americans.

Beyond my political Agenda however, there were also pedagogical reasons as to why I wanted to develop a way to use rap as a teaching platform.

The first of these is the fact that throughout the entirity of the human existance, music always has been (and probably always will be) the ultimate mnenomic device.

Put simply, if something needs to be remembered, the very best way to do it is to put it in a song. This is why we all know jingles like, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue", and "I before E, except after C" , why commercial songs tend to get 'stuck in our heads', and why at 29 years old, I can still sing the theme song to the 'Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' when I haven't actually seen the show in at least 10 years.

Further evidence of this was found in a study I recently read about that was conducted by cognitive psychologist, Dr. Daniel Levitin of the Laboratory for Music, Perception, Cognition, and Expertise. Dr. Levitin found that most people, when stopped at random on the street and asked to sing their favorite song, could hit the original tempo of the song within a 4% margin of error, and 2/3 could sing it within a semitone of the original pitch. (Which stands in sharp contrast with other memories which both distort and fade over time.)*

Why exactly this is might still be under debate, but as Dr. Levitin simply stated: "Music has got to be useful for survival, or we would have gotten rid of it years ago."*

As such, for myself, the question of using music to teach was never a question of why. It was more of a question of 'Why not?' and 'How?'

And rap, (which would allow me to set the beats at such a speed that I could perform the lyrics in a natural, easy to understand speech pattern) was my platform of choice.

Afterall... if it worked for Will Smith, it could work for me.

Iiiiiiiiiiiin West Philidelphia, born and raised!
On the playground, is where I spend most of my days...

*Source: New York Times, December 31, 2006- Music of the Hemispheres