CHARACTERS - Hair

HAIR - Lyric analysis

This song shows us that people are the same regardless of social class, race, beliefs and nationality. We have the same rights and duties.

HAIR 1979 (analysis - George Berger)

Hair is an American film adapted of a Broadway musical in 1979. It was directed by Milo Forman and the story is about a Vietnam war draftee, Claude Bukowski (John Savage), who meets and befriends a tribe of hippies on his way to the army induction center in New York. The hippies led by George Berger (Treat Williams) introduce him to their lifestyle, beliefs and new ways of seeing the world.



This musical focuses on the lives of two young men in the Vietnam era against the backdrop of the hippie culture, the most influential counterculture movement already seen. The counterculture movement was characterized by the mobilization and social protest peacefully. It was an alternative culture focused mainly on the transformations of consciousness, values and behavior in search of other spaces and new channels of expression for individuals and small realities of everyday life. In this movement, the hippies were radically opposed cultural values considered important in society as work, patriotism, nationalism, social mobility and even the "aesthetic standard." So they had long hair and wore old clothes with a more libertarian spirit without worrying about people's views.
The great example of what was the counterculture movement is the character George Berger, the leader of the hippies in the film. George Berger is a young man who believes in love, loyalty and equality among all men. Following these principles, he left his home and his family to live according to his beliefs.
Early in the film, we observed how this character cares about other people, he always tries to help everybody and for him all people are friends. That's what we see at the time that George knows Claude, he tries to show him the absurdity of war and the importance of love and equality among people. After all we are all fellow, regardless of social class, ethnicity and beliefs. Berger never stopped believe in these ideals and by accident he goes to the Vietnam War in place of Claude, dying for something he did not believe - the war. The Vietnam War, the greatest shame of the U.S., with the intention to contain the spread of socialism killed thousands of people, leaving wounds unhealed to this day. Therefore the hippies were against this war, making several demonstrations/protests against the Vietnam War. In addition to the hippies, college students, intellectuals and radicals in general (as members of the black movement) were against this war. But the main factor that gave consistency to the Movement for Peace was the lack of a perspective of military victory and the growing number of U.S. casualties.


Sometimes at the film, the Treat’s character seems to be a person alienated from the world, without goals or prospects. However, through his sensitivity George shows his ideals of a better world, making us rethink some values of our society. Unfortunately some values related to proper way to dress and behave persist to this day, where the importance of the person is related to the amount of money s/he has.
Another feature of this movement appears in the film is the issue of drugs. The hippies believed in freedom, in this way, the drugs were a means of achieving freedom - opening mind. Thus we see repeatedly in the film the characters using drugs, a common practice for them.
Moreover, other issues in the film are the “free love” and women's liberation. So hippies – men and women - wanted sex without engagement. Any kind of commitment was seen as a kind of oppression, slavery, which limited the person to live his freedom. We realize this reality with the character Jeannie (Annie Golden), she was pregnant and she did not know who was the father of her child and apparently Jeannie did not care about that. For hippies it was not important, because they believed they were a real family without lies and deceit that characterized the family institution at the time.
The movie hair can hold us from beginning to end, through memorable scenes, such as when Berger and his friends invaded a party and sang on the dinner table, the film makes us rethink some values of our society where only the poor, weak and black are affected. As we see in the film, during the Vietnam War, only these people went to war, while the rich followed the news on television and newspapers. Thus, Berger and his friends try to show others this sad reality and through their music they preach equality and love for building a more just society.
Because of these complex issues, Hair has become one of the best films of recent times, it music and criticism of society at the time is still part of the context in which we live.



Source :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079261/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_%28film%29
http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/sixties/hippies.html
http://www.spiner.com.br/modules.php?file=article&name=News&sid=1262

With a little help from my friends - Joe Cocker (Linguistic Analysis)

Joe Cocker (born May 20, 1944) is a pop music singer.

He started his musical career in the city of his birth Sheffield, England in some minor bands at the age of 15: the first band was the Avengers (under the stage name Vance Arnold), then Big Blues (1963), and then The Grease Band (1966).

His first big hit was the song 'With a Little help from my Friends', a cover of the song by The Beatles, with guitar played by Jimmy Page. The same year he appeared at the Woodstock Music Festival.

Onstage, he often exhibited a physical intensity as he sang, and his unique stage presence was often spoofed by comedian John Belushi on Saturday Night Live, a famous American sitcom.

In the beginning of 1970s he had problems with drugs including alcohol that had a bad influence on his musical career. He managed, however, to make a comeback in the 1980s and 1990s with several massive chart hits like:

• Up where We Belong;
• You are So Beautiful;
• When The Night Comes;
• N'oubliez Jamais or Unchain my heart.

By: www.cocker.com/
http://letras.terra.com.br/joe-cocker/
http://www.lastfm.com.br/music/Joe+Cocker

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

ANALYSIS

In the first stanza, we see that the person of music is questioning someone ‘What would you do if I sang out of tune (doing something wrong or unusual)/Would you stand up and walk out on me’. This way, the person is talking to someone ‘Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song (he/she will tell something important)’.
So, the person begins to tell his story, he says he will face all the problems but for this he needs the help of his friends:
‘ohh baby I get by,
(by with a little help from my friends)
All i need is my buddies
(try with a little help from my friends)
I said I want to get high I will
(High with a little help from my friends)
Who-Ho-Hoo-yeah’
‘(Does it worry for you to be alone?)/ (Are you said because your on your own)/ (Do you need anybody)/ (Could it be anybody) ’ it seems the voice of another person (the person who is hearing the story).
We see in the entire lyric that the person of music is afraid of being alone –‘ (Are you said because your on your own)/I hope you Don't say it no more’ - he needs to have people that love him to continue forward ‘All I need is someone, who knows just where I'm going yeah/Somebody who knows quiet sure, baby’.
He tries to convince this other person that he can change and live well again.
Despite many exophoric references, this music has coherence / sense. This song talks about the importance of having friends, we need to have friends in good and bad times of our life. After all "no one is happy alone".
Because of exophoric elements we cannot know who are the people of the music (I / you), we also not identify what are the person's problems of the song (why he needs the help of friends?) could be problems with drugs, if we account the historical context, however, we do not have this answer.

Motivation in the classroom (Douglas Brown)

Image by http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/motivation/motivate.html



Motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) is a complicated topic, because there are many theories of how to motivate students, however these theories, in practice, are not always effective. We can say that "there are many questions to few answers”.
We as teachers have the daily challenge of finding ways to stimulate our students, in other words to motivate them. After all, there is not learning without motivation.



To make this possible, it is necessary dialogue between teachers and students. This way we will know what to do to captivate them. Thus we need to include in our planning what the students want to learn, so we are going to motivate them even more. Otherwise they lost their motivation over time.
As teachers, it is very important we know the theories that we are using in our classes . We have an obligation to know what we are doing -not just following the intuition.
Knowing these elements we will be contributing to the improvement of education!

Question 4 - Drive Theory by David Ausubel (Motivation - cognitive definitions)

Movie Review

By Daniele Guedes

Intrinsic Motivation in the Classroom (Douglas Brown)

In this class, we discussed about motivation in the classroom.

Motivation is the activation of goal-oriented behavior. It is the characteristic that is required in order to achieve anything in life. We can say that it is one of the elements that make up the intelligence (it’s difficult to have motivation and it’s difficult to learn without motivation).

We can divide the theories of motivation in two camps:

• Behavioristic paradigm – rewards and reinforcement, this motivation comes from outside of the performer (extrinsic motivation);
  
• Cognitive psychological viewpoints – explain motivation through deeper more unobservable phenomena , it comes from inside an individual rather than from any external or outside rewards (Intrinsic motivation);
  

Behavioristic Definitions

Stress the role of rewards (and punishments) in motivating behavior. In this camp, learners pursue goals in order to receive externally administered rewards.
As teacher we can’t always use the behavioristic definition with our students. Indeed this type of motivation won’t be effective all the time. We could not maintain this situation in which students just “learn” with a reward (and more motivation means bigger rewards - it’s impossible).

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Is-Motivation&id=945902

Integrative Communication

Hello everybody from Teresina!!!
Could you answer some of these questions about your English Course?

• What disciplines do you have?
• What is your favorite subject?
• What activities types do you have in your course?
• Are you already teaching?Do you like it?
• What is your plans for the future?

Thanks very much!
And send me your questions too.......

Dani

Methods

Last class, I presented the following terms:

Learning Strategy

Studying strategies, also called learner strategies, are ways of learning. Good learners use these strategies to make their learning more efficient.

I)(in language learning) a way in which a learner attempts to work out the meanings and uses of words, grammatical rules, and other aspects of a language, for example by the use o GENERALIZATON and INFERENCING.
In first Language learning, a child may not pay attention to grammatical words in a sentence, but in trying to understand a sentence may use the learning strategy that the first mentioned noun in a sentence refers to the person or thing performing an action. The child may then think that the sentence The boy was chased by the dog means the same thing as The boy chased the dog.

II) (in second language learning, studying, reading etc)intentional behavior thoughts that learners make use of during learning in order to better help them understand, learn or remember new information. These may include focusing on certain aspects of new information, analyzing and organizing information during learning to increase comprehension, evaluating learning when it is completed to see if further action is needed. Learning strategies may be applied to simple tasks such as learning a list of new words, or more complex tasks involving language comprehension and production. The effectiveness of second language learning is thought to be improved by teaching learners more effective learning strategies.
Learning strategies refer to methods that students use to learn. This ranges from techniques for improved memory to better studying or test-taking strategies. For example, the method of loci is a classic memory improvement technique; it involves making associations between facts to be remembered and particular locations. In order to remember something, you simply visualize places and the associated facts.
There are two main types of learning strategies, the first are strategies for planning how to learn, and secondly strategies for learning.
Recording yourself: record yourself speaking, either on your own, or with other people. Later you can review the recording, listen for problems such as saying "Um" too much, and research anything that you didn't know how to say.
Repetition: You can repeat a word out loud or silently to practice pronunciation. Be careful to listen to a model to make sure that you pronunciation is correct.

Comprehensible input

Hypothesis, developed by Stephen Krashen. This theory was originally called the Input Hypothesis.
Input language which contains linguistic items that are slightly beyond the learner’s present linguistic competence.
According to Krashen, we acquire language only when we receive comprehensible input (CI). This hypothesis claims that we move from i to i+1 by understanding input that contains i+1. In this equation, i represents previously acquired linguistic competence and extra-linguistic knowledge. Extra-linguistic knowledge includes our knowledge of the world and of the situation- that is, the context. The +1 represents new knowledge or language structures that we should be ready to acquire.
According to Krashen's theory of language acquisition, giving learners this kind of input helps them acquire language naturally, rather than learn it consciously.
Examples
The teacher selects a reading text for upper-intermediate level learners that is from a lower advanced level course book. Based on what the teacher knows about the learners, the teacher believes that this will give them 'comprehensible input' to help them acquire more language.
In the classroom
Trying to understand language slightly above their level encourages learners to use natural learning strategies such as guessing words from context and inferring meaning. As the example suggests, a teacher needs to know the level of the learners very well in order to select comprehensible input, and in a large class of mixed ability, different learners will need different texts.

By:
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/strategy.html
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/knowledge-wiki/comprehensible-input
http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/aljarf/Grad%20Students/Definitions%20of%20Spelling%20Terms.pdf

Basic deconstruction questions (class activity)

The Boxer (Simon and Garfunkel)

I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises.
All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest, hmmmm

When I left my home and my family, I's no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of the railway station, runnin' scared, laying low,
Seeking out the poorer quarters, where the ragged people go,
Looking for the places only they would know.

Li la li...

Asking only workman's wages, I come lookin' for a job,
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on from the whores on 7th Avenue.
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there.

La la la...

now the years are rolling by me, they are -[rockin evenly]-
i am older than i once was
and younger than i'll be that's not unusual.
no it isnt strange after changes upon changes we are more or less the same
after changes we are more or less the same

Li la li...


And I'm laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone,
goin' home
Where the New York City winters aren't bleedin' me, leadin' me,
goin' home.

In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him
'Til he cried out in his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains.


Li la li...

Characters:
Family

Strangers

Whores

Ragged people

1) Whose message is this? Who created or paid for it?Why?
This song is about a poor boy who wants to improve life in another country. He faced many difficulties but never gave up their dreams. He paid for it, because he was responsible for his actions, he believed in an illusion.

2) Who is the "target audience"? What are the clues (words, images, sounds, etc.)?
Poor boys who want to change their lives (to make money in another country). The clues are: poor boy, strangers, fighter, comfort etc.

3) What "tools of persuasion" are used?
Despite the failures, we must never give up.

4) What part of the story is not being told?
We do not know why he left home, how long he was away from home, where he worked etc.

5) About the chorus...
The chorus of the song remind us the word lie.