Union Chants Echo in the English Zone

"Ain't no power like the power of the Union, Cuz the Power of the Union don't stop!  Say What? Ain't no power like the power of the People cuz the power of the People don't stop! Say What?"   The English Zone of TDTUniversity resounded with this US Union Chant yesterday, 30-11-15, when we met with students from our department: Labor Relations and Labor Unions, to work with them in an English Only environment.  The over-all concept is for students to be immersed for an hour and a half  for up to four times a week in the English language with an emphasis on vocabulary, correct speaking, and HAVING FUN DOING IT.  On the white board Hollis put up the words of the chant and then Leanna and Hollis taught the rhythm as it is chanted in the US.

As the poster at the entrance makes clear, this is a place of exploration and learning from each other as the work progresses. This means we also learn from the students about their reasons for attending university, why they have chosen labor relations and union work, and what they see as their careers.  We ask that the students work in groups for most of the time.  Working together to formulate and explain concepts or ideas.  Then, of course, we respond in English and get a conversation going that includes everyone.  The English Zone is available to students from all the departments on campus and when we are not meeting with students from our "faculty" (everyone in the LDandCD) we meet and talk with students from English, Business, Finance, the Sciences and so on.  Any one group working together during a time period may be a mixture of students from several disciplines.

 In this picture two students are presenting to the larger group around the table.  As an ice breaker we used the each one introduce one after dividing into groups of two.  In the English Zone there is only success and we like working with our student colleagues where there is no grading to worry about -- just using English and having fun.

At the end of our  session with our Labor Union/Labor Relations Students we taught them (they learned in a few seconds or maybe they already knew) our Union Clap performed at the end of union meetings.  We made some happy, solidarity racket for the EZ.

  

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