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Diamond Dave in class...
Well, I had already done it. I once used Dave's "Just a Gigolo" song and video for one last "lesson" not so long ago, but this time I reiterated the experience a different way, with different pupils (about to graduate, as you'd say in the US).
My purpose with these pupils - the greatest I've had in years - was to study a passage of Diamond's momentaneous memoirs, "Crazy From The Heat". I chose the last chapter, "Coda", and the singular Roth Three-Mile Bridge story (Dave choosing to run to the radio station's van instead of waiting for the bridge to get unjammed, and winding up jogging to the other end of the bridge to the sound of "Just Like Paradise" roaring out of every motorist's car, Dave "fiving" every single one of them before eventually reaching the van)...
So, what d'you think I did for a start? I played the intros of a few Dave /CVH videos, so that my pupils could know who the text was written by...
I played bits of "You Really Got Me", "Jump" (which they, French 17-18 year-olds, all knew!
), "Just A Gigolo", "California Girls", "Just Like Paradise" and "A Lil Ain't Enough" videos, and they were just... STARING at the screen as if they own lives depended on doing so! 
Then it was most easy for me to get them into the text and have them answer the questions I had made ready - and study the famous "wanna", "gotta", "gonna", "hafta", etc.
They were not only merely hypnotized by the vids, but also by Dave's tale, which is particularly outstanding.
I knew who I was proposing that to (a class that I will remember, made of the most cooperating pupils I've ever had, ones who have always tried to communicate in English as hard as they could, though they've specialized in sciences), so, as there had been some kind of osmosis between then and me, I was very optimistic as far as the response... and I was right.
At the end of the next course, a girl stayed a bit longer in my classroom to ask me about "the name of that band [they] had seen the week before... She thanked me for the whole stuff, the CVH video excerpts and Dave's tale, adding that that she'd have been delighted with dealing with that kind of documents throughout her scholarship...
She was obviously determined to dig further into CVH and Dave.
A girl of fine taste, for sure.
My purpose with these pupils - the greatest I've had in years - was to study a passage of Diamond's momentaneous memoirs, "Crazy From The Heat". I chose the last chapter, "Coda", and the singular Roth Three-Mile Bridge story (Dave choosing to run to the radio station's van instead of waiting for the bridge to get unjammed, and winding up jogging to the other end of the bridge to the sound of "Just Like Paradise" roaring out of every motorist's car, Dave "fiving" every single one of them before eventually reaching the van)...
So, what d'you think I did for a start? I played the intros of a few Dave /CVH videos, so that my pupils could know who the text was written by...
I played bits of "You Really Got Me", "Jump" (which they, French 17-18 year-olds, all knew!
), "Just A Gigolo", "California Girls", "Just Like Paradise" and "A Lil Ain't Enough" videos, and they were just... STARING at the screen as if they own lives depended on doing so! Then it was most easy for me to get them into the text and have them answer the questions I had made ready - and study the famous "wanna", "gotta", "gonna", "hafta", etc.
They were not only merely hypnotized by the vids, but also by Dave's tale, which is particularly outstanding.
I knew who I was proposing that to (a class that I will remember, made of the most cooperating pupils I've ever had, ones who have always tried to communicate in English as hard as they could, though they've specialized in sciences), so, as there had been some kind of osmosis between then and me, I was very optimistic as far as the response... and I was right.
At the end of the next course, a girl stayed a bit longer in my classroom to ask me about "the name of that band [they] had seen the week before... She thanked me for the whole stuff, the CVH video excerpts and Dave's tale, adding that that she'd have been delighted with dealing with that kind of documents throughout her scholarship...
She was obviously determined to dig further into CVH and Dave.
A girl of fine taste, for sure.
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