February 17, 2025 • 43 mins
Ready to transform your language classroom with the power of music? Discover how Roxxem, an innovative platform co-founded by Shawn Lee, is changing the game for language educators. By turning popular songs into engaging lessons, Roxxem offers flexible resources that enhance student participation, improve listening skills, and deepen cultural understanding. From complete lesson plans to quick activities that energize the classroom, Shawn shares how these music-infused tools make language learning memorable and culturally enriching.
Sign up for Roxxem for FREE here* (affiliate link)
Ever wondered how a song could ignite a lifelong passion for languages? Tune in to learn about the incredible impact of music in Spanish classes, as we share personal stories of cultural curiosity sparked by the hits like Manu Chao's "Me Gustas Tu." Music doesn't just teach vocabulary; it connects students to a world beyond the textbook, encouraging them to explore and embrace new cultures. With Roxxem’s vast array of resources, educators can seamlessly integrate music into their curriculum, providing students with an unforgettable learning journey and genuine cultural connections.
Explore the transformative potential of Roxxem's platform, featuring customizable tools like Whack-A-Word and Lyric Puzzle. Shawn guides us through the platform's robust search function, which helps educators find the perfect song for their classroom needs. From beginner to advanced learners, Roxxem offers comprehensive resources that save teachers hours of planning, ensuring that music becomes a central, dynamic part of language education.
Join us as we celebrate the fusion of music and teaching, and discover an exciting upcoming music challenge collaboration designed to take language learning to the next level!
*affiliate means that I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you choose to upgrade to premium. Thanks for helping to support the show!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up?
Que lo que Et salut worldlanguage teachers.
Welcome to the PracticalProficiency Podcast, where we
make the transition toproficiency-oriented instruction
in your world language class ina way that works for you, your
unique context and teachingstyle, and doesn't sacrifice
(00:21):
your well-being along the way.
I'm your host, devon Gunning,the teacher author, conference
host, curriculum creator andconsultant behind La Libre
Language Learning.
This podcast is for thecreative world language teacher
like you who's ready to ditchthe overwhelming pressure of
switching to acquisition-driveninstruction and CI overnight.
(00:42):
You're ready to discover howusing more target language in
class can actually bring you andyour students more joy instead
of adding to your plate.
With practical, authentic anddown-to-earth strategies that
don't require reinventing thewheel or more training, we'll
work together towards the magicof a community-based,
(01:04):
target-language-rich classroom,rooted in the power of community
and comprehensible input.
Let's go of the PracticalProficiency Podcast in video or
in your beautiful ears.
(01:26):
I'm so happy to have with mehere today.
Sean, the co-founder of Roxum,is here to talk to us today
about the importance of usingmusic in the classroom and some
ideas to make it easier for usas world language teachers today
, sean, this is so exciting.
We love using music and I can'twait to hear your ideas on this
(01:48):
.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Can you tell us a little bitabout you and how you came to be
a part of this whole Roxhamamazing music experience?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, absolutely Devin.
Thank you so much for having meand for the teachers who are
out there listening.
Thanks so much for tuning in,really excited to share my story
and a little bit about thecompany that I'm building.
My name is Sean.
I'm a co-founder of Roxum andwe're building at Roxum an app
that really allows languageteachers to teach with popular
music their students' favoritesongs or your favorite songs and
(02:22):
other catchy tunes as well.
You know, our goal is really tomake life easier for you guys,
and you can turn any song into afun lesson, a live activity, so
that your classes are moreeffective, more engaging for
your students and easier interms of the effort and the
preparation that's required onyour end.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
All right, triple threat.
That's so exciting.
So, with Roxham is blowing upthe scene, this is really
exciting to see all the worldlanguage teachers that are
starting to use it.
So tell me a little bit moreabout how do teachers use this
in world language.
What does this look like?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, and we've been so grateful for all the support
from teachers.
We'll get into some of ourbackground and story in just a
second, but you know we've beenbuilt by teachers and so just
grateful for the tens ofthousands of teachers that have
been on Roxam and, yeah, we'regrowing very rapidly.
But over those thousands ofteachers, they really use Roxam
(03:20):
in different ways, so it'sreally a choose your own
adventure.
We have folks who use entirelesson plans, like you hear
about Musica Miracoles and youknow where teachers really deep
dive into a song or artist foran entire class period.
We also have ways for teachersto just use fun, small, engaging
mini activities 5, 10, 15minutes in class for them to
(03:44):
start class in a really exciting, engaging manner and also to
have students to make sure thatthey arrive on time because, hey
, who wants to miss out on a fungame to start class or just a
way to end class?
You know we often hear teacherssaying like, yeah, you know I
teach a bunch of middleschoolers.
They're always waiting on thelunch bell, but every time we
(04:05):
play a rock, some game or a songlesson they don't need.
You know the bell rings andthey don't even hear it and they
just continue playing.
And so fun ways to start andend the class and then last,
also just things that you canassign homework, classwork,
assignments where students areactually learning song lessons
and that they're actuallyexcited to do so.
(04:26):
All kinds of ways to reallyintegrate into your classroom in
a really effortless way andwe're trying to focus on this
experience of four teachersreally in a seamless, practical
manner, being able to have classbe more engaging, more exciting
and increase learning forstudents.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Oh, that's like literally.
It's so perfect.
This is music to my ears tohear that moment that every
teacher is looking for.
Of like, my kids don't evenknow that the bell rang and they
want to hang out and play moremusic and, like for world
language.
Music is such a key part ofwhat we do.
That's so cool.
So I'm curious to hear how didRoxum get started with this
(05:08):
mission?
Like what motivated you to be apart of this tool?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I appreciate you asking, devin.
So my co-founder, my colleagueHugo Schoen, started Roxum about
two years ago.
He was a classroom languageteacher for over 10 years and he
incorporated a lot of musicinto his own classrooms day to
day.
(05:33):
I think there's a lot ofscience behind why teachers love
music for retention, recall.
Music is repetitive, it'scatchy, there's earworms,
there's repetitive choruses.
Beyond that, it's great forlistening and pronunciation,
it's cultural and then it's justplain fun for students.
And so Hugo really realizedthis and incorporated a lot of
(05:54):
music into his class.
But what he found was that it'sreally hard to do Everything
from choosing the right songthat aligns with what you're
teaching, making activities,printing worksheets, creating
clothes activities, and thenwith new songs coming up every
year and students requestingdifferent songs, it's really
hard to catch up and really beable to tailor each of those
(06:18):
activities to your learning.
I think one I spoke with ateacher recently and she
recently talked about yeah,before Roxam, I had to print out
these lyrics.
You know, cut out the missingwords, have students.
You know, place the missingchunks of paper into the.
You know the line that'smissing.
And she just said yeah, youguys, you know what you're doing
(06:41):
saves us so much time and Idon't even have to think about
cutting out worksheets orcutting out words anymore.
And so, yeah, he just foundthat a lot of teachers were
having this problem, a lot ofhis own colleagues in his school
.
And so during the pandemic, youknow, some people learned how
to bake, other people took on adifferent hobby.
Hugo chose to learn how to codeand so, without a coding
(07:05):
background before he took someclasses, learned how to code and
created Roxum, all based off ofhis own need, and so you know
what's really awesome aboutRoxum is, and what we're really
proud of from the very beginning, is that we've entirely built
our platform, our kind of DNA ofwho we are based off of what
(07:26):
teachers' needs are.
We're built by languageteachers for language teachers,
and that's really important tous.
Even beyond just Hugo starting,we continue to have a panel of
teachers that advise us on whatshould we build next, review all
of our work, our songs, our newactivities and things, our
(07:47):
games as well, and that's just acritical part of our DNA is
ensuring that we stay reallyclose to our mission of helping
language teachers like you guysout there.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
That is not surprising to me that a world
language teacher would learn howto code during the pandemic,
because it's actually actually,even though it is so impressive,
it is a language that'sactually really cool.
That's so cool also, thatteacher is me, that exact person
who was cutting up pieces ofpaper in order to fit that into
like a closed listening activity.
Genius that you found a way to.
(08:19):
But like we all, we all dothese crazy things to make music
happen in class.
Because tell us a little bitmore about I mean, hugo
demonstrated that it's importantin class.
Why is it so great for studentsto be using music in class and
how can we make this a littlebit easier?
How can we stop doing all ofthe cutting and pasting and the
(08:42):
yearly got to refresh the songlist and everything?
How can we make this importantpiece easier in class?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, happy to dive into the specifics of Roxham in
just a second, but to answer thefirst part of your question of
you know what's the actualimpact to students.
I'll tell you my personalreflection and my personal story
for joining Roxen.
So I was a Spanish student andI was actually a really good
(09:10):
student, but the one class thatI was really bad at was Spanish.
I took Spanish off.
Yeah, exactly, I took Spanishall four years of high school
and two years of middle school,actually took all the way up to
AP Spanish and it was always myworst class.
I'm not, I'm not exactly surewhy.
I think maybe it was alistening thing or something,
just not, you know, just reallyclicking in my head.
(09:32):
But you know, after AP Spanish,my senior year of high school,
I was excited basically to hey,I'm done with this, I don't ever
have to take another Spanishclass again.
And it's crazy, you know,reflecting on those times and
you know thinking about whatI've learned.
And 12 years later, you know, Idon't remember my Spanish three
(09:52):
teachers name.
I don't really remember thesubjunctive tenses.
There's a whole lot ofvocabulary that I've forgotten.
But what I do remember are thesongs that we sing in class.
That I've forgotten.
But what I do remember are thesongs that we sing in class.
It's the Me Gustas Tu by ManuChao.
It's the Yo Quiero Ser Bombero,a song about what do you want
to be when you grow up?
I remember, you know,especially, you know, and I
(10:17):
still sing it in my headsometimes, but the nursery rhyme
to learn the days of the weekto the tune of Itsy Bitsy,
spider, you know, sometimes,when it's like when you're tired
, and Wednesday, Thursday, Iforget which one that you know,
so I sing it back in my headright and so, um, you know,
reflecting back, I'm reallygrateful for Spanish class
because it exposed me to a lotof cultural, cultural elements,
(10:42):
um, through the music where now,today, you know, I listen to
reggaeton, I listen to Mexicanbanda music almost every single
day.
You know, spanish class taughtme enough to where, even after
Spanish class, even after highschool, I continued to listen to
Spanish music and thatsnowballed into me pulling up
(11:04):
lyrics, learning more of thelanguage.
That turned into me feelingcomfortable in traveling to
Spanish-speaking countries andconversing with other people.
That encouraged me to do moreintercambios and talk to people
and really be able to practicemy Spanish, even beyond just the
(11:25):
music I was listening to andthe countries that I was
traveling to, and this reallyenabled me to, I think, find the
beauty in different culturesand the bridging of cultural
understanding.
And so Spanish class, I think,especially through the music, is
what really opened me up to theworld.
And you know, when I talk to alot of students and teachers
today, and you know when I, whenI talk to a lot of students and
(11:46):
teachers today, it's, you know,I don't, I don't think there's,
out of everyone who takesSpanish, there's very few
students in high school Spanishthat I think go on to take a,
take a job as a translator or arole that really requires high
level Spanish.
But I think my story issomething that's extremely
common and very possible for allSpanish takers in high school,
(12:12):
and it all started with themusic that we were listening to.
And it's funny, you know, theirony isn't lost on me that I
went from hating Spanish classto now running a language
learning startup, but it'sreally the real life content.
It's really the music that Ithink, started the snowball of
everything that piqued myinterest, that encouraged me to
(12:36):
learn more about cultures, thatencouraged me to go and talk to
more people, and the music iswhat really enabled me to start
it, and uh is one of the biggestreasons why I'm at Roxham here,
trying to make my impact, uh,through music and language
learning today, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So I was so excited to have you share with teachers
what your story is, because itis true for over 85% of the
students that we have in ourclasses every single day.
There's only 1%, just like yousaid, of students that we have
that our classes every singleday.
There's only 1%, just like yousaid, of students that we have
that are going to go on to belanguage experts or teachers or
yada, yada, yada, whatever youactually, even though you said
(13:13):
that it was the class that youhated when you were in high
school, you're actually thedream example Somebody who took
an interest in it, who wanted totalk to people in Spanish and
who was still involved inintegrating the culture into
your life in daily ways andusing it to further understand
people.
That's actually the whole goal,and music really helps you do
that.
That's so cool.
(13:34):
So I'm hoping that our that's abig thing for me is that I'm
hoping that our listeners andwatchers today can really get
that.
That.
This is the power of what musiccan do for you.
So thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And you know, I think you know,the big thing for me is just
how can we do more of it?
Right, and that's through Roxamand that's through, you know,
being able to bring more musicinto classrooms.
And you know, the big thesisthat I've kind of developed is
that, like through my story, youknow, the real sticking point
(14:07):
in terms of, like, my exposureto Spanish was real life content
, and I think that's somethingthat's really critical for all
Spanish teachers in Spanishclassrooms.
Right, it's you know I hear thisall the time.
Right, it's, the teacher playsa song and then they find that
their students are adding thatsong to their playlists and
listening to it at home onSpotify.
(14:28):
Right, or it's you provideenough vocabulary and listening
skills in Spanish class for astudent to hear a Bad Bunny song
on the radio, understand enoughof the song that it makes him
or her pull up those lyrics andlisten to it in their free time?
It's a student being providedenough through their class where
(14:49):
they can see a Spanishtelenovela on Netflix and not be
scared to click it because theyjust, oh, I don't speak that
language or I don't know enoughabout it?
Right, and I think it'scritical for just teachers to be
able to provide enough of thatreal life content, because not
only is it more interesting, butit's like, as it did with me,
it's what will stick with themfor the rest of their lives.
(15:31):
No-transcript, I think.
Since 12 years ago, when I wasin high school, I think there's
been a slight trend from grammartables and long vocabulary
lists, I think in generalclasses, and I think this focus
on real-life content forstudents really why?
Why we teach languages and andI think that answer lies in
(15:54):
connecting um students to thepeople and the culture that's
really around us and, and I so,I think, real life content, the
more of that that you caninclude in your day-to-day class
, um, the better.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Um this, the sickier it is with students and the more
impactful it will be on theirlives, definitely, definitely so
, with this being so important,we this is really what I know
I'm pushing a lot to try and getmore real world content in
class, and how would you suggest, after working with Ruxum for
(16:28):
so long, that teachers bringmore music into the classroom?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a.
I think that's a great liketactical.
Next question right and I thinkit's in a lot of the different
ways that I talked about, right,it's using it as the starting
point of your lesson orcurriculum.
Right it's how can we take asong or scene from a TV show or
speech or an excerpt from a bookand use that as the basis for
(16:53):
what we're going to learn interms of the vocabulary, the
grammar, you know, the culturalcontext of language, all of
those things, really, that beingkind of the core of what the
lesson or the curriculum will be.
And then I think you know tofind that are some of the
additional challenges of how dowe find the right content, how
(17:14):
do we find the right songs interms of it being appropriate
for your students, both in termsof the level of difficulty but
also in terms of, hey, this is aclassroom and we want to gear
it towards this age of studentsand make sure it abides my
parental guidance and thingslike that.
And so that's a critical thingthat we really try to make
(17:38):
easier on teachers through Roxamas well, and happy to showcase
some of the filters and thingsthat we have Beyond, you know.
So you've found what you wantto use as your content.
But now what actual activitiescan we do, beyond just the
presentation of the artist, thesong, the book or the TV series?
It's what actual activities canyou do?
(18:01):
And those are that areeffective and that are engaging.
And so us at Roxham, you knowwe have a whole host of
activities that tie with everysingle song that we have in our
library.
That's worksheets, lessons,space for repetition to
understand and learn the lyrics,it's the live classroom games
(18:25):
that help with listening skills.
And then, beyond that, you know, beyond the activities, you
know, what can we assign forhomework?
How can we continue to drill inthe learnings, even when
they're at home, so that theycan really learn and really be
able to absorb the things thatthey learned in class?
And similarly, roxen tries toreally soup to nuts from like
(18:48):
the lesson in the curriculum, tothe right songs and the right
content, to the right activitiesthat are engaging and that are
effective, to the homework thatyou assign.
Roxam covers it all.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Bam Full service.
I love that, so I'm sure that'swhy you have like a large
community of teachers in Roxham.
So, after you've been workingwith this large teacher
community, what are someimportant things to consider
when using music in theclassroom?
I feel like you touched on someof them here making sure that
when you're choosing a song,that it's the right level of
(19:25):
difficulty, and what else shouldwe be considering when we're
picking a song?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So I think it really comes downto the parental guidelines.
Is this appropriate for myclass?
Obviously, a lot of musicthat's popular can often be
explicit, have innuendos, thingslike that that aren't
necessarily appropriate, or, youknow, the lyrics could be
appropriate, but the actualmusic video has something
(19:53):
suggestive or something that'sinappropriate for school.
So I think that's a criticalcomponent that we also have the
difficulty levels of, you know,making sure that it aligns with
this level of class my Spanishone or Spanish two class this
level of class my Spanish one orSpanish two class and I think,
(20:13):
beyond that, it's just how doesit align with my existing
curriculum now of what are thevocabulary words that I'm trying
to teach, what are the grammartopics or the tenses that we're
currently learning at, you know,in this month or this week of
class, and being able toincorporate that all because you
know we do want popular,exciting songs that students
love, like oh, I would love, youknow, students listen to and
(20:36):
hear Rosalia or Carol G or BadBunny or Stromae in French, or
you know and so we want it to beexciting, something engaging,
something that they alreadypotentially even listen to, and
being able to couple that withthe effective components of.
Does it reinforce what we'retrying to teach along with?
(20:57):
Is it appropriate for myclassroom?
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, very much so.
So, with that in mind, there'sso many good options out there
and it can be very hard to findthrough all of the millions of
songs that are available to us.
You've told us a lot about theimportance of music in the
classroom.
We're dying to see what we canactually do with Roxum on our
(21:25):
side, so can you show us whatare some of these features that
makes this easier for us?
Like, what are the favoritefeatures from your teacher
community that they like to use?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, absolutely.
I will start to share my screennow.
Are you able to see it?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, oh, I can see it All right.
And for the folks who arelistening in the car, I'm
already seeing here like Locurade Marzo is coming up with Roxam
they got a cool partnership forthat and there's all kinds of
great music videos up here.
That has like a section ofrecommendations for Spanish.
Wow, there's a lot of coolstuff on here.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, so we're.
We're on the main page of RoxamIn terms of one of the teacher
favorites.
We can jump right into one, andthat is our live classroom game
called Whack-A-Word.
Whack-a-word yeah, it's Kahootstyle.
All of your students can joinon their digital devices
(22:24):
separately and it's a closedactivity and a listening
activity where students are ableto select between multiple
choices.
The missing word in the lyricthemselves.
There's a live leaderboard,high scores, gamified features
and as well as power-ups thatreally make it exciting and for
your students to be able tocompete in class.
(22:44):
So a lot of different excitingfeatures.
I'm happy to show it to youreal quick.
Exciting features.
I'm happy to show it to youreal quick, but Devin any songs
that say you've used a lotduring your own classes in the
past.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Okay, so while you're on the Spanish section, let me
see what are some of the Spanishsections I used to use.
Oh yeah, Okay, so can you clickto French?
That's great, and I'm seeingthat there's Chinese and German,
which is so great.
This is one of the reasons Ilove this platform is that there
is a lot for French teachers aswell.
Actually, Ego was a huge song Iused to use with Willie William
(23:20):
that you have right here.
That was like a go-to forFrench ones.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Awesome, perfect.
And then the last thing I'lladd there with the languages is
we're releasing English, I thinkactually today, so English as a
second language, that is, we'regoing to have a bunch of
English songs that are popularas well, and so that will be
something that's new andexciting as well.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Oh my God, my members are going to be so excited.
I have a couple second languagemembers and they're going to
freak out.
That's so cool, going to be soexcited.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I have a couple second language members and
they're going to freak out.
That's so cool, cool.
I can show you Wacker Word realquick.
We don't need to play the wholething and there are a lot of
additional features for the livegame.
But because we don't have abunch of folks to join, I'll
just play the solo option.
But when I click here, we willstart at the song and we'll go
(24:15):
ahead and get started.
I'm not sure if the audio willcome through through the Zoom,
but we'll find out what.
Yeah, what we'll see here iscan you hear it?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
No, not really really , but okay.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Okay, that's okay, I can talk through it for us.
But essentially what'shappening is the music video
plays, the artist is singing thesong and then in each line
there's a missing word.
And so you'll be given betweentwo or four options of choices
(24:52):
and it's the student'sresponsibility to select the
right one.
And so this line if you get itright, you'll get points.
It'll show up in red or, I'msorry, in green.
If you get it wrong, it'll showup in red and that you won't
get points for it.
And so in our live classroomversion you'll have a whole
(25:14):
leaderboard up on the right sideso students can see okay, you
know Matthew's in first place,or you know Rachel is coming up,
and be able to kind of havethat friendly competition.
So a really fun, kind ofexciting way for students to get
exposed to a fun song, practicetheir listening skills.
(25:35):
It only takes the length of thesong, so a few minutes, and
then add a little extra spiceand competition to your
classroom.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Oh, so fun.
And for those of you who arelistening, so we're on a French
song right now and the optionsthat were given to us for
putting in the words were thingslike je suis aller, which are
both like high frequency verbs,things that you're going to be
choosing all the time, and thenthe two choices that we have
right now are délice, which is acognate, and tout est rose,
which is also like a, and rose,like that word, rose is pink and
(26:09):
a is also another highfrequency verb.
So a lot of the choices arethings that your students would
be seeing.
A lot which I think is a nicefeature of Roxham, too, is that
you're not focusing on some ofthe other more complicated words
in this, in this song, like Iused to use this with my French
ones and you only want to focuson, like the, you know the low
hanging fruit, the words thatthey can go for, and you only
(26:30):
want to focus on, like the, youknow the low hanging fruit, the
words that they can go for.
It's.
It's really nice to see that.
It makes it really easy for fora lot of your levels to have
access to this song, which isreally cool, and we'll have a
link to the.
If you want to see what thewhat the video version of this
looks like and you're notwatching it right now You'll be
able to see a link of this onYouTube as well.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
So you can follow along, but this is really cool.
Yeah, and I think you knowbeyond, beyond this, I think,
just additional things with thelive.
With the live, you have theoption to be able to have a lot
more customization.
So, making it more difficult,we'll add four answer choices.
You can actually choose thewords that you want missing as
(27:13):
well.
So if you are, yeah, if you'reworking on verbs, or if you you
know there's specific tags, soirregular verbs and certain
tenses, adjectives, those areall things that you can just
manually select or click on thetags.
So really easy ways tocustomize it and make it your
(27:36):
own and, in this case, not haveto cut out individual missing
words anymore and have it all.
Have it all digitized.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
What are my scissors gonna do now?
Oh, I love that too, that youhave auxiliary verbs.
That's awesome.
This is really cool, cool.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, I'm happy to show more about the various
features.
So, for every single one of oursongs, like we talked about
before, the purpose is really tohit each of those things right.
It's the lesson, it's theactivities, it's the homework,
right.
So we have Whack-A-Word andLyric Puzzle.
(28:21):
That's another game that youcan play live in the classroom.
So other activities In terms ofother activities that you can
incorporate, we have specificworksheets that are both close
and translation worksheets aswell.
So if you want something that'sprinted or you want students to
(28:41):
be practicing their writing,what you can do is click on our
resources tab here.
Similarly, you can customize ina close activity any kind of
words that you want or wantmissing or don't want missing,
various tags, be able to printit at an instant.
So very, very easy.
(29:02):
And then translation exercisesas well, with various customized
settings.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Oh wow.
That's a game changer.
So you can create printoutswith this, but you can also
customize the printouts.
That's insane.
Yeah that is so cool.
All right, yeah, so I'm seeingall here.
Here are the.
You've got all the word bank ofhidden words here and I can
just select which ones I want ordon't want in there.
(29:28):
That's exactly.
Yep, wow, that's really cool,and so is that.
Is that offered with most songsthat are on the platform?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
and artists.
Translation lyric worksheetsfill in the blank worksheets,
live classroom games, whack aword, lyric puzzle and then
(30:08):
lessons for homework and things.
All of that is for availablefor every single song that we
have on our platform.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
That's awesome, oh my gosh.
So what's on the lesson slides?
Then I've got to see what thatis.
That is, that is what used totake me the most time, yeah yep.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
so we built um the lesson slide for um teachers to
have a ready-made presentationthat's available for um, based
off of the song and the artistthat you're teaching.
So if you're doing a miércolesum music of miércoles, or like
you want to dedicate a wholeclass to a specific song or
artist, uh, we have all of thoseslides ready.
(30:41):
Um.
So this is the advanced versionof the slides.
Um, we have a beginner and anintermediate level, so, like a
Spanish one versus a Spanishthree, this is more of a Spanish
five um lesson slides, but uh,um, what you'll see is just
everything that you would needfor ready-made slides to present
(31:01):
.
So the pictures.
We have an about the artistsection with everything included
from who the artist is, musicalgenre, cultural impact,
accomplishments and themes,impact, accomplishments and
themes.
(31:22):
In this advanced version we havea bunch of discussion questions
before you listen to the lyricsand the music videos themselves
.
You have an opportunity toactually watch the video and
then a bunch of post questions,post listening, questions about
your personal reflection andanalysis of the lyrics, and then
a deeper cultural exploration,and so this slide is obviously a
(31:46):
lot more advanced, kind of forAP, you know, spanish or French
5 level students and beyondreally meant to engage and, you
know, practice their speakingand the discussions.
And we have slides gearedtoward beginners and
intermediates as well, and thenQ&A slide and then kind of like
(32:09):
a word map for students to beable to practice different
adjectives, different sentencestarters, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Oh, wow, that.
Yeah, that's huge too, becausethen you can do all kinds of
post-listening activities.
If you just have that on theboard and be like write a
reflection on what you thinkabout the song, or would you,
would you make any kind of oh mygosh, like, would you write a
review, like would you interviewthe artists?
Oh, there's so many things thatyou could do with that already
done and ready to go.
That's really exciting.
Wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Um.
And then I think the lastcomponent, um, with the homework
and the classwork right, is, um, your ability to actually be
able to assign, um, what we callhere, the actual lessons
related to the songs themselves.
So, being able to listen tolyrics, learning a new lyric,
(33:08):
learning the vocabulary, and soa lot of kind of spaced
repetition, repetitionflashcards.
And you know the distinctionhere.
Distinction here is again afocus on real life content.
So, uh, rather than let's justsay, you know, when you're
practicing duolingo, it's um,the man threw the ball at the
dog, right, it's let's actuallylisten to a real sentence that's
(33:32):
in a real song saying, sung bya real artist, that's real and
popular and that, like yourstudents will hear on the radio
or if they go to France or aFrench speaking country, you
know they'll be able tounderstand, like those
components that are actuallysaid and done.
And so this is a whole lessonwhere, yeah, you can practice
(33:56):
vocabulary, grammar, so on andso forth, and you have the
ability as a teacher to be ableto actually assign these lyric
lessons, games, be able to trackit in your classroom profile,
auto grading, see how much timespent, accuracy, all of those
things.
So that's all part of theteacher experience as well all
(34:20):
of those things.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
So that's all part of the teacher experience as well.
Wow, y'all thought ofeverything.
This is the lesson, from startto finish, for almost like at
least three days worth ofcontent that you could do with
the song even up to a week,depending on how long you're
hanging with students, maybeeven more.
This is so cool, cause I'mthinking I used to do like one
song per week and we would domultiple activities with it that
(34:42):
I would all I would always haveto create myself, and this
would all be.
I mean, it's done at the pressof a button all those things
that I used to spend like threeor four preps doing.
That's really powerful, wow,very cool.
I'm sure students absolutelylove using it too, that that
they have an engaging way tointeract with the song in
different ways besides me justplaying it all the time.
(35:04):
They have lots of options, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, no, it's exciting, you know we get a lot
of positive feedback fromstudents just like and we have a
lot of students actually whograduated or don't take class
anymore, but they're still onour platform and using it to
learn new songs and we'reconstantly updating our song
library and so when the next newpopular hit that's in French,
german, english or Spanish orChinese hits the radios and
(35:31):
someone wants to learn thelyrics, learn the vocabulary,
play some games, those getuploaded pretty quickly on our
platform as well.
So, yeah, students, studentsend up loving it, enjoying the
homework that they're doing andlistening and learning these,
learning these songs.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Oh, wow, that's awesome.
Okay, so tell us a little bitmore about how we can get in on
this with Roxam and all of this.
Contact information will be inthe notes as well.
So how can teachers sign up forthis?
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, absolutely, and actually could I share one more
quick thing, devin, if youdon't mind?
So I think one of the bigchallenges that we talked about
in the very beginning was how doI choose the very right song,
like how do I know it'sappropriate?
How do I know the level ofdifficulty, along with does it
actually align with what I'mactually teaching in class?
(36:24):
And so our search function hereallows teachers to be able to
address those issues prettyseamlessly.
So, from the very beginning,every single one of our songs
has a maturity rating that hasbeen reviewed by a third-party
teacher.
That includes both the lyricsas well as the music videos
(36:46):
themselves.
So you have the ability to beable to filter for the maturity.
And then we have a level ofdifficulty where you know
beginners really focus on levelfirst and second years,
intermediate is third and fourthyears, years and advanced is
kind of your fifth year andbeyond.
So each of our, all of theLERICs are ran through AI,
(37:07):
assessed on a level ofdifficulty, and we have detailed
reviews by teachers to ensurethat those difficulty ratings
are accurate as well, and so youknow if we're just looking for,
say, a beginner level class oryou know an elementary school.
You're an elementary schoolstudent, teacher, and you know
looking for something foryounger students, we can do G
(37:31):
ratings, have it as beginner, beable to filter for those things
, I think.
On the third component, right,we talked about maturity, we
talked about level of difficultyand then the third component
was in alignment with what I'mactually teaching.
And the last way that you cansearch is you can search by
(37:53):
grammatical tenses, you cansearch by vocabulary topics, and
so you know if you'repracticing present tense.
For example, we can searchpresent tense here with this tag
you have the number of taggedlyrics that are tied to present
tense in that specific song.
(38:14):
So that has 23 tag lyrics inall of their lines with present
tense meaning.
Hey, this might be a goodlesson to practice some of the
present tense vocabulary, theconjugations that we're
practicing For vocabulary.
Similarly, you're going throughyour textbook and we're talking
(38:35):
about it can be any of thesethings, right, but like travel,
I think is always a good one.
But you know we can, we canpull up travel and um, there's
clear tags in terms of you knowwhat, um, in terms of the lyric
of like what, how the songactually addresses or is tied to
travel, um, and so those areeasy ways for you to be able to
(39:00):
incorporate all three of thoseelements and find the exact
right song that's appropriatefor you in your class.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Oh wow, that is amazing.
I'm glad that you paused me tomake sure that we all saw that
that is a huge feature.
And a huge headache forteachers is I need clean songs.
How do I find them?
Speaker 2 (39:19):
That's great dot com, and what we really pride
ourselves at Roxham is weunderstand the challenges of
being a language teacher, beinga teacher, and so we really try
(39:45):
to create resources enough freeresources where teachers can use
our platform, and the vastmajority of our teachers on our
platform actually just use thefree features.
And everything that's includedin for free are the music videos
, the live classroom games, thelessons, some of the worksheets,
(40:06):
and so there's a lot for you tobe able to engage.
Even if some of our prosubscription that includes more
of the slides, the classroom,the auto grading, even if those
things aren't for you we'd't foryou we'd love for you to come
take a look at Roxam, engage ina lot of our free content and be
able to more easily incorporatereal life content music into
(40:28):
your classroom.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
What an exciting way to get started.
Jump in for free and enjoy amuch easier way to work with
music in your class and checkout all of the ways that you can
make it even easier to with allthe cool pro features.
This has been amazing.
I'm so excited to direct all myteachers to this great resource
that you have co-founded withrock some.
This is a secret, but it isgoing to be really, really cool.
(40:54):
In february, with my membership, the practical proficiency
network, we're doing a musicchallenge and rock some going to
be really really cool.
In February, with my membership,the Practical Proficiency
Network, we're doing a musicchallenge and Roxum downloading
a Roxum account is part of it.
That's like day one of thechallenges.
I want them to explore it, sowe're excited to have everybody
check this out and get into allthe things that you offer.
So thank you so much for thisand for showing us an easier way
(41:15):
to connect with music in class.
It's something that we all wantto do and you've removed a lot
of headaches for us.
So I would love to know what isthe one, or what is the main
takeaway that you have forteachers after hearing our
conversation?
What do you hope that teachersknow about using music in the
(41:35):
classroom?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
moving forward, yeah, that's a really good question.
For me it's that, from mypersonal experiences that you
know, music and real lifecontent has been life changing
for me.
It's opened my eyes to so manydifferent people, so many
different experiences andcultures and you know, kind of
(41:57):
bridging that gap ofunderstanding of you know
between people, and I think thatis at the core of why we teach
languages, right Beyond thegrammar and the vocab.
It's how can we get to trulyunderstand another human being
that has a vastly differentupbringing, language that you
speak, you know geography, and Ithink it's addressed through
(42:21):
that right.
It's addressed by being able toget the snowball rolling with
real life content, get them toengage and being able to
understand little components ofother cultures, their music,
their TV shows, their books andso on and so forth.
And so if there's one thing totake away, I think it's try to
(42:46):
use more real-life content intoyour classrooms.
It's engaging, so fun, it'simpactful and it's changed my
life and I'm sure it can be lifechanging for many of your
students as well.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Oh well said, yeah, we got it.
We got to go with that.
That's the best way that youcould end this here, sean.
Thank you so much for joiningme today and for sharing this
tool with us.
I'm so excited for teachers tostart with Roxam, and thank you
again for all this music wisdom.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me and, yeah,
appreciate everybody's time.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Bye.
What's up?
Que lo que Et salut worldlanguage teachers.
Welcome to the PracticalProficiency Podcast, where we
make the transition toproficiency-oriented instruction
in your world language class ina way that works for you, your
unique context and teachingstyle, and doesn't sacrifice
(00:21):
your well-being along the way.
I'm your host, devon Gunning,the teacher author, conference
host, curriculum creator andconsultant behind La Libre
Language Learning.
This podcast is for thecreative world language teacher
like you who's ready to ditchthe overwhelming pressure of
switching to acquisition-driveninstruction and CI overnight.
(00:42):
You're ready to discover howusing more target language in
class can actually bring you andyour students more joy instead
of adding to your plate.
With practical, authentic anddown-to-earth strategies that
don't require reinventing thewheel or more training, we'll
work together towards the magicof a community-based,
(01:04):
target-language-rich classroom,rooted in the power of community
and comprehensible input.
Let's go of the PracticalProficiency Podcast in video or
in your beautiful ears.
(01:26):
I'm so happy to have with mehere today.
Sean, the co-founder of Roxum,is here to talk to us today
about the importance of usingmusic in the classroom and some
ideas to make it easier for usas world language teachers today
, sean, this is so exciting.
We love using music and I can'twait to hear your ideas on this
(01:48):
.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Can you tell us a little bitabout you and how you came to be
a part of this whole Roxhamamazing music experience?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, absolutely Devin.
Thank you so much for having meand for the teachers who are
out there listening.
Thanks so much for tuning in,really excited to share my story
and a little bit about thecompany that I'm building.
My name is Sean.
I'm a co-founder of Roxum andwe're building at Roxum an app
that really allows languageteachers to teach with popular
music their students' favoritesongs or your favorite songs and
(02:22):
other catchy tunes as well.
You know, our goal is really tomake life easier for you guys,
and you can turn any song into afun lesson, a live activity, so
that your classes are moreeffective, more engaging for
your students and easier interms of the effort and the
preparation that's required onyour end.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
All right, triple threat.
That's so exciting.
So, with Roxham is blowing upthe scene, this is really
exciting to see all the worldlanguage teachers that are
starting to use it.
So tell me a little bit moreabout how do teachers use this
in world language.
What does this look like?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, and we've been so grateful for all the support
from teachers.
We'll get into some of ourbackground and story in just a
second, but you know we've beenbuilt by teachers and so just
grateful for the tens ofthousands of teachers that have
been on Roxam and, yeah, we'regrowing very rapidly.
But over those thousands ofteachers, they really use Roxam
(03:20):
in different ways, so it'sreally a choose your own
adventure.
We have folks who use entirelesson plans, like you hear
about Musica Miracoles and youknow where teachers really deep
dive into a song or artist foran entire class period.
We also have ways for teachersto just use fun, small, engaging
mini activities 5, 10, 15minutes in class for them to
(03:44):
start class in a really exciting, engaging manner and also to
have students to make sure thatthey arrive on time because, hey
, who wants to miss out on a fungame to start class or just a
way to end class?
You know we often hear teacherssaying like, yeah, you know I
teach a bunch of middleschoolers.
They're always waiting on thelunch bell, but every time we
(04:05):
play a rock, some game or a songlesson they don't need.
You know the bell rings andthey don't even hear it and they
just continue playing.
And so fun ways to start andend the class and then last,
also just things that you canassign homework, classwork,
assignments where students areactually learning song lessons
and that they're actuallyexcited to do so.
(04:26):
All kinds of ways to reallyintegrate into your classroom in
a really effortless way andwe're trying to focus on this
experience of four teachersreally in a seamless, practical
manner, being able to have classbe more engaging, more exciting
and increase learning forstudents.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Oh, that's like literally.
It's so perfect.
This is music to my ears tohear that moment that every
teacher is looking for.
Of like, my kids don't evenknow that the bell rang and they
want to hang out and play moremusic and, like for world
language.
Music is such a key part ofwhat we do.
That's so cool.
So I'm curious to hear how didRoxum get started with this
(05:08):
mission?
Like what motivated you to be apart of this tool?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I appreciate you asking, devin.
So my co-founder, my colleagueHugo Schoen, started Roxum about
two years ago.
He was a classroom languageteacher for over 10 years and he
incorporated a lot of musicinto his own classrooms day to
day.
(05:33):
I think there's a lot ofscience behind why teachers love
music for retention, recall.
Music is repetitive, it'scatchy, there's earworms,
there's repetitive choruses.
Beyond that, it's great forlistening and pronunciation,
it's cultural and then it's justplain fun for students.
And so Hugo really realizedthis and incorporated a lot of
(05:54):
music into his class.
But what he found was that it'sreally hard to do Everything
from choosing the right songthat aligns with what you're
teaching, making activities,printing worksheets, creating
clothes activities, and thenwith new songs coming up every
year and students requestingdifferent songs, it's really
hard to catch up and really beable to tailor each of those
(06:18):
activities to your learning.
I think one I spoke with ateacher recently and she
recently talked about yeah,before Roxam, I had to print out
these lyrics.
You know, cut out the missingwords, have students.
You know, place the missingchunks of paper into the.
You know the line that'smissing.
And she just said yeah, youguys, you know what you're doing
(06:41):
saves us so much time and Idon't even have to think about
cutting out worksheets orcutting out words anymore.
And so, yeah, he just foundthat a lot of teachers were
having this problem, a lot ofhis own colleagues in his school
.
And so during the pandemic, youknow, some people learned how
to bake, other people took on adifferent hobby.
Hugo chose to learn how to codeand so, without a coding
(07:05):
background before he took someclasses, learned how to code and
created Roxum, all based off ofhis own need, and so you know
what's really awesome aboutRoxum is, and what we're really
proud of from the very beginning, is that we've entirely built
our platform, our kind of DNA ofwho we are based off of what
(07:26):
teachers' needs are.
We're built by languageteachers for language teachers,
and that's really important tous.
Even beyond just Hugo starting,we continue to have a panel of
teachers that advise us on whatshould we build next, review all
of our work, our songs, our newactivities and things, our
(07:47):
games as well, and that's just acritical part of our DNA is
ensuring that we stay reallyclose to our mission of helping
language teachers like you guysout there.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
That is not surprising to me that a world
language teacher would learn howto code during the pandemic,
because it's actually actually,even though it is so impressive,
it is a language that'sactually really cool.
That's so cool also, thatteacher is me, that exact person
who was cutting up pieces ofpaper in order to fit that into
like a closed listening activity.
Genius that you found a way to.
(08:19):
But like we all, we all dothese crazy things to make music
happen in class.
Because tell us a little bitmore about I mean, hugo
demonstrated that it's importantin class.
Why is it so great for studentsto be using music in class and
how can we make this a littlebit easier?
How can we stop doing all ofthe cutting and pasting and the
(08:42):
yearly got to refresh the songlist and everything?
How can we make this importantpiece easier in class?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, happy to dive into the specifics of Roxham in
just a second, but to answer thefirst part of your question of
you know what's the actualimpact to students.
I'll tell you my personalreflection and my personal story
for joining Roxen.
So I was a Spanish student andI was actually a really good
(09:10):
student, but the one class thatI was really bad at was Spanish.
I took Spanish off.
Yeah, exactly, I took Spanishall four years of high school
and two years of middle school,actually took all the way up to
AP Spanish and it was always myworst class.
I'm not, I'm not exactly surewhy.
I think maybe it was alistening thing or something,
just not, you know, just reallyclicking in my head.
(09:32):
But you know, after AP Spanish,my senior year of high school,
I was excited basically to hey,I'm done with this, I don't ever
have to take another Spanishclass again.
And it's crazy, you know,reflecting on those times and
you know thinking about whatI've learned.
And 12 years later, you know, Idon't remember my Spanish three
(09:52):
teachers name.
I don't really remember thesubjunctive tenses.
There's a whole lot ofvocabulary that I've forgotten.
But what I do remember are thesongs that we sing in class.
That I've forgotten.
But what I do remember are thesongs that we sing in class.
It's the Me Gustas Tu by ManuChao.
It's the Yo Quiero Ser Bombero,a song about what do you want
to be when you grow up?
I remember, you know,especially, you know, and I
(10:17):
still sing it in my headsometimes, but the nursery rhyme
to learn the days of the weekto the tune of Itsy Bitsy,
spider, you know, sometimes,when it's like when you're tired
, and Wednesday, Thursday, Iforget which one that you know,
so I sing it back in my headright and so, um, you know,
reflecting back, I'm reallygrateful for Spanish class
because it exposed me to a lotof cultural, cultural elements,
(10:42):
um, through the music where now,today, you know, I listen to
reggaeton, I listen to Mexicanbanda music almost every single
day.
You know, spanish class taughtme enough to where, even after
Spanish class, even after highschool, I continued to listen to
Spanish music and thatsnowballed into me pulling up
(11:04):
lyrics, learning more of thelanguage.
That turned into me feelingcomfortable in traveling to
Spanish-speaking countries andconversing with other people.
That encouraged me to do moreintercambios and talk to people
and really be able to practicemy Spanish, even beyond just the
(11:25):
music I was listening to andthe countries that I was
traveling to, and this reallyenabled me to, I think, find the
beauty in different culturesand the bridging of cultural
understanding.
And so Spanish class, I think,especially through the music, is
what really opened me up to theworld.
And you know, when I talk to alot of students and teachers
today, and you know when I, whenI talk to a lot of students and
(11:46):
teachers today, it's, you know,I don't, I don't think there's,
out of everyone who takesSpanish, there's very few
students in high school Spanishthat I think go on to take a,
take a job as a translator or arole that really requires high
level Spanish.
But I think my story issomething that's extremely
common and very possible for allSpanish takers in high school,
(12:12):
and it all started with themusic that we were listening to.
And it's funny, you know, theirony isn't lost on me that I
went from hating Spanish classto now running a language
learning startup, but it'sreally the real life content.
It's really the music that Ithink, started the snowball of
everything that piqued myinterest, that encouraged me to
(12:36):
learn more about cultures, thatencouraged me to go and talk to
more people, and the music iswhat really enabled me to start
it, and uh is one of the biggestreasons why I'm at Roxham here,
trying to make my impact, uh,through music and language
learning today, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So I was so excited to have you share with teachers
what your story is, because itis true for over 85% of the
students that we have in ourclasses every single day.
There's only 1%, just like yousaid, of students that we have
that our classes every singleday.
There's only 1%, just like yousaid, of students that we have
that are going to go on to belanguage experts or teachers or
yada, yada, yada, whatever youactually, even though you said
(13:13):
that it was the class that youhated when you were in high
school, you're actually thedream example Somebody who took
an interest in it, who wanted totalk to people in Spanish and
who was still involved inintegrating the culture into
your life in daily ways andusing it to further understand
people.
That's actually the whole goal,and music really helps you do
that.
That's so cool.
(13:34):
So I'm hoping that our that's abig thing for me is that I'm
hoping that our listeners andwatchers today can really get
that.
That.
This is the power of what musiccan do for you.
So thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And you know, I think you know,the big thing for me is just
how can we do more of it?
Right, and that's through Roxamand that's through, you know,
being able to bring more musicinto classrooms.
And you know, the big thesisthat I've kind of developed is
that, like through my story, youknow, the real sticking point
(14:07):
in terms of, like, my exposureto Spanish was real life content
, and I think that's somethingthat's really critical for all
Spanish teachers in Spanishclassrooms.
Right, it's you know I hear thisall the time.
Right, it's, the teacher playsa song and then they find that
their students are adding thatsong to their playlists and
listening to it at home onSpotify.
(14:28):
Right, or it's you provideenough vocabulary and listening
skills in Spanish class for astudent to hear a Bad Bunny song
on the radio, understand enoughof the song that it makes him
or her pull up those lyrics andlisten to it in their free time?
It's a student being providedenough through their class where
(14:49):
they can see a Spanishtelenovela on Netflix and not be
scared to click it because theyjust, oh, I don't speak that
language or I don't know enoughabout it?
Right, and I think it'scritical for just teachers to be
able to provide enough of thatreal life content, because not
only is it more interesting, butit's like, as it did with me,
it's what will stick with themfor the rest of their lives.
(15:31):
No-transcript, I think.
Since 12 years ago, when I wasin high school, I think there's
been a slight trend from grammartables and long vocabulary
lists, I think in generalclasses, and I think this focus
on real-life content forstudents really why?
Why we teach languages and andI think that answer lies in
(15:54):
connecting um students to thepeople and the culture that's
really around us and, and I so,I think, real life content, the
more of that that you caninclude in your day-to-day class
, um, the better.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Um this, the sickier it is with students and the more
impactful it will be on theirlives, definitely, definitely so
, with this being so important,we this is really what I know
I'm pushing a lot to try and getmore real world content in
class, and how would you suggest, after working with Ruxum for
(16:28):
so long, that teachers bringmore music into the classroom?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a.
I think that's a great liketactical.
Next question right and I thinkit's in a lot of the different
ways that I talked about, right,it's using it as the starting
point of your lesson orcurriculum.
Right it's how can we take asong or scene from a TV show or
speech or an excerpt from a bookand use that as the basis for
(16:53):
what we're going to learn interms of the vocabulary, the
grammar, you know, the culturalcontext of language, all of
those things, really, that beingkind of the core of what the
lesson or the curriculum will be.
And then I think you know tofind that are some of the
additional challenges of how dowe find the right content, how
(17:14):
do we find the right songs interms of it being appropriate
for your students, both in termsof the level of difficulty but
also in terms of, hey, this is aclassroom and we want to gear
it towards this age of studentsand make sure it abides my
parental guidance and thingslike that.
And so that's a critical thingthat we really try to make
(17:38):
easier on teachers through Roxamas well, and happy to showcase
some of the filters and thingsthat we have Beyond, you know.
So you've found what you wantto use as your content.
But now what actual activitiescan we do, beyond just the
presentation of the artist, thesong, the book or the TV series?
It's what actual activities canyou do?
(18:01):
And those are that areeffective and that are engaging.
And so us at Roxham, you knowwe have a whole host of
activities that tie with everysingle song that we have in our
library.
That's worksheets, lessons,space for repetition to
understand and learn the lyrics,it's the live classroom games
(18:25):
that help with listening skills.
And then, beyond that, you know, beyond the activities, you
know, what can we assign forhomework?
How can we continue to drill inthe learnings, even when
they're at home, so that theycan really learn and really be
able to absorb the things thatthey learned in class?
And similarly, roxen tries toreally soup to nuts from like
(18:48):
the lesson in the curriculum, tothe right songs and the right
content, to the right activitiesthat are engaging and that are
effective, to the homework thatyou assign.
Roxam covers it all.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Bam Full service.
I love that, so I'm sure that'swhy you have like a large
community of teachers in Roxham.
So, after you've been workingwith this large teacher
community, what are someimportant things to consider
when using music in theclassroom?
I feel like you touched on someof them here making sure that
when you're choosing a song,that it's the right level of
(19:25):
difficulty, and what else shouldwe be considering when we're
picking a song?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So I think it really comes downto the parental guidelines.
Is this appropriate for myclass?
Obviously, a lot of musicthat's popular can often be
explicit, have innuendos, thingslike that that aren't
necessarily appropriate, or, youknow, the lyrics could be
appropriate, but the actualmusic video has something
(19:53):
suggestive or something that'sinappropriate for school.
So I think that's a criticalcomponent that we also have the
difficulty levels of, you know,making sure that it aligns with
this level of class my Spanishone or Spanish two class this
level of class my Spanish one orSpanish two class and I think,
(20:13):
beyond that, it's just how doesit align with my existing
curriculum now of what are thevocabulary words that I'm trying
to teach, what are the grammartopics or the tenses that we're
currently learning at, you know,in this month or this week of
class, and being able toincorporate that all because you
know we do want popular,exciting songs that students
love, like oh, I would love, youknow, students listen to and
(20:36):
hear Rosalia or Carol G or BadBunny or Stromae in French, or
you know and so we want it to beexciting, something engaging,
something that they alreadypotentially even listen to, and
being able to couple that withthe effective components of.
Does it reinforce what we'retrying to teach along with?
(20:57):
Is it appropriate for myclassroom?
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, very much so.
So, with that in mind, there'sso many good options out there
and it can be very hard to findthrough all of the millions of
songs that are available to us.
You've told us a lot about theimportance of music in the
classroom.
We're dying to see what we canactually do with Roxum on our
(21:25):
side, so can you show us whatare some of these features that
makes this easier for us?
Like, what are the favoritefeatures from your teacher
community that they like to use?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, absolutely.
I will start to share my screennow.
Are you able to see it?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, oh, I can see it All right.
And for the folks who arelistening in the car, I'm
already seeing here like Locurade Marzo is coming up with Roxam
they got a cool partnership forthat and there's all kinds of
great music videos up here.
That has like a section ofrecommendations for Spanish.
Wow, there's a lot of coolstuff on here.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, so we're.
We're on the main page of RoxamIn terms of one of the teacher
favorites.
We can jump right into one, andthat is our live classroom game
called Whack-A-Word.
Whack-a-word yeah, it's Kahootstyle.
All of your students can joinon their digital devices
(22:24):
separately and it's a closedactivity and a listening
activity where students are ableto select between multiple
choices.
The missing word in the lyricthemselves.
There's a live leaderboard,high scores, gamified features
and as well as power-ups thatreally make it exciting and for
your students to be able tocompete in class.
(22:44):
So a lot of different excitingfeatures.
I'm happy to show it to youreal quick.
Exciting features.
I'm happy to show it to youreal quick, but Devin any songs
that say you've used a lotduring your own classes in the
past.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Okay, so while you're on the Spanish section, let me
see what are some of the Spanishsections I used to use.
Oh yeah, Okay, so can you clickto French?
That's great, and I'm seeingthat there's Chinese and German,
which is so great.
This is one of the reasons Ilove this platform is that there
is a lot for French teachers aswell.
Actually, Ego was a huge song Iused to use with Willie William
(23:20):
that you have right here.
That was like a go-to forFrench ones.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Awesome, perfect.
And then the last thing I'lladd there with the languages is
we're releasing English, I thinkactually today, so English as a
second language, that is, we'regoing to have a bunch of
English songs that are popularas well, and so that will be
something that's new andexciting as well.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Oh my God, my members are going to be so excited.
I have a couple second languagemembers and they're going to
freak out.
That's so cool, going to be soexcited.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I have a couple second language members and
they're going to freak out.
That's so cool, cool.
I can show you Wacker Word realquick.
We don't need to play the wholething and there are a lot of
additional features for the livegame.
But because we don't have abunch of folks to join, I'll
just play the solo option.
But when I click here, we willstart at the song and we'll go
(24:15):
ahead and get started.
I'm not sure if the audio willcome through through the Zoom,
but we'll find out what.
Yeah, what we'll see here iscan you hear it?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
No, not really really , but okay.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Okay, that's okay, I can talk through it for us.
But essentially what'shappening is the music video
plays, the artist is singing thesong and then in each line
there's a missing word.
And so you'll be given betweentwo or four options of choices
(24:52):
and it's the student'sresponsibility to select the
right one.
And so this line if you get itright, you'll get points.
It'll show up in red or, I'msorry, in green.
If you get it wrong, it'll showup in red and that you won't
get points for it.
And so in our live classroomversion you'll have a whole
(25:14):
leaderboard up on the right sideso students can see okay, you
know Matthew's in first place,or you know Rachel is coming up,
and be able to kind of havethat friendly competition.
So a really fun, kind ofexciting way for students to get
exposed to a fun song, practicetheir listening skills.
(25:35):
It only takes the length of thesong, so a few minutes, and
then add a little extra spiceand competition to your
classroom.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Oh, so fun.
And for those of you who arelistening, so we're on a French
song right now and the optionsthat were given to us for
putting in the words were thingslike je suis aller, which are
both like high frequency verbs,things that you're going to be
choosing all the time, and thenthe two choices that we have
right now are délice, which is acognate, and tout est rose,
which is also like a, and rose,like that word, rose is pink and
(26:09):
a is also another highfrequency verb.
So a lot of the choices arethings that your students would
be seeing.
A lot which I think is a nicefeature of Roxham, too, is that
you're not focusing on some ofthe other more complicated words
in this, in this song, like Iused to use this with my French
ones and you only want to focuson, like the, you know the low
hanging fruit, the words thatthey can go for, and you only
(26:30):
want to focus on, like the, youknow the low hanging fruit, the
words that they can go for.
It's.
It's really nice to see that.
It makes it really easy for fora lot of your levels to have
access to this song, which isreally cool, and we'll have a
link to the.
If you want to see what thewhat the video version of this
looks like and you're notwatching it right now You'll be
able to see a link of this onYouTube as well.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
So you can follow along, but this is really cool.
Yeah, and I think you knowbeyond, beyond this, I think,
just additional things with thelive.
With the live, you have theoption to be able to have a lot
more customization.
So, making it more difficult,we'll add four answer choices.
You can actually choose thewords that you want missing as
(27:13):
well.
So if you are, yeah, if you'reworking on verbs, or if you you
know there's specific tags, soirregular verbs and certain
tenses, adjectives, those areall things that you can just
manually select or click on thetags.
So really easy ways tocustomize it and make it your
(27:36):
own and, in this case, not haveto cut out individual missing
words anymore and have it all.
Have it all digitized.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
What are my scissors gonna do now?
Oh, I love that too, that youhave auxiliary verbs.
That's awesome.
This is really cool, cool.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, I'm happy to show more about the various
features.
So, for every single one of oursongs, like we talked about
before, the purpose is really tohit each of those things right.
It's the lesson, it's theactivities, it's the homework,
right.
So we have Whack-A-Word andLyric Puzzle.
(28:21):
That's another game that youcan play live in the classroom.
So other activities In terms ofother activities that you can
incorporate, we have specificworksheets that are both close
and translation worksheets aswell.
So if you want something that'sprinted or you want students to
(28:41):
be practicing their writing,what you can do is click on our
resources tab here.
Similarly, you can customize ina close activity any kind of
words that you want or wantmissing or don't want missing,
various tags, be able to printit at an instant.
So very, very easy.
(29:02):
And then translation exercisesas well, with various customized
settings.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Oh wow.
That's a game changer.
So you can create printoutswith this, but you can also
customize the printouts.
That's insane.
Yeah that is so cool.
All right, yeah, so I'm seeingall here.
Here are the.
You've got all the word bank ofhidden words here and I can
just select which ones I want ordon't want in there.
(29:28):
That's exactly.
Yep, wow, that's really cool,and so is that.
Is that offered with most songsthat are on the platform?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
and artists.
Translation lyric worksheetsfill in the blank worksheets,
live classroom games, whack aword, lyric puzzle and then
(30:08):
lessons for homework and things.
All of that is for availablefor every single song that we
have on our platform.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
That's awesome, oh my gosh.
So what's on the lesson slides?
Then I've got to see what thatis.
That is, that is what used totake me the most time, yeah yep.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
so we built um the lesson slide for um teachers to
have a ready-made presentationthat's available for um, based
off of the song and the artistthat you're teaching.
So if you're doing a miércolesum music of miércoles, or like
you want to dedicate a wholeclass to a specific song or
artist, uh, we have all of thoseslides ready.
(30:41):
Um.
So this is the advanced versionof the slides.
Um, we have a beginner and anintermediate level, so, like a
Spanish one versus a Spanishthree, this is more of a Spanish
five um lesson slides, but uh,um, what you'll see is just
everything that you would needfor ready-made slides to present
(31:01):
.
So the pictures.
We have an about the artistsection with everything included
from who the artist is, musicalgenre, cultural impact,
accomplishments and themes,impact, accomplishments and
themes.
(31:22):
In this advanced version we havea bunch of discussion questions
before you listen to the lyricsand the music videos themselves
.
You have an opportunity toactually watch the video and
then a bunch of post questions,post listening, questions about
your personal reflection andanalysis of the lyrics, and then
a deeper cultural exploration,and so this slide is obviously a
(31:46):
lot more advanced, kind of forAP, you know, spanish or French
5 level students and beyondreally meant to engage and, you
know, practice their speakingand the discussions.
And we have slides gearedtoward beginners and
intermediates as well, and thenQ&A slide and then kind of like
(32:09):
a word map for students to beable to practice different
adjectives, different sentencestarters, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Oh, wow, that.
Yeah, that's huge too, becausethen you can do all kinds of
post-listening activities.
If you just have that on theboard and be like write a
reflection on what you thinkabout the song, or would you,
would you make any kind of oh mygosh, like, would you write a
review, like would you interviewthe artists?
Oh, there's so many things thatyou could do with that already
done and ready to go.
That's really exciting.
Wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Um.
And then I think the lastcomponent, um, with the homework
and the classwork right, is, um, your ability to actually be
able to assign, um, what we callhere, the actual lessons
related to the songs themselves.
So, being able to listen tolyrics, learning a new lyric,
(33:08):
learning the vocabulary, and soa lot of kind of spaced
repetition, repetitionflashcards.
And you know the distinctionhere.
Distinction here is again afocus on real life content.
So, uh, rather than let's justsay, you know, when you're
practicing duolingo, it's um,the man threw the ball at the
dog, right, it's let's actuallylisten to a real sentence that's
(33:32):
in a real song saying, sung bya real artist, that's real and
popular and that, like yourstudents will hear on the radio
or if they go to France or aFrench speaking country, you
know they'll be able tounderstand, like those
components that are actuallysaid and done.
And so this is a whole lessonwhere, yeah, you can practice
(33:56):
vocabulary, grammar, so on andso forth, and you have the
ability as a teacher to be ableto actually assign these lyric
lessons, games, be able to trackit in your classroom profile,
auto grading, see how much timespent, accuracy, all of those
things.
So that's all part of theteacher experience as well all
(34:20):
of those things.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
So that's all part of the teacher experience as well.
Wow, y'all thought ofeverything.
This is the lesson, from startto finish, for almost like at
least three days worth ofcontent that you could do with
the song even up to a week,depending on how long you're
hanging with students, maybeeven more.
This is so cool, cause I'mthinking I used to do like one
song per week and we would domultiple activities with it that
(34:42):
I would all I would always haveto create myself, and this
would all be.
I mean, it's done at the pressof a button all those things
that I used to spend like threeor four preps doing.
That's really powerful, wow,very cool.
I'm sure students absolutelylove using it too, that that
they have an engaging way tointeract with the song in
different ways besides me justplaying it all the time.
(35:04):
They have lots of options, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, no, it's exciting, you know we get a lot
of positive feedback fromstudents just like and we have a
lot of students actually whograduated or don't take class
anymore, but they're still onour platform and using it to
learn new songs and we'reconstantly updating our song
library and so when the next newpopular hit that's in French,
german, english or Spanish orChinese hits the radios and
(35:31):
someone wants to learn thelyrics, learn the vocabulary,
play some games, those getuploaded pretty quickly on our
platform as well.
So, yeah, students, studentsend up loving it, enjoying the
homework that they're doing andlistening and learning these,
learning these songs.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Oh, wow, that's awesome.
Okay, so tell us a little bitmore about how we can get in on
this with Roxam and all of this.
Contact information will be inthe notes as well.
So how can teachers sign up forthis?
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, absolutely, and actually could I share one more
quick thing, devin, if youdon't mind?
So I think one of the bigchallenges that we talked about
in the very beginning was how doI choose the very right song,
like how do I know it'sappropriate?
How do I know the level ofdifficulty, along with does it
actually align with what I'mactually teaching in class?
(36:24):
And so our search function hereallows teachers to be able to
address those issues prettyseamlessly.
So, from the very beginning,every single one of our songs
has a maturity rating that hasbeen reviewed by a third-party
teacher.
That includes both the lyricsas well as the music videos
(36:46):
themselves.
So you have the ability to beable to filter for the maturity.
And then we have a level ofdifficulty where you know
beginners really focus on levelfirst and second years,
intermediate is third and fourthyears, years and advanced is
kind of your fifth year andbeyond.
So each of our, all of theLERICs are ran through AI,
(37:07):
assessed on a level ofdifficulty, and we have detailed
reviews by teachers to ensurethat those difficulty ratings
are accurate as well, and so youknow if we're just looking for,
say, a beginner level class oryou know an elementary school.
You're an elementary schoolstudent, teacher, and you know
looking for something foryounger students, we can do G
(37:31):
ratings, have it as beginner, beable to filter for those things
, I think.
On the third component, right,we talked about maturity, we
talked about level of difficultyand then the third component
was in alignment with what I'mactually teaching.
And the last way that you cansearch is you can search by
(37:53):
grammatical tenses, you cansearch by vocabulary topics, and
so you know if you'repracticing present tense.
For example, we can searchpresent tense here with this tag
you have the number of taggedlyrics that are tied to present
tense in that specific song.
(38:14):
So that has 23 tag lyrics inall of their lines with present
tense meaning.
Hey, this might be a goodlesson to practice some of the
present tense vocabulary, theconjugations that we're
practicing For vocabulary.
Similarly, you're going throughyour textbook and we're talking
(38:35):
about it can be any of thesethings, right, but like travel,
I think is always a good one.
But you know we can, we canpull up travel and um, there's
clear tags in terms of you knowwhat, um, in terms of the lyric
of like what, how the songactually addresses or is tied to
travel, um, and so those areeasy ways for you to be able to
(39:00):
incorporate all three of thoseelements and find the exact
right song that's appropriatefor you in your class.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Oh wow, that is amazing.
I'm glad that you paused me tomake sure that we all saw that
that is a huge feature.
And a huge headache forteachers is I need clean songs.
How do I find them?
Speaker 2 (39:19):
That's great dot com, and what we really pride
ourselves at Roxham is weunderstand the challenges of
being a language teacher, beinga teacher, and so we really try
(39:45):
to create resources enough freeresources where teachers can use
our platform, and the vastmajority of our teachers on our
platform actually just use thefree features.
And everything that's includedin for free are the music videos
, the live classroom games, thelessons, some of the worksheets,
(40:06):
and so there's a lot for you tobe able to engage.
Even if some of our prosubscription that includes more
of the slides, the classroom,the auto grading, even if those
things aren't for you we'd't foryou we'd love for you to come
take a look at Roxam, engage ina lot of our free content and be
able to more easily incorporatereal life content music into
(40:28):
your classroom.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
What an exciting way to get started.
Jump in for free and enjoy amuch easier way to work with
music in your class and checkout all of the ways that you can
make it even easier to with allthe cool pro features.
This has been amazing.
I'm so excited to direct all myteachers to this great resource
that you have co-founded withrock some.
This is a secret, but it isgoing to be really, really cool.
(40:54):
In february, with my membership, the practical proficiency
network, we're doing a musicchallenge and rock some going to
be really really cool.
In February, with my membership,the Practical Proficiency
Network, we're doing a musicchallenge and Roxum downloading
a Roxum account is part of it.
That's like day one of thechallenges.
I want them to explore it, sowe're excited to have everybody
check this out and get into allthe things that you offer.
So thank you so much for thisand for showing us an easier way
(41:15):
to connect with music in class.
It's something that we all wantto do and you've removed a lot
of headaches for us.
So I would love to know what isthe one, or what is the main
takeaway that you have forteachers after hearing our
conversation?
What do you hope that teachersknow about using music in the
(41:35):
classroom?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
moving forward, yeah, that's a really good question.
For me it's that, from mypersonal experiences that you
know, music and real lifecontent has been life changing
for me.
It's opened my eyes to so manydifferent people, so many
different experiences andcultures and you know, kind of
(41:57):
bridging that gap ofunderstanding of you know
between people, and I think thatis at the core of why we teach
languages, right Beyond thegrammar and the vocab.
It's how can we get to trulyunderstand another human being
that has a vastly differentupbringing, language that you
speak, you know geography, and Ithink it's addressed through
(42:21):
that right.
It's addressed by being able toget the snowball rolling with
real life content, get them toengage and being able to
understand little components ofother cultures, their music,
their TV shows, their books andso on and so forth.
And so if there's one thing totake away, I think it's try to
(42:46):
use more real-life content intoyour classrooms.
It's engaging, so fun, it'simpactful and it's changed my
life and I'm sure it can be lifechanging for many of your
students as well.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Oh well said, yeah, we got it.
We got to go with that.
That's the best way that youcould end this here, sean.
Thank you so much for joiningme today and for sharing this
tool with us.
I'm so excited for teachers tostart with Roxam, and thank you
again for all this music wisdom.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me and, yeah,
appreciate everybody's time.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Bye.
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