On Kiselova Street in Minsk, there’s an after-school English school of sorts. Teacher Alla Kalishevich allowed me to work with her students aged, 10-13. I did one lesson with the kids (90 minutes) and by the end of this time they had all written lyrics for songs. In the following days I met with them individually or in pairs, and recorded their songs. The recordings took from 20 minutes to one hour.
The kids did all the creative work. They wrote the lyrics; compiled and arranged the music from loops (pre-recorded snippets of instruments), and they sang. I was the recording engineer.
The songs are fun, but useful too. I have even used them with teachers of English as listening tasks. There’s nothing wrong with learning and hearing English from non-native speakers. Think of the huge English-language hit “Dancing Queen” which was composed and sung by Swedes!
