Spanish Agent Nouns, part II

[livingdeb]

After writing the lyrics for "Spanish Agent Noun," I sent them off in an e-mail to my study group and a couple of other friends who are learning Spanish. Robin said, "Wow." Another friend said, "Fun!" From the rest of my study group, it was radio silence.

But in spite of this evidence that I'm just a dork or that nobody below a certain age knows that song or some other negativity, I got the idea in my head that I would like to perform that song for my class mates. This is what all those informal recitals have been preparing me for, right?

I looked up the chords. At least one of them is hard. Plus it takes me a really long time to learn even easy songs on the guitar, and I wanted to perform the song sooner rather than later.

Then I found this YouTube version apparently created for karaoke. I asked Robin if he could get it to play in class and he said yes.

I made copies of the original and new lyrics side-by-side to bring to class. And before class, I wrote a few examples of these nouns and their associated verbs on the board.

Our professor comes to class about 15 minutes early, so I asked him for permission. He was, understandably, confused about what I wanted to do. He was also disappointed that my song was not in Spanish. And worried that it would take up too much valuable class time. But then he said yes.

And so that is how I came to sing "Spanish Agent Noun" in class.

The class was extremely positive and supportive. They seemed to enjoy my song. Yea!

At the end of the class, the professor told me he liked my song and he liked the original song which he listened to as a child.

And in later classes, he has said things like that I must sing my answer. Students have asked me if I have written a song to help us remember irregular commands (I have tried) or to remember the South American countries, capitals, and presidents (not interested).

So, I'm not teacher's pet or class clown, but instead have acquired the unusual role of class singer/songwriter. Who'd have guessed there even was such a thing?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Congrats on having the cojones to share your song with your class!

I have had the first line of the song (both versions) stuck in my head for days now ;)

Sally

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Sorry about the earworm.

The parts that stuck in my head were these:

"Oh, be careful at the beach or she'll change your part of speech."

"Oh, no, you let your last 'r' slip while kissing -Dora's lips. Odds are you'll be helping me tomorrow."

Spanish agent nouns

[fraeuleinchen.livejournal.com]

As one of your study group, I'm sad to hear/read that you for one second you thought that your efforts were unappreciated. Not everyone on our list writes back, even if they do say (later, often, and in person) that they appreciate the input and conversation etc. In fact, I'm not even sure that *I* wrote back in appreciation! The in-class experience was gratifying, though, it seems. And it was very brave of you to get up there and do that (including facing the professor, who, while it makes sense that he was confused, could have been a little more effusive at first. I mean, c'mon? Your student *wrote a song* to illustrate one of the grammatical principles you barely taught us!)

Re: Spanish agent nouns

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, people have differing tastes.

And neither our professor nor the book taught us that principle at all except for including verbs and agent nouns among the vocabulary.

And P.S., Sylverre says the obviously correct term is "class bard." Ha!