4.3.1.3.1 The Worksheet. The worksheet for the Major Lazer song, Get free, was created over the course of five years, in two main stages. The first part of the activity sequence is centred around the song and is aimed at vocabulary development and thinking about the greater context of the song; the worksheet was written up for my own enjoyment and primarily used with my private students. The second part of the worksheet was added during the piloting period with two specific groups in mind (Groups I and J), who needed to cover the topic of money in their language development courses. As discussing the topic of money did not turn out to be appealing to my students in the previous years, I decided to add a twist to it and talk about the lack of money, so that they learn something about the world (find the worksheet in Appendix I).

4.3.1.3.2 The Results of the Reflective Journal. What I generally perceived while doing this activity sequence was that the students were excited to work on a song, and even more excited when they realised that they knew the song. They enthusiastically shouted in the words they associated with the album cover, but observably, some of them felt slightly disturbed after watching the clip. Even though they managed to recall scenes from the video, they had hardly any idea about where it was set, so I needed to provide them with some help. The comprehension tasks were not too difficult for most of them, and they also easily identified phrases referring to misery, but they struggled with coming up with more, so I had to rise to the occasion and teach them some other phrases and idioms. As I did the activity sequence with them in a synchronous online lesson, using Zoom, I could easily listen to their discussions. These discussions were completely different based on who they got together with in the breakout rooms; some groups worked out well, while others did not really function (observably, the students who were usually more active in the lessons and who had the tendency to engage in deeper and more meaningful discussions did so in this activity as well, but the topic did not encourage those students who were usually not active in the lessons). Due to time constraints, we only had time for six activities in both groups, so we finished the lessons with the quiz. They were asked to read the questions in groups and predict the answers or check them on the Internet quickly. To check their answers, they participated in a Kahoot! game, and at the end of each turn, we had a discussion on the question. The students were observably shocked, and they also voiced how surprised they were by the data. Even though the lessons did not end on a positive note, in a quick feedback round, the students expressed how much they learned about the topic and how depressed they got by the facts. As homework, they were asked to do the exercise with the infographic focusing on ways to help the poor and write about which ways they would try out in the future. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to deal with the project in class; however, it was assigned to the students as extra work. Some students who wanted to get a better final grade did the project: it was heart-warming to see their dedication, time and effort put into the presentations, which in each case, had a special focus: e.g., poverty and education.

 

4.3.1.3.3 Student Feedback. Given that the activity sequence was done at the end of the semester, students’ willingness to do extra work by filling in the feedback sheet was rather low, thus, only eight students answered the two open-ended questions concerning how useful they found the activities and what they learned from the lessons. Three themes emerged from their answers. First and foremost, most students (n = 6) truly appreciated listening to music during the lesson: they felt it was “out of the ordinary” (#1), helped them learn and enjoy the material at the same time (#2), and they appreciated discovering a “great song with a message” (#4). Most of them commented on the quiz: it provided them with information that was new for them (#2, #5, #6, #7, #8), these pieces of information shocked them (#4, #5, #6, #8) and they would not have looked up such information on the Internet if it were not for the lesson (#1). Respondent 8 wrote about the quiz the following way:

 

Finally, they commented on the awareness-raising nature of the activity sequence. Three students wrote that these activities helped them “put things into perspective” (#2) and they realized that they are “privileged” (#1) and they should consider themselves “lucky and grateful because there are people who don’t even have the necessary things for living” (#3). They appreciated that the activities provided them with practical tips about helping the poor and encouraged them to take action. Respondent 8, for example, seemed to be determined to make some change: “I would like to be a better person and waste less, maybe donate more. I will also try to raise awareness.”