I have demonstrated the ability to develop in students the ability to sing properly at

a beginning level through my experience with teaching chorus over the course of
my student teaching. I have worked with my cooperating teacher to present a 4 th
grade musical with the students at Horne Street. All of the songs from the musical
integrate SEL learning goals such as respect and taking responsibility for ones
actions. The chorus has learned all the lyrics to the song, and about half of the
chorus has been given the opportunity to participate in reciting lines, acting out
short skits, and dancing to transform the performance into a musical.
During my experience of teaching the chorus I have had the opportunity to work on
tone production with the fourth grade students. The students already had a very
good sound when I came in, since this was the second half of the year. But I worked
with my cooperating teacher to develop their good sound into an even better, more
sophisticated chorus sound. I did this by running warm ups that focused on vowel
production. For example one of the warm ups was Me, E, I, O, OU going down a
descending scale. I also accentuated the importance of fully opening the mouth
while singing to produce the best vocal sound production and one that is wellprojected.
I worked a lot on the pronunciation of words in all of the songs. Its Up to Me was
especially challenged for the students sing it is an up-beat jazz tune, the words go
by fast. I worked on clear but fast articulation of words on this song.
Finally, I have met the requirement of using a varied repertoire with the six songs
from the musical Child of the World. The songs in this musical are varied and
include styles in rock, jazz, contemporary, and folk. I have also used different
repertoire with other grade levels from around the world such as Sambele which is
a song from Brazil and was used in third grade.