Week Seven

9/16/2019

Today I had my Kodaly Method peer teaching assessment task. I was pretty happy with my performance. I had a few bumps and hesitations but I only messed up my Curwen hand signs once and overall I think I did pretty well. I still feel like I am a bit fuzzy with my understanding of Kodaly, which I think will probably impact on my mark a bit, as I felt like I was just repeating my Orff assessment, with added hand signs. I think I need to clarify Kodaly and my understanding of its stages and principles in my own time to really understand the method for what it is, rather than just as 'Orff with Hand Signs'. I taught a song I wrote myself about my dog (which I am now realising goes against the principle of performing traditional folk tunes in Kodaly) based primarily around the 'sol - mi - sol' motif used in the early stages of Kodaly, and intended to teach the note 'la'.

I singled out the note by having the class sing every note but 'la', and taught them the hand signs as well. I finished quite early, which means I probably would have had time to incorporate a game into my assessment, but overall I am happy with what I presented. ​The Guitar practice has continued, however I have not made as much progress this week as I had hoped - I haven't managed to finish learning all the chords, but my strumming (without singing) has improved a lot I think, so I hope (once I have the rest of the chords ready) that I can learn some new songs before next week.