Van der Berg teachers Grade 6 and 7 English language at Wesbank Primary School, an Afrikaans medium school, serves the farming community and families from military and police training facilities. Besides being a tourist and small business centre, Oudtshoorn also hosts the annual Little Karoo National Arts Festival. Van der Berg’s talents are therefore quite appropriate in this environment.

Afrikaans-speaking learners at Wesbank struggle with English and the grammar lessons tended to be most challenging of all. Van der Berg decided to write songs about verbs and nouns and build them into slide show presentations. “I plan like every good teacher, but planning is not where it stops. I am always on the lookout for music, images or ideas that I can use top improve my classes,” explains van der Berg. “This means I have to be aware of the opportunities that lie in everything I see and hear. I strongly believe in the basics, but like to go beyond conventional ways of teaching. I even composed four of my own songs for nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives that I have used in English lessons. These songs are part of my growing collection of slide show presentations.”

Van der berg also tries to think of ideas of how his music can contribute to lessons in other learning areas. He has adapted songs like Sloop John B to include lyrics of the Portuguese explorer Bartholemeu Diaz and sings Starry, Starry Night (by Don MacLean) to support both History and Arts and Culture lessons. He was so inspired by the success of his music-supported lessons that he purchased his own sound editing software.

“I am also learning through my mistakes,” says van der Berg. “A slide show presentation by itself is not enough as a learning experience. You have to follow it up with exercises to ensure that they learners have a deeper understanding.”

Van der berg concludes: “I believe in the profound influence of music in everybody’s lives. I hope that one day when I return to this school the teachers will say that they are still singing your songs and using your ideas. I use humour and images with the music and notice that the learners are definitely interested and keen to participate.”