Using Songs and Music in the EFL Class - Education - http://maxpages.com/teachenglish/Songs_and_Music_in

The value of music in teaching English is undisputable. No matter how effective and great our course book is, we teachers are always looking for that ultimate activity that will make our students use the language in a natural way while enjoying it, that will make our class a land of learning and fun, that will make us feel the thrills of seeing our students actually working in English. Logically, there is no such ultimate activity that will kind of cure our anguish. However, there are tools we can use to achieve our goals: one of them is music.

Why use songs and music in my class:

To begin with, you can add variety to the class. Once in a while, a little song will make us relax and have fun, get away from the exercises in the textbook, close them and sit down to listen to the song. This applies not only to the teacher but also to the students.

Another good reason is that songs show English in real use. Some teachers may argue that most pop songs bring many grammatical and vocabulary problems since they are not specially prepared for the EFL class. That is true, but then it is the teacher´s job to choose a song suits the needs and level of her class. Besides, many modern textbooks include specially-written EFL songs to use.

Songs can be used to teach not only the English language but also the culture of the singer´s country. It is a good opportunity to teach our students about the countries where English is spoken. This will also give a good starting point for projects on the culture of the USA, Great Britain, Australia, etc.

A song is a great tool to teach pronunciation. The right choice of song is important. We may call students attention to certain special words and how they are pronounced. We can also call their attention to the diferent accents and to rhyming sounds in the lyrics.

Songs may be an excellent springboard for a discussion or debate on the topic they suggest. Aslo, they can be used as the basis for a writng project or composition based on the debate.

Depending on the activity designed by the teacher, a song can serve as a good way to encourage team work and collaboration.

The use of songs is flexible. A song can be used in any stage of the class: as a presentation tool, as a controlled practice exercise or as a free production activity..It all depends on the teacher´s imagination to devise the activities that will accompany the song.

A song hides the nature of exercises making them look like fun when in reality our students are working with the language in the way we want them to. Imagine a song that contains repetitive lyrics – chorus and the like, aren´t we desguising a repetition drill in a highly effective way?

Suggestions for using songs and music in class

 Actions

While singing a song, some students who have not grasped the words well yet, will refrain from singing it. The solution is to have your students perform actions relevant to the song lyrics In this way, the students who do not know the words quite well can participate by doing the actions and be part of the group anyway. Another advantage is the relationship between the words and the actions which will help in understanding. For the teachers the advantage is that all students will be participating and that he/she will be able to spot those students who are having trouble with the lyrics of the song and plan remedial action.

A typical example of this technique is Hokey Pokey ( from Starlight 2 – Richmond Publishing ):

You put your right hand in, you take your right hand out,
You put your right hand in and you shake it all about,
You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around,
That´s what it´s all about! Clap! Clap!

Then the teacher can change hand by foot, arm, ear, etc.

 Drawing

Tell the title of the song to a student and ask him to draw a picture that reflects it. It can be done on a piece of paper or on the board. The students then try to guess the title by asking questions or just saying the title suggested by the student´s picture. For example, for New York, New York a student may draw two big apples or the map of the USA with a clear mark on New York.

 Blanks

The most popular form of working with songs is inserting blanks in the lyrics on a worksheet. The technique is well known and needs little explanation. What we want to ellaborate about is the way we insert the blanks in the lyrics. By experience, it is difficult to find the right place to insert a blank in a song, these are some conclusions:

1. Try not to insert blanks at the beginning of the song. This is when a person is beginning to get acquainted with it , perhaps you should leave some three or four lines complete before inserting any blank.
2. Insert blanks in the middle or end of the line.
3. Insert blanks in place of stressed content words: adjectives, nouns, verbs and adverbs. As we know, the other words do not carry the main message of a sentence and are unstressed which will make it difficult for a learner to catch.
4. When inserting the blanks in the worksheet, try and give the same length to all the blanks.
5. Challenge students by inserting some blanks instead of unknown or difficult words.
6. Try not to insert two or more blakns together, except when the deleted words form a unit or a collocation, eg. Bus stop, compact disk, etc.

See the proposed Worksheet for If I had a Hammer by Trini Lopez in Appendix A.

 Multiple choice

If your students may find the blanks too difficult, then provide alternatives for each word. Two or three possible words foe each blank will be enough. Choose words are sound alike, are written alike or present small differences but that can be spotted only by context. For example they´re VS there, stray VS straight, car VS card, etc.

See the proposed Worksheet for Sunny Came Home by Shawn Colvin in Appendix A.

 Spot the differences

Another alternative for the blanks technique is to change words from the lyrics for other words that, even though they are grammatically correct in the context, are different from the original and must be spotted by listening to the song. However, before listening, the students should be challenged to try and find the words that do not go in the lyrics.

See the proposed Worksheet for Anybody Seen my Babyby the Rolling Stones in Appendix A.

 Strips of paper

Instead of using worksheets with the lyrics of the song, cut out the lyrics into several strips of paper. Each strip will have a line of the lyrics. Then play the song and let your students put the lines in order. Some ways to do this are:

1. After playing the song once or twice – this depends on the difficulty of the lyrics and level of the class - have your students read their line to each other and form a line. They should listen but not read their classmates´strips. Then play the song again and let them change posistions acordingly. If you like, you can play the song another time.
2. A variation of the above procedure would be to ask the students to memorise the line and put the strip in their pockets. This is more effective with more advanced classes and/or with easy lyrics.
3. Alternatively, you may ask your students to place their strips on a table or on the walls or board – using bluetack – so that everybody sees the progress of the activity and may cooperate.
4. Another variation is to ask a student to act as the recorder of the order by writing the students names in the order they decide the song goes.
5. If space in the classroom is a problem, then, make a worksheet with the lines written on and ask your students to put them in order after or while listening to the song. Ask them to compare their answers in pairs or small groups before playing the song again.
6. Also, you may want to use the strips alternative but giving the complete song cut out into strips to a group for them to put in order.

 Paragraph re-arranging

Cut the lyrics into as many paragraphs it has and distribute them to groups or pairs. Ask them to put the paragraphs in order, then play the song and let them check their order. Before playing it a second time, ask them to agree on an order and compare it with another group´s.

 Sentence halves

Instead of cutting the lyrics into strips with the lines on them, cut the sentences in halves. Ask your students to put the halves together to form sentences and then play the song for them to check their guesses.

 How many times?

This technique is great for introducing a song. Before playing it, give the students a word that appears in the song. Choose one that is repeated many times and is clearly recognisable. For more advanced students, choose one that will challenge their listening skills. Then ask them to listen and count how many times the word is repeated in the song. Before playing the song a second time, ask them to tell another student about their results. You can expand the activity by asking them to tell you the words around the main word. By working in pairs or small groups they may be able to form some sentences correctly, however, be careful who to use this extension technique with: it may be very frustrating not to be able to pick up sentences. Maybe, a good idea is to concentrate on one part of the song for this alternative.

 Speculation

Use the title of the song to ask your students to speculate what the song may be about. Alternatively, you may write some key words from the lyrics on the board for them to speculate about the song. This is done well with songs that are not very popular or well known to students. Speculation can also be triggered by using pictures of the singer/ group or pictures that convey some ideas expressed in the song.

Use this technique in combination with one of the techniques suggested above to work with the lyrics since speculation does not concentrate on lyrics but on content and serves as a conversation/ debate initializer.

 Reading

The lyrics of some songs can be used as reading texts and treated in the same way. Give the text as if it were a poem or a diary entry ( good for love songs ) and ask questions about it: factual questions and specially questions for the students´ interpretation, then play the song.

See the proposed Worksheet for Don´t Speakby No Doubt in the Appendix A.

 Background music

Music without singing can be used in class, too. Have you ever taught one of those boring courses where students are asked to do quite a lot of exercises? I found this technique very effective when I thaught a TOEFL preparation course some time ago. The course concentrated on the exam tricks and made a lot of use of past papers and mock tests followed by explanations of the answers and the why´s and what´s of each one. I decided to bring in a tape recorder and tapes of classical music. I played Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach as background music while my students were doing the exercises. I found that the music made it easier for them to put up with the stress of answering question after question and gave them some kind of distraction without being really distracted from the task – if you see what I mean. I used the music only when they were doing the exercise, during that period when everything is supposed to be quiet. I once forgot the tape at home and they asked me if I was going to stop playing the music: they liked it! Once I experimented with pop music but it did not work well mainly because this type of music has lyrics in it. The students got distracted and concentration was lost.

 Musical exercises

Another use of background music is to set the pace for an exercise. I have used this technique for Mingles or Walkabout activities. While the music is on, the students are walking, when the music stops they form a pair with the nearest person and do the assigned task.

Maximizing Student Talking Time - STT

The use of songs must be accompanied by clear teaching strategies. These must include activities to maximize STT through the use of pair and group work every time it is possible.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Before presenting a song, challenge students to guess vocabulary that might come in the lyrics, topic of the song, etc.
2. Before giving answers to questions and exercises, ask pairs and /or small groups to exchange ideas and discuss about their views and opinions
3. Encourage singing. Just like in a choral repetition activity, the fact that everybody is speaking at the sime time, will not expose shy students to the rest of the class so they should feel freer to speak up.
4. Avoid playing songs as time fillers.
5. Use good quality recordings. Also, be sure to use a good and sufficiently powerful cassette or CD player.
6. If you are using a certain type/ make of cassette or CD player for the first time, make sure you know how to operate it before the class.
7. Set the cassette at the exact point where the song starts, avoid looking for the track beginning in class.

Where can I get suitable songs?

Most textbooks now include songs in their lesson plans, but if your textbook does not include them, do not worry. Popular songs are a good source for our purposes. Finding the lyrics must not be too difficult since most CD´s bring them in little booklets. However, if still you can´t find the lyrics a good resource to use is Internet. Visit the sites for the singer/ group, they may have the lyrics there. Another option is visting lyrics finders like http://www.lyrics.ch There you will find links to other lyrics pages.

Cesar Klauer
cklauer@hotmail.com

Fax ( 51 1 ) 274 1560

cesark@terra.com.pe

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Page Updated Wed Apr 21, 1999 6:25pm EDT