Teaching Songs to Young Learners. Finding the Rhythm of Spoken English

Teaching Songs to Young Learners

Finding the Rhythm of Spoken English

Planning for the use of the songs in class

The process of selecting a song is one of the most difficult aspects of using music in a lesson. Here are some things you probably need to think about to ensure you get the right song. Carefully examine what it is you want your class to learn in the lesson. In this going to be a lesson focusing on vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, or a particular topic? I once used ‘You’re so vain’ by Carly Simon introduce a text that looked at vain. In another lesson, I used ‘In the air tonight’ as it uses the present perfect continuous tense. Whatever your focus, remember that this doesn’t necessarily place a limit on what you can do with the song. For instance, you might wish to use the song in question to exemplify a particular verb tense, and structure your lesson accordingly, but you might at the same time wish to take the opportunity to look at those interesting idioms in the lyrics!

Think about the language level of your class

The language level of your class will determine not only which songs you can use, but also what other activities – such as games or written exercises – you will use to develop the lesson. Lower levels will become extremely frustrated with fast-delivered lyrics, for instance, while simple repetitive lyrics might not be interesting for more advanced-level learners.

How old are your learners?

If you’re a teacher of young learners, you will probably want to use songs that are repetitive and very easy to understand. For teenagers, however, use contemporary or fairy recent pop and rock songs. My advice: it’s often best to ask them ‘what’s cool’. Alternatively, for adults learners, who probably have a more open approach to classes, use songs that are interesting to their group.

Are there any specific cultural issues regarding the make-up of your class?

What kinds of things are generally unacceptable in the culture in which you teach? Whatever you do, don’t use music solely based on your own cultural norms. Consider the audience and their sensibilities; even better, let them choose the songs that you use.

What kind of access do you have to the song?

Let’s face it, this is the age of YouTube and you can find practically any song on this website. Nevertheless, an mp3, which doesn’t require a connection, or even a good old-fashioned CD, can often be a useful backup.

Six steps for making a song the focus of your class

My intention here is to provide a basic outline you can use with any song. Remember, these are just suggestion so make sure to keep the profile of your learners in mind.

1. Listen to the song

That’s it – start things off by just listening. It’s important to remember that this is supposed to be a fun activity; don’t make it too serious or boring. As an alternative, you can show a video clip if you have one – in fact, I strongly recommend it, as it will cater to more learners’ needs in terms of learning styles (visual and audible). Ask learners if they’ve heard it before, and don’t overload them with tasks at this point; simply let enjoy the music.

2. Ask some questions about the tittle

Here are couple of examples of the types of questions you can ask:

For John Lennon’s wonderful ‘Jealous Guy’:

‘What is a ‘jealous guy’?’

‘What are three things a jealous guy might do?’

‘What kinds of jealously are there?’

For Queen’s classic ‘We are the champions’:

‘What is a champion?’

‘What kinds of champions are there in the world?’

‘What activities have champions?’

Such questions tend to work really well as conversation starters, so group three of four learners together and then get feedback from each group three or four learners together and then get feedback from each group on their thoughts. If you think it would help, make this your first step, i.e., before the initial listening. Alternatively, prior to having listened to the song you can teach a couple of words and give a simple task for the first listening. My favourite strategy is to give three or four words from the song and ask to them to listen out for the words that rhyme with them. You could also brainstorm possible rhymes before listening.

3. Listen to the song again, this time with lyrics

This time, you should give learners the chance to read the lyrics to the song. At the point you might do one or more of the following activities:

• Learners can just read the lyrics while they listen. They can possibly highlight unknown words for later discussion.

• You can make a lyric worksheet as a gap fill; learners fill in the gaps as they listen.

• You can make cut-out strips of selected missing words and again make a lyric worksheet as a gap fill; this time learners match the word strips to the gaps as they listen.

4. Focus on a particular verb tense or aspect of grammar

Virtually every song centers on a particular verb tense. This is too good an opportunity to pass up in term of uncovering the grammar. My suggestion is to start with question such as these:

How many examples can you find of the past simple in the lyrics?

Why did the writer of the song choose this verb tense?

This acts as a springboard for discussing the function of the specific tense, as well as examining its form. Furthermore, it often tends to raise awareness of grammatical flexibility and ‘poetic license’ in the construction of the song lyrics. Students often expect songs to obey the grammatical rules that have been drummed into them. In a surprisingly large number of cases, this can lead to the enlightening discovery that rules can be broken!

5. Focus on vocabulary, idioms and expressions

We’ve noted that many songs bend the rules of grammar. It’s also useful to focus on the creative and artistic use of vocabulary we encounter in lyrics. Start with questions like these (again, for Queen’s classic song ‘We are champions’):

What does ‘I’ve paid my dues’ mean?

What does ‘my share of’ mean?

What does ‘I’ve taken my bows’ mean?

Go through the meanings, illustrating with other examples if necessary. Songs often serve as really good contexts for phrases and idioms, but it’s good to make sure that the meaning is clear. As with grammar, years of misunderstanding can come to light in this way!

6. Round things off with some creativity

Creativity is an important part of maintaining motivation but it shouldn’t be limited to the teaching approach. Depending on the factors highlighted in the first part of this post (age, language level, cultural specifics, etc.), you might want to try finishing things off with an activity that stimulates creative thought. Here are a few examples of things you can do to get the creative flowing:

• Write another verse of lyrics, maintaining the same mood and style as the original. This can be done individually or in group. These new lyrics can be presented to the rest of the class. Perhaps several groups can work on this to come up with a completely new set of lyrics for the whole song.

• A song tend to give to give you the perspective of the singer. Write a response (this can be a paragraph, i.e., not necessarily in lyric form) from the point of the view of the person the song is being sung about, or any other protagonist.

• Have the learners plan a music video for the song. In group they decide the location, the characters, and what happens. Then each group explains their idea to the rest of the class and the learners vote on the best one. The results can be surprising, as they frequency come up with an interpretation that hadn’t even occurred to you!

• Write a diary entry a character in the song. Get learners to examine the thoughts and feelings that inspired the story being played out in the lyrics.