Using Songs in Class

Whether teaching English to children or adults, using songs in the English language classroom enriches our English lessons,making English learning a natural as well as an enjoyable and valuable experience for our students. What makes music such a great teaching tool? It is known to have broad psychological benefits and it relaxes students. It connects all cultures and languages. This makes it one of the best and most motivating resources in the classroom, regardless of the age or background of the learner.

Planning for the use of 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 make sure you get the right song.

Carefully examine what it is you want your class to learn in the lesson

Is 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 to introduce a text that looked at vain people. 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 may wish to use the song in question to exemplify a specific verb tense, and structure your lesson accordingly, but you may 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 fairly recent pop and rock songs. My advice: it’s often best to ask them ‘what’s cool’. Alternatively, for adult learners, who will probably have a more open approach to classes, use songs that are interesting to their age 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. Take into consieration 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, yet, an mp3, which doesn’t require a connection, or even a good old-fashioned CD, can often be a useful backup.

Recently, I came across an extremely useful list of songs with suggested material to teach through, done by ESL Lounge:

https://www.esl-lounge.com/songsab.php

Six steps for making a song the focus of your class

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.

Showing a video clip – in fact, I strongly recommend 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 them enjoy the music.

2. Ask some questions about the title and the genesis of the song

Here are a 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 jealousy 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 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 this 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 centres on a particular verb tense. My suggestion is to start with questions such as these:

How many examples can you find of the past simple in the lyrics?
Why did the writer of this song choose this verb tense?

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 the champions’):

What does ‘I’ve paid my dues’ mean?
What does ‘my share of’ mean?
What does ‘I’ve taken my bows’ mean

6. Interpreting the message of the song

Let your student interact in pairs or groups, analyzing the message of the song.

Remember, we offers a wide variety of excellent ready-made song-based exercises for all levels of students from A1-C2. If you want to try them, contact us for a free demo and sign up to the best e-Learning platform around 🙂