МЕТОДИКА ИЗУЧЕНИЯ ИНОСТРАННЫХ ЯЗЫКОВ
Вестник КАСУ
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given a song to listen to and the lyrics with
gaps in for them to fill in as they listen. This
activity is not as simple as it sounds and be-
fore making one yourself think about why
you’re taking out certain words. It may be bet-
ter to take out all the words in one group, such
as prepositions or verbs,
and tell students what
they should be listening out for. Another op-
tion is to take out rhyming words. Don’t be
tempted to take out too many words, eight or
ten is normally enough. To make the task eas-
ier you could provide the missing words in a
box at the side for the students to select, or
you could number the gaps and provide clues
for each number.
It is a good way to use Spotting the mis-
takes. Change some of the words in the lyrics
and as students listen they have to spot and
correct the mistakes. As with the gap-fill limit
the mistakes to a maximum of eight or ten and
if possible choose a word set. You could make
all the adjectives opposites for example. An-
other example of this for higher levels is to
show the students the real lyrics and you cor-
rect the English and make it proper! E.g.
‘gonna’ change to ‘going to’ ‘we was’ change
to ‘we were’ etc. This is a good way to focus
on song language.
The next idea can be Comic stripping.
Songs that tell stories are great for students to
make comic strips out of. You have to choose
your song carefully and spend time looking at
the lyrics with the students and making sure
they have understood the main ideas. Lower
levels may need guidance as to how to divide
up the song into suitable chucks that can be
represented pictorially.
Ordering the verses is another way of
using in the classroom. With low levels this is
a very simple activity. Chop up the lyrics of
the song by verse and give a small group of
students the jumbled verses. As they listen
they put them in order.
In the class you can use also Discus-
sions. Certain songs lend themselves to dis-
cussions and you can use the song as a nice
lead in to the topic and a way to pre-teach
some of the vocabulary. They can start discus-
sions on a topic or even become the centre of
debate. This is especially true of songs that
develop a particular theme.
Translating is very useful tool. Al-
though some teachers oppose all use of the
mother tongue in the language classroom,
some students really enjoy translating lyrics
into their own language. If you do ask students
to do this ensure the lyrics are worth translat-
ing!
Writing the next verses is also a good
tool which we used. Higher levels can write a
new verse to add to a song. Focus on the pat-
terns and rhyme of the song as a group and
then let students be creative. If they are suc-
cessful, the new verses can be sung over the
top of the original!
Have students write a letter to the main
character or the singer, send an answer to a
person referred to in the song, rewrite the song
as a story, write a story which began before
the story in the song and led to it, or write a
story which will continue after the song.
Change words (adjectives, adverbs,
nouns - names, places or feelings), and invent
new lyrics for the melody. If you have karaoke
versions of the songs you can then let students
sing their own versions.
We hope that at least some of these
ideas will be good for your classes. The more
you use music in the classroom the more uses
you will find for it. English songs can be used
for a wide variety of ESL learning and teach-
ing activities.
Seven reasons why we use songs in the
classroom.
1. They are authentic materials.
2. You can teach culture and history
3. Songs contain repetitions and repeti-
tions enhance learning
4. Good way to teach vocabulary
5. Good way to teach grammar
6. Good way to teach pronunciation and
listening
7. They are fun and they can easily en-
ergize the unmotivated
Why are songs so suitable?
We can’t generalize, but research has
found that pop songs have characteristics that
help learning a second language: they often
contain common, short words; the language is
conversational, time and place are usually im-
precise; the lyrics are often sung at a slower
rate than spoken words and there is repetition
of words and grammar (Murhpy, 1992). Fur-
thermore, songs are also known to lower the
“affective filter” or, in other words, to moti-
vate learners to learn. So, what positive con-