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Music and Language
Resources for foreign-language teachers
Teaching and Learning
Languages
We don’t have to forget that, in this case, music is a tool, therefore, music has to be used as a tool, and we don’t have to transform an English lesson into a music lesson. We should be teachers through music not music teachers, and that means that we must use music in a transversal way.
Singing Songs
Songs for language learning have been considered in relation to the development of the four skills, activation of both hemispheres, memory, motivation and cultural sensitivy.
Children generally love music, singing, and imitating. Adult learners choose listening to foreign language songs in their free time as they believe this can improve their language learning skills. They appreciate such activities because they are fun and, therefore, reduce language anxiety often caused by an inability to understand and speak the target language correctly (Fonseca and García, 2010). When somebody listens to songs, they sing, dance and learn the lyrics in an unconcious manner.
Marquart (1992) have concluded that “remarkable differences exist between children who are sung to daily, versus those who are not, especially in the area of speech and language acquisition”. Based on the philosophy of Kodaly, He explains that his research indicated that classes receiving daily music instruction academically surpassed classes receiving less frequent instruction, to the point that his studies convinced the Hungarian Ministry of Education to expand the Singing Primary Schools (as cited in Salcedo, 2002: 63-64).
Singing songs and Language Prosody
Cross-linguistic analyses, including tonal languages, proved that Infants direct speech (IDS) is characterized by different melody contours, each associated with a different emotive context: approval, prohibition, attention, or comfort (Fernald, 1992). Moreover, Friederici and Hahne (2000) assert the typical preference of babies for rhythm seems to have its neurophysiological origin in the fact that the right hemisphere plays a particularly important role in the earliest phases of language development.
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Singing songs and Pronunciation
Songs can be effective in the development of phonetic abilities and it is easy to find songs that emphasise a specific phoneme we want to work on. According to Palmer and Kelly (1992), songs exaggerate the stress and duration of the phonetic elements, what benefits memory and acquisition of the foreign language. These authors affirm that divisions of four beats in the majority of songs coincide with the stress and non-stresses syllables of utterances, thus aiding memorization.
Singing songs and Cultural Awareness
Abbot (2002: 10) suggests that "cultures have musical traditions because of the enjoyment people receive from creating rhythms and expressins their feelings, ideas, thoughts, and values through lyrics". Songs provide both cultural and linguistic elements with respect to second-language acquisition learning. Songs offer an important way to introduce culture and help motivate students (Murphey, 2010).
Singing songs and Grammar
We can use songs such a definite advantage in memorization of phrase constructions, because as Fallioni (1993) states “ the new structures that may seem isolated or out of context in pattern drills, are seen in a different perspective when they are part of a song” (101).
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In short, Singing songs are useful for not only discrete lexical vocabulary item recall, but also for longer utterances and formulaic phrases. Wray and Perkins (2000) have suggested that most speech is the repetition and variation of memorized formulas. Distinctive intonation, rhythmic and stress patterns can accompany each formulaic unit when incorporating the multiple formulai lexical phrases found in songs, making it easier for the learner to remember and apply.
Presenting a new song to class. Some advice.
1. You play the song as students silently look at the words.
2. You have students repeat the words without singing them.
3. You point out new vocabulary, idioms, grammar items, and give needed pronunciation cues.
4. You play the song again, letting the students join in when they feel confident about singigng alone.
(As cited in Whitaker, 1981:11)
Some ideas for the use of songs in the ESL class.
1. Filling in the blanks
Songs are often used in this way in the ESL classroom. You can carefully choose which words to blank out depending on what lexical area you want your students to work on.
2. Listening Comprehension
Instead of doing your usual listening comprehension out of the course books, do a song instead. Get your students thinking about the subject and do any pre-teaching of vocabulary as necessary. As with standard listening comprehension, there are a variety of exercises that you can do with songs: true or false, matching exercises, open comprehension questions, etc.
3. Phonetics
You can use a song with a clear rhyme pattern to do some phonetics work on particular phonemes.
4. Strips of Paper
The lyrics you will find on this site can be cut up into strips which then need to be reconstructed as the song unfolds. Alternatively, each student is given a strip to memorise beforehand and the students then work among themselves to 'physically' rebuild the song.
5. Vocabulary
Some songs lend themselves well to vocabulary work. When possible, I have noted on the menu pages when vocabulary exercises are possible.
6. Writting activity
Organize student presentations: give students 4-5 lines of lyrics with translation, then play a short YouTube clip. Finally, ask students write down 100 words on why they like the song.
7. Be musicians
Have students write a song or get student s to make up new endings or make up their own versions of songs.
8. Class discussions
Use songs to encourage discussions in my literature classes. For ex Animal Farm with Revolution by The Beatles.Use songs to prompt discussion about the song. Play a clip, students talk (Have you ever heard this?, Do you like this?, and so on). Use two versions of songs and get student s to compare them like 2 versions of Candle in the wind .
9. The use of language
Get students to write additional verses.
10. Vocabulary Quiz
Play a song once, and ask students to write down as many words as they can, pair them up, and ask them to create a new song with the words.
11. Grammar
Use screen capture to take pics from a song video, they can then be used for ordering or prediction.
12. Describe and compare
If there are different visuals to a music video, or advert using a song, it can be interesting to consider the differences.
13. Performance
Play the song and ask them to design a concept for the video.Get Young Learners to mime song, teens to act out a scene of what they think happened.
14. Drawing
Ask students to draw while listening to a song, then talk about what they drew.
15. Culture
Use a mix of music from different countries. ASk students explain similarities and differences in the sentiments of the songs.
16. Project-based learning
Get students to research the singers or bands and do projects or presentations on them.
17. Vocabulary
Write key words on bits of coloured paper and hand out them to students. They have to stand up when they hear their word.
18. Scrambled lyrics
Give students lyrics but put lines out of order. Students reorder, then listen.
19. Quiz
Students listen to a song, then retell or answer questions.
20. Karaoke
Get student s making karaoke files (they learn while doing). Use karaoke versions of songs on YouTube and have an occasional sing off with students.
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