TEFL Songs in the classroom

Learning English can be very confusing to speakers of other languages. Music promotes, mantains and restores mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health and facilitates contact, interaction, self-awareness and communication. Finding the right song at the right time is the key for most teachers.

What will they use the song for? Will they use it as a filler, to fill in the gaps of time between the next lesson? Will they use it to teach pronounciation? Clauses? To finish/match sentence halves? What the teacher uses the song for in the classroom will have a tremendous effect on how the students learn with the song.

I have only so far used songs with beginners. When I used the songs, I also used big expressions, and hand gestures, which really hook them in and gain their excitement, and catch their attention.

It?s important to not neglect the academic aspect of using songs in the classroom. Yes, they are great for gaining the students approval, excitement, and heart. But the teacher must remember to keep the best intrest of the students at hand. It?s good for the teacher to have fun with these songs too. One way for the teacher to bring the student back to the academnic side with the songs is to go over the pronounciation of the words with the students before they sing the song. Putting the gaps at the end of each line, students can use the fact that the words rhyme to put the correct words in the correct places wich will give students a greater understanding of how rhyming in English goes, and how the words they will use can go together.

Songs often times will reflect the singer?s personal feelings toward a situation which would be good for the students to examine the singer?s English during the song and even their pronounciation of words, This is good for the students to recognise the difference between American English and Brittish English. Sometimes even English songs will sacrifice grammer for smooth rhythm and rhyme. When the teacher hears this happening in one of the songs, the teacher shouldn?t worry, its? a good teaching tool. The students can then pick out the mistakes, and state how it should really be said.

Students may have a difficult time pronouncing words with R?s so songs like ?Row, row, row, your boat? will be good to help them in their learning of the pronounciation of words with R?s in them. Will even help them to have a little fun too.

With music in the classroom students have an opportunity to practice pronunciaton and increacse cultural knowledge and understanding. Many times using music is the best way for a student to learn because it catches their ears and draws them in and keeps them excited. Often times the students may feel embarrassed when something is said wrong, or they have not said something right. It is often the best way for the students to gain practice without being embarrassed, by their peers, and by other speakers or English.

Resources

http://www.eslcafe.com/idea/index.cgi?display:918757998-19308.txt

http://www.esl-lounge.com/alex-case-using-songs.shtml

http://www.esl-lounge.com/alex-case-using-songs.shtml 2

http://www.esl-galaxy.com/articles/Using%20English%20videos%20and% 20music%20in%20EFL%20article a)Music

http://iteslj.org/Articles/Brown-Rhymesl Nursery rhymes and songs

Author: Daril Bradley

Date of post: 2007-04-24