Job Discussion Forums

[thelmadatter]

I just started teaching an "Advanced Maintenance" (my school's words, not mine) class for some of the teachers here at my school. Because these are teachers and highly-motivated students, I spent part of the first day taking suggestions/input of what they wanted to do in the class and we discussed the pros/cons of them and priorties. Music as a listening activity was something mentioned but when I asked exactly what they wanted to do with it, they were not sure.

So.... for this kind of class what suggestions might you have in regards to music? I draw a blank here.

[Guy Courchesne]

I have been wanting to post something along these lines for a time.

Thelma you are in Mexico...have you noticed that some students or 'regular everyday people' (haha, why does that sound weird?) are able to almost perfectly sing/pronounce an English song they know and like, but are poor at free communication? Following language through rythym and rhyme seems effective for those who learn best this way.

Rather than take a cognitive approach with lyrics, why not try it through pronunciation? Might be hard to get all the students on the same page when choosing the music, so perhaps some simpler songs like Christmas Carols or Nursery ryhmes (don't know the age of your students...)

On a very different wavelength...

I've used the musical scale (do re mi, etc) to place English vowel pairs in a graph so the students could practice raising and lowering the voice. Examples...putting the words 'wheel' and 'will' or 'hill' and 'heel' on the chart to show differences. Wheel sounds higher pitched than will and heel sounds higher than hill. I find many students have troubles in not hearing much difference between certain pairs of words. Admittedly, I've not had much success with the method, though some students picked it up quick.

[moonraven]

Considering that only 10% of students in any given classroom are auditive learners--and 90% of university instruction is bla bla bla, it's necessary to develop listening strategies. I have done so in both English and Spanish.

What I use most frequently in EFL classes are fill in the blanks for the song lyrics. We usually listen three times to the song--any more and those 10%-ers get bored, and then read the lyrics with the blanks filled in. That allows students who have trouble to see the complete song before they are asked to sing it. Students of all ages here like singing the songs--and usually will want to sing them several times--but that takes the wind out of the sails of the communicative activities that follow the singing.

I usually do a song/listening class in this format:

1. Warm-up question that relates to the song's topic and the students' experience and reportage.

2. Presentation of key vocabulary followed by a vocabulary activity that uses it.

3. Presentation of the song as described above.

4. A solid follow-up activity based on the theme of the song (e.g. writing a poem, writing a letter to a person with whom they've had the experience realted in the song, role playing a similar situation, panel discussion that spins off the song's content, etc.)

In this way you can incorporate the four skills very naturally and students leave class on a high note (no pun intended.)

Students remember the songs, the vocabulary and what was talked about. I remember one student I had here in a university who, 3 months after we had a class with the song, entered the classroom after a fight with his wife singing the Chet Baker version of "The Thrill Is Gone"....

[Twisting in the Wind]

There's a book, maybe it's about 15 years old now, called "Tune into English" that Adult schools in the states were using in the late 80's and early '90's with their ESL students. It comes with a tape, I believe. I've used it with adults, but think you could adapt it for use with children. The lessons take you through very easy structures such as greetings and salutations, into more difficult grammar. Each lesson is geared around a certain well-known tune in Western/American culture. The students learn a dialogue that is set to this music. The lesson goes through passive listening, progressing to repeating and singing along with the tape, to Cloze exercises and writing the lyrics.

Music is very relaxing in the classroom and reduces the affective filter. It is a good rainy day activity or lazy Fri afternoon activity.

[Twisting in the Wind]

Also, when I was trying to perfect my Spanish, one thing I would do would be to listen to Latin American music I liked (in my case, Andean music--from Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador) and practice listening and writing the lyrics. It was very challenging in some ways because of the prevalence of regional slang in these songs, but also very easy and straightforward in other senses, because since the tunes were folkloric, a lot of vocabulary was repeated and predictable and fairly simple in nature.

Is there some popular music in English your ss like? Take a vote. When I was teaching, everybody wanted to learn the lyrics from Titanic Maybe there are a few songs you could agree on. Get a tape made. Have listening/writing exercises or Cloze exercises in class. Show the ss how they can easily do this at home (they'll just wear out the REWIND button on their tape players...)

Play the song through once, so the ss will get an idea of how it goes in its totality.

Depending on their level, you may want to play it a few more times so hey can just listen without the added pressure of having to produce language.

Before you play it again, tell them that this time, you want them to tell you generally what the song in about. Write the words they shout out on the board. So at the end, you'll have words like "love," "Loss," "Revenge" etc....writte on the board.

Then tell them you're now going to go stanza by stanza maybe before this you will have wanted to teach them some basic musical vocabulary--ss always love this:
stanza
lyrics
rhyme
rhythm
verse
(etc)
So that you have a common vocabulary for talking about matters pertaining to the song and music in general...

Now go stanza by stanza--play a stanza. Ask them, "What is he/are they singing?"

Write what they say on the board.

Try to get them to tell you the whole song this way. It will take more than one class session. At the end, give them the words of the song, so they can see how close, far off they were to the actual lyrics.

[distiller]

I've run a few lessons based on music. One involves taking a song with relatively clear singing; I've used Dean Martin, and tie it into a theme you are discussing. I have a Dean Martin Christmas album I bring out around the holidays. You get everyone prepped on their vocab and you give them a piece of paper with target words missing from the lyrics. There are several way to go from here. If you are teaching rhyme scheme or just rhyming you can leave out one half of a rhyme and see if they can infer what the missing words will be. You can also just use it as a pure listening activity to gap fill vocab words. Then you play the music, usually more than once, and they fill in the missing words or rhymes. As an extension I usually have them write a new verse to the song as well and even have them sing it to the class in the song's tune. It�s fun and by the end of the lesson everyone is humming away. I also use music for phonics as I find singing helps phonics tremendously.

[Sheep-Goats]

A few problems about using music -- to keep in mind:

1) Those good sounding singers often sound good because they really distort their words.

2) Students will often not appreciate the songs you do, so don't feel put out. As much as it causes all of us dismay, they actually have reasons that they like Britney and Kylie -- and they'll probably laugh while you play a serious Johnny Cash song.

3) Students may also lack the ability to infer meaning from poetic lines. Which means you'll often have to teach them that, which is a seperate (almost non-lingusitic) skill.

-----

The real trick with using a song is to use it as more than just a thematic starting point or a vocabulary activity. Speakers from languages that don't do much in the way of relative stress, varying stress or rhyme will benefit most from the language in the song.

After introducing the song and planting a seed for the above items, I suggest a period of transcription (of whole lines, not words) of portions of the song. Students should work in groups, with one memeber of each group directing another student (or the teacher) at the player to rewind, pause, or whatever.

Any activities in the other strands (writing, speaking, reading) should encorporate language elements from the song (not just thematic ones) to really be worth the student's while.

[distiller]

Obviously you must choose a clear singer, I mentioned Dean Martin who sang very clearly and rather slowly.

And of course you don't choose cryptic Doors lyrics but something more concrete and tangible to the target students.

In terms of transcription students would be better off transcribing a conversation rather than a song, not to mention that it's dead boring and really annoying when it means you are playing bits of music over and over again. A gap filling conversational piece would do the trick in most cases.

I mentioned Christmas as an example not to as a way of saying songs used in this way can only be used for thematic purpose, not that there is anything wrong with using them that way. Songs used this way can target specific grammar points, phonetics or narrative devices all of which would be reinforced by the activities I mentioned.

[some waygug-in]

You have to be careful when allowing students to choose music for use in class. Once I made the mistake of asking my teenage students to pick a song to study for the next class. They chose something by a current rap group in which every line or second line contained a 4-letter expletive.

Now, I try to offer a mix of things that are currently popular along with some of my own favorites.

I try to filter out anything too provocative or suggestive.

Sting and or The Police are always useful.

cheers

[dmb]

What about using music to present new grammar? In the past I've used Suzanne Vega to present the present continuous(Guess which song?) and 4/5 varied songs for comparatives and superlatives. Do you ever use music for presentations?