Songs for Adults?

Vali · Post by **Vali** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 4:35 am

Has anybody used any popular songs in adult classes? Any success? Recommendations?

Showem · Post by **Showem** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 6:30 pm

Yep, they can work well. Good chance for new vocabulary, the occasional grammar point, doing something different than regular book work.

Lots of Beatles songs work because you can easily understand the lyrics.
"Do you want to know a Secret" for practicing Present Simple questions.

Country Roads by John Denver I've used at the end of a course.

Monty Python's "Always look on the Bright Side of Life" can be fun if your group is familiar with them.

"If I had a Hammer" by Peter Paul & Mary is good for the conditionals. With this one, instead of giving the lyrics, I drew pictures of a Hammer, the sun coming up (morning), sun going down (evening), etc etc, to help them figure out the lyrics and sing along. Works best with culture groups who are already somewhat familiar with the song.

Hope that's a good start for you.

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 11:36 pm

A wonderful way to get students to listen and memorize words in a pleasant and motivating way. I would get them to choose their own songs though because adults and teenagers will have a wide variety of musical tastes and want to learn their own type of music. You can do a myriad of things with the songs from the boring leave out the word and fill them in which most of them hate after awhile. You can change words to keep the meaning but learn synonyms. You can have the students translate to their own language and keep the beat and meaning. You can get them to act out the songs, take pictures and put them beside the appropriate lines. They can also write out the stories in longer versions. You can take on the singers or the composers and their lives, their experiences and why they wrote the songs. They can present those as themes with posters, talks on the singers or composers, an air band version of their song with choreography if desired. Go to lyrics.com for the words of the songs and there are endless sites for the singers and composers. It is a great activity for pronunciation.

barisil · Post by **barisil** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:53 pm

I use several CD's of songs that work well in classrooms.

View the lists and all lyrics by Googling "Songs Barry ETNI".

I am looking fruitlessly for an old LP called "hard to use that English as a Second Language Blues"
Anyone out there have a copy somewhere?

Barry

robert w · Post by **robert w** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 8:12 pm

I used the song "One of Us" by Joan Osborne to teach some grammar points like If and would. It worked great. My students gave me a very good feedback.