I am looking for a collaborator for a project involving using the singing of songs (and the reciting of song lyrics) as a method of improving ESL stufents' pronunciation. If you are interested please contact me at [email protected]
I am also interested in a general discussion and any help on this topic!
Bruce Richman
Songs can help ESL pronuciation
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coffeedecafe
- Posts: 73
- Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 10:17 am
- Location: michigan
since it will involve either already known songs, or time to learn them, how big a vocabulary would you like to target, or are you going to be concentrating on sound differences such as the problem 'j' sound in chinese? are you going to learn and translate known native songs so the tunes will be familiar? are you going to use video's for a karoake approach?[might ease student tension] solo's so you can hear pronouciation or group sing to include the bashful?
this will probably end up being a modified system which tries to improve as it goes along. for starters, i would search my own music collection, then get cheap records and cassettes, and type out lyric pages into my computer, to be printed off as needed. oh, and in this case, i might even back up the materials to floppy or cd which i rarely do.
this will probably end up being a modified system which tries to improve as it goes along. for starters, i would search my own music collection, then get cheap records and cassettes, and type out lyric pages into my computer, to be printed off as needed. oh, and in this case, i might even back up the materials to floppy or cd which i rarely do.
Songs are a very versatile teaching tool, I've found. Most teachers use them as coffeedecake suggested, as cloze activities for vocabulary. Usually they use songs that go with whatever thematic unit they're doing. But I think a lot of people underestimate the possibilities of using songs for teaching fluency, pronunciation, or even grammar.
As far as the pronunciation goes, my best success has been with advanced students who have mastered the basic phonemes but are working on the details of their accent, trying to sound more "native." (I know that sounding totally native is impossible for most, and may not even be a worthy goal--but at the same time, thought some students will never "get it," others do "get it," and are interested to improve. And it's fun, for both them and you!)
Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. One interesting aspect of English, which is rarely explicitly taught, is the dropping of the "h" sound in function words like pronouns. Many ELL's will not pick up on this detail, and indeed, many will insist on pronouncing every "h" in order to have "good" pronunciation. This makes their speech sound labored, unnatural, and foreign. I teach my students that you drop the "h" in function words, but only when the word is not being stressed, and is not in the beginning of the sentence.
I start with a few dictation activities where I read a sentence using my conversational pronunciation (dropping the "h's"). Something like: "I tried to give 'im the books, but 'e didn't want 'em." Students have a hard time hearing this and write down all sorts of things. Then I teach them the rule. (We also used the "Slangman" books as a resource.)
Anyway, since this is a conversational phenomenen, it comes up in popular and country music. You can use "Spinning, Laughing, Dancing" (performed by Norah Jones) or "She's always a woman to me" (Billy Joel) or any number of other songs. I take out the pronouns and use it as a cloze activity that way. But I like it because it's not just random vocabulary, but rather a way of isolating a skill that's been directly taught in a "real-life" setting.
I have heard of some teaching program out there that is based only on songs, but I don't know what it's called.
Anyway, I'd be interested in what some of you use in your classrooms. . .
As far as the pronunciation goes, my best success has been with advanced students who have mastered the basic phonemes but are working on the details of their accent, trying to sound more "native." (I know that sounding totally native is impossible for most, and may not even be a worthy goal--but at the same time, thought some students will never "get it," others do "get it," and are interested to improve. And it's fun, for both them and you!)
Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. One interesting aspect of English, which is rarely explicitly taught, is the dropping of the "h" sound in function words like pronouns. Many ELL's will not pick up on this detail, and indeed, many will insist on pronouncing every "h" in order to have "good" pronunciation. This makes their speech sound labored, unnatural, and foreign. I teach my students that you drop the "h" in function words, but only when the word is not being stressed, and is not in the beginning of the sentence.
I start with a few dictation activities where I read a sentence using my conversational pronunciation (dropping the "h's"). Something like: "I tried to give 'im the books, but 'e didn't want 'em." Students have a hard time hearing this and write down all sorts of things. Then I teach them the rule. (We also used the "Slangman" books as a resource.)
Anyway, since this is a conversational phenomenen, it comes up in popular and country music. You can use "Spinning, Laughing, Dancing" (performed by Norah Jones) or "She's always a woman to me" (Billy Joel) or any number of other songs. I take out the pronouns and use it as a cloze activity that way. But I like it because it's not just random vocabulary, but rather a way of isolating a skill that's been directly taught in a "real-life" setting.
I have heard of some teaching program out there that is based only on songs, but I don't know what it's called.
Anyway, I'd be interested in what some of you use in your classrooms. . .
I'm so lonesome....
Hey all.
Here's one I use with Spanish speakers who always cut vowel sounds too short and thus produce machine-gun sounding sentences without intonation or expression:
"I'm so lonesome I could cry" by Hank Williams.
First go through the song for vocab.
Then in chorus read the song elongating in a very very exaggerated manner the vowel sounds.
Then play them the Hank Williams version of the song.
Then again, in chorus, have them read the song, again with long, exaggerated vowels. Do this again and again, slowly incorporating the tune of the song until the class is actually singing the song.
Get the guitar out and play along to a full-blown sing-along (it's not a difficult song to strum, do, mi minor, re, fa, etc....)
In any dialogue exercise or sentence exercise, remind the students of the need to lengthen their vowels, maybe making them do the dialogue in slow motion or as a country song (taking advantage, for example, of the tune to the Williams' song).
This is fun and popular and gets the sounds into their mouths, making them aware that those Americans are not shouting, nor are they exaggerating, but are rather intoning and communicating with the ups and downs and the sing-song that is natural to English.
peace,
revel.
Here's one I use with Spanish speakers who always cut vowel sounds too short and thus produce machine-gun sounding sentences without intonation or expression:
"I'm so lonesome I could cry" by Hank Williams.
First go through the song for vocab.
Then in chorus read the song elongating in a very very exaggerated manner the vowel sounds.
Then play them the Hank Williams version of the song.
Then again, in chorus, have them read the song, again with long, exaggerated vowels. Do this again and again, slowly incorporating the tune of the song until the class is actually singing the song.
Get the guitar out and play along to a full-blown sing-along (it's not a difficult song to strum, do, mi minor, re, fa, etc....)
In any dialogue exercise or sentence exercise, remind the students of the need to lengthen their vowels, maybe making them do the dialogue in slow motion or as a country song (taking advantage, for example, of the tune to the Williams' song).
This is fun and popular and gets the sounds into their mouths, making them aware that those Americans are not shouting, nor are they exaggerating, but are rather intoning and communicating with the ups and downs and the sing-song that is natural to English.
peace,
revel.
OK, not pronunciation but...
One way of revising the language of description is to play extracts from songs of different styles (rock, dance, opera - it doesn't even have to be in English). Get the students to describe the kind of person who likes that kind of music - age, what sort of clothes they wear, attitudes etc.
e.g. "Smells like Teen Spirit" - black clothes, long hair, miserable...
"Marriage of Figaro" - cultured, educated, older?
Revise comparatives by playing two different versions of the same song, preferably in very different styles and elicit language like "The first song is louder/faster/slower/better..." (Joey Ramone's excellent cover of "Wonderful World" is great for this one)
One way of revising the language of description is to play extracts from songs of different styles (rock, dance, opera - it doesn't even have to be in English). Get the students to describe the kind of person who likes that kind of music - age, what sort of clothes they wear, attitudes etc.
e.g. "Smells like Teen Spirit" - black clothes, long hair, miserable...
"Marriage of Figaro" - cultured, educated, older?
Revise comparatives by playing two different versions of the same song, preferably in very different styles and elicit language like "The first song is louder/faster/slower/better..." (Joey Ramone's excellent cover of "Wonderful World" is great for this one)
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coffeedecafe
- Posts: 73
- Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 10:17 am
- Location: michigan
why type lyrics when you can just cut and paste off the internet?[looking foolish, checking to see if anyone noticed]
out comes guitar. thankfully i can chord-because-, " ahm so aunty quay ted ahy coo--d crah-ee.
setting down guitar uses the excuse that lyrics off the interenet will work sometimes, but sometimes you will want them with the notes , or typed spaced to infer rhythm, or even with official or impromptu phonetic writing, if it fits with the type of traing your students are able to appreciate.
i do tend to revel in jokes, which must be held back when people do not understand enough language, i suppose. i cannot help it sam-i am.
out comes guitar. thankfully i can chord-because-, " ahm so aunty quay ted ahy coo--d crah-ee.
setting down guitar uses the excuse that lyrics off the interenet will work sometimes, but sometimes you will want them with the notes , or typed spaced to infer rhythm, or even with official or impromptu phonetic writing, if it fits with the type of traing your students are able to appreciate.
i do tend to revel in jokes, which must be held back when people do not understand enough language, i suppose. i cannot help it sam-i am.