Songs provide opportunities for
repetition and practice
Songs provide excellent opportunities for
repetition and practice that might otherwise
be tedious. Repetition of language is pleasurable—
such as repeating choruses, or singing
cumulative songs where each verse borrows
words from a previous verse (e.g., “The
Twelve Days of Christmas”). This repetition,
most often accompanied by physical actions,
helps learning and in turn leads to familiarity
so that children feel comfortable with the
foreign language (Rumley 1999). In addition,
as argued by Sharpe (2001), by singing songs
pupils gradually internalize the structures and
patterns of the foreign language as well as the
specific language items that the teacher wants
them to learn.