Songs and music
Songs on recordings, video/DVD or perhaps played on a guitar in the classroom
are often used as a ‘filler’ activity to change the mood or pace of a lesson. They
sometimes tend to get relegated to the ‘Friday afternoon’ slot as a sort of reward
for the week’s hard work. Fine, but do be aware that songs can also be usefully
integrated into the main flow of your course.
Many course books nowadays include songs that specifically focus on
grammatical or functional items; these may have been selected because of their
content (e. g. Tom’s Diner uses a lot of present progressive) or specially written
and recorded for students of English. Of course, you can also select interesting
authentic songs yourself, with the advantage, perhaps, that they are often more
up-to-date.
Songs can be used in many of the same ways that you might use an ordinary
speech recording. Interesting lyrics and clarity of vocals help to make a song into
appropriate classroom material, and for this reason folk music or a solo singer-songwriter are often a better bet than a heavy-metal band.
Task 205: Using a pop song in class
Think of a specific pop song. How could you use this song in class with your students?
Commentary
The section below gives some basic ideas for using songs.
Ideas for using songs in class
' Reading or listening comprehension: Use the song text as a normal reading
or listening text with the bonus of hearing it sung afterwards (use the lesson
ideas in Chapter 8, Sections 1 and 2).
- Listen and discuss: Get students to listen to the whole song once or twice,
or to a shorter section. Discuss what happened, reactions, interpretations,
predictions, etc. Printed lyrics could be given out if you wish.