Using songs to teach English | TeachingEnglish | British Council

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Using songs to teach English

Submitted by evab2001 on 4 February, 2011 - 11:25

I believe one of the best tools to teach a foreign language is using songs. These real songs can be very effective. I know many friends and students who improved their English listening to songs.For example, My husband never had a formal English lesson. He studied French at school but he loves music very much and he can speak English better than he can speak French. He is not good at grammar yet he can communicate. Whenever I use songs in my lessons I know that barriers become smaller . I usually use the songs the students don't know but they must be known. Once with a really problem class, we had a Beatles Day. I prepared some materials, asked them to research and in class I divided them into groups and played Beatles songs while they were preparing their Beatles displays. They enjoyed the activity very much and said the music they were listening to couldn2t be compared with it.

Five reasons why I use songs in class

They are authentic materials
You can also teach culture and history
Songs contain repetitions and repetitions enhance learning
Good way to teach vocabulary and pronunciation
They are fun and they can easily energize the unmotivated

Some useful sites to help you.

Using Songs in the English Classroom

Songs that can be used in the classroom

Music for Teaching Social Studies

Write a Blues song

Using Music in the ESL Classroom

Songs

using songs in the esl classroom

Teaching with songs

Musical English Lessons International

LyricsTraining,

EFL Classroom.ning

TEFLTunes

Using Songs in the Classroom

Tune into English

Learn English with songs from Esolcourses

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/nik-peachey/6-activities-you-can-do-online-songs-music via Nik Peachey

http://ddeubel.edublogs.org/2010/12/31/tesol-teacher-training-presentations/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_nPUuPryCs via David Deubelbeiss

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Folk-DC-Digital-Childrens-Folksongs-for-Language-and-Cultural-Learning/181031155249040 via Joel Josephson

from Arjana Blazic listening quizzes made on the ESL Video website http://traveloteacher.blogspot.com/p/quizzes-for-eflesl-students.html

Learn English With Christmas Songs page: http://traveloteacher.blogspot.com/p/learn-english-with-christmas-songs.html

Teaching English through songs in the digital age (part 1 of 4): Background readings and resources

Teaching English through songs in the digital age (part 2 of 4): Ideas for using songs

Teaching English through songs in the digital age (part 3 of 4): Specific songs and their uses

Teaching English through songs in the digital age (part 4 of 4): Music-related web 2.0 tools

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Comments

CoffeeAddict

Voice

Submitted on 4 February, 2011 - 13:49

Do you think it is important that the teacher sings with the students? What if the teacher has a terrible voice????

:-) CoffeeAddict

ozgeemre

Songs

Submitted on 4 February, 2011 - 14:16

Hi Evab2001,

This was such a useful blog, thank you!:)

Özge Karaoğlu

Songs

Submitted on 4 February, 2011 - 16:06

Hi Eva,

Fantastic list of resources, thanks for sharing. Here is a karaoke tool that you can use in your classes, my kids enjoy this: http://www.karaokeparty.com/

Özge

esenmetin

Songs

Submitted on 4 February, 2011 - 21:16

Another source:

http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Saricoban-Songs.html

hayriye

I certainly agree with you. I

Submitted on 4 February, 2011 - 23:40

I certainly agree with you. I often take advantage of songs with children, especially when I teach things they have difficulty in memorizing, namely months of the year, ordinal numbers, or etc. There are great songs on the website learnenglishkids supported by British Council. Here's the link to the song 'Time for another year', which I used for teaching months.

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/songs/time-another-year

Ayşe Reyya

They love songs

Submitted on 5 February, 2011 - 13:57

Beatles Day is a wonderful idea, I'll try to do it this year. And songs make school days brighter and fun for them. Thank you for this post and really useful links.