Use songs in the classroom and have a blast. Songs are a great way to make learning English fun and engaging for students of all ages and levels. Songs can help students improve their listening skills, vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and cultural awareness. In this blog post, I will share some tips and ideas on how to use songs in the EFL classroom effectively.
Choose songs that are appropriate for your students’ level and interests. You don’t want to use songs that are too difficult or too easy for your students, or songs that they don’t like or relate to. You can ask your students for their preferences, or use online tools such as ESL Video to find songs with different levels of difficulty and genres. For example, you can use songs by Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift for beginner students, songs by The Beatles or Queen for intermediate students, or songs by Adele or Bruno Mars for advanced students.
Prepare some pre-listening activities to activate your students’ background knowledge and motivate them to listen. For example, you can show them some pictures or words related to the song’s topic, ask them some questions about the song’s title or artist, or play a short snippet of the song and have them guess what it is about. Let’s say you are going to use the song “Imagine” by John Lennon, you can show them some images of peace symbols, ask them what they know about John Lennon and his activism, or have them guess what he imagines in the song.
Design some while-listening activities to check your students’ comprehension and focus their attention on specific aspects of the song. For example, you can give them a worksheet with some gaps to fill in with the missing words from the lyrics, a multiple-choice quiz to answer based on the song’s content, or a bingo card with some words or phrases from the song to cross out as they hear them.
For example, if you are using the song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, you can give them a gap-fill exercise with words such as “clap”, “roof”, “happiness”, or “freedom”, a multiple-choice quiz with questions such as “What does Pharrell mean by ‘room without a roof’?” or “What is another word for ‘happy’?”, or a matching activity with pairs such as “happy – joyful”, “sunshine – light”, or “air balloon – fly”.
Incorporate some post-listening activities to extend your students’ learning and practice other skills. For example, you can have them discuss some questions related to the song’s theme or message, write a summary or a review of the song, or create their own lyrics based on the song’s structure or rhyme scheme. You can have them sing along with the song, discuss the song’s message or theme, write their own lyrics based on the song’s structure or rhyme scheme, or create a video or a poster inspired by the song.
For example, if you are using the song “Let It Go” from Frozen, you can have them sing along with the chorus, discuss what Elsa wants to let go of, write their own lyrics about something they want to let go of using the same rhyme scheme as the original song (e.g., snow – go – know), or create a video or a poster showing how they let go of their fears or worries.
Have fun and be creative! You can use songs in many different ways in the EFL classroom, depending on your objectives and your students’ needs and interests. You can use songs to introduce or review a grammar point, to teach new vocabulary or idioms, to practice pronunciation or intonation, to explore cultural aspects or values, or to inspire creative writing or speaking. The possibilities are endless!
Have you used songs in the EFL classroom? Which songs are you students’ favorite? Please share your ideas with us in the comments.
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