ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Peter Viney

Curtis Kelly

Panelists: Marc | Peter | Curtis
Date: June 2003

Topic: "How can we use songs in the language classroom?"

Marc Helgesen

"Music is the soundtrack of your life."
- Dick Clark (American D.J.)

Music in the classroom is great. Everyone loves at least some kinds of music. High interest. High effect. High motivation.

But, before getting to a few interesting things to do with songs, please allow me a couple paragraphs to denigrate what may be the most common things that is done with songs: cloze. To take a song - that wonderful source of emotion and soul - and then put in some blanks for students to write the missing words is, to me, the equivalent of promising the learners an excursion to a new, unknown place and then plopping them down in a dentist's office.

“I suspect that cloze (fill in the blanks) are done so often because teachers are so busy.”

I wrote a couple months ago about levels of processing. Appreciation and evaluation -- things you naturally do when you listen to music -- represent high level processing. Filling in missing words is usually literal, bottom-up processing. Not just the words are missing. The point is, too. Play with meaning, feeling, effect.

I suspect that cloze (fill in the blanks) are done so often because teachers are so busy. We can easily find lyrics on-line (on any search engine, song's title + lyrics is likely to find the words). We just delete a few and the lesson is ready to go. But do we really want students just listening for that? As an alternative, here are a few things that require even less preparation (I am assuming, of course, that the song is one the learners have some chance of understanding - I personally like (some) hip hop but find little my students can understand at the lyric level (but more ideas later). I personally like no opera - but if you do and can find something your students might understand and like, go for it.

OK, here's the short list:

• Listen, imagine and draw a picture. Then compare.
• Listen to a song that tells a story. With a partner, write the next verse (or just decide what happens next).
• Download the lyrics. Just give them out. Students read along silently as the listen. Then they talk about what they understand it to mean.
• Students listen with the lyrics. They tap their fingers or feet in rhythm (music is good for pronunciation - but it is about rhythm, stress and timing, not individual sounds like /b/ and /v/).

OK, cloze off my chest, on to a couple activities from my current music top 10.

Six bits
Choose 6 (or so) short bits of music. I like to use about 30 seconds of each piece. Ideally, they should be songs the students don't know. Also, they should be from a range of genres. It is better if some are things students are unlikely to be fans of (sample range: hip-hop, classical, blues, new age, pop, world music). Because of the last step of this task, I find (hard) rock doesn't work so well in my classes even thought most students like it. But if it works for you, great.

On the board, write these options:

- Listen closely.
- Turn it off.
- Leave it on as background music.
- Go to Amazon.co.jp/Tower records and buy the CD.

Ask the learners to imagine they are listening to the radio. These songs come on. What would they do? Play each bit. Learners choose their responses. They can compare answers after each bit, after all six or wait until the end.

Next (and this is the real significant part of the activity), they listen to each bit again. They imagine that it is background music for a TV commercial. What product is it advertising? They decide and compare answers. They should give reasons and tell what images they imagine.

(This is based on an activity I learned from Tim Murphey in "Music and Song" - Oxford University Press. If you use music, you really want to have this book).

The other activity I want to mention is original (I think). It is based on the Dick Clark quote at the top of the column - "Music is the soundtrack of your life." I ask students to identify five or six important events in their lives. They draw a very quick illustration (less than 2 minutes per picture). Then I say, "Imagine that someone is making a movie about your life. These are the scenes. What's that soundtrack? Think of one song or type of music for each scene (the song can be in Japanese but they have to think about how they will explain it in English.

I've done this with dozens of classes. It is one of those lessons that always works. I usually do the task (part of it, at least) with them. The part about teaching English? Mick Jagger helps: It's only rock and roll but I like it.

Panelists: Marc | Peter | Curtis

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Marc Helgesen, Miyagi Gakuin Women's College

Co-author of English Firsthand and Active Listening

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