How to Use Songs and Music in ESL Lessons

Using songs in an ESL classroom is a great way to motivate students of all ages to learn English. Using songs helps improve students' listening and reading skills. Songs help facilitate the acquisition of vocabulary in an inductive way. Like all successful lessons, using songs needs to be thought through in advance to engage the students effectively.

Instructions

1. Find a song that has appealing thematic content and is not too difficult for the ESL students to understand.

2. Think of a ten minute introductory activity before playing the song to the students. For example, the class can try to predict what the song may be about based on eight to 10 targeted vocabulary items or based on a picture. Students can also discuss a quote or a sentence related to the song. Teachers can also ask students to do a creative writing assignment before hearing the song.

3. Think of an appropriate task for students to do while they listen to the song. This main activity should be directly connected with doing something with the language of the song. For example, students can listen to the song and write the missing words either from a word bank the teacher supplies beforehand or using their own knowledge. This is typically known as a cloze activity. Students can also find and circle the mistakes relating to vocabulary. A third activity that students like very much is to arrange the chorus and parts of the song according to sentence strips, prepared prior to the lesson.

4. Distribute copies of the song to students. Make sure you photocopied enough copies before the lesson. Sometimes more is better.

5. Play the song for the students at least twice; once for general content and the second for complete the main activity.

6. Close the song lesson with a closing activity. A summing up activity gives closure to the lesson. Students can write down the words they learned and arrange them in order of difficulty. Ask students to prepare some sort of game like a memory or Bingo game, which is always fun. Sometimes you can use a reflective activity. Other times, try to engage the students in some kind of discussion: what did they like best about the song? How did the song make them feel? Do they agree with the writer? Why or why not? Do you think that it is possible to......? Do you think that in ten years......?

Tips & Warnings

• ESL students should learn at least eight to 10 new vocabulary words a week.

• Check the quality of the recording of the song before playing them for your students. Make sure there is no interference with understanding the words.

• Make sure the content is thematically, syntactically and lexically appropriate for the students.