Teaching English through 'songs'

Teaching English through 'songs' 

Since we agree that applying old traditional methods make our lessons incomprehensible and lead students to be confused, we have to develop engaging techniques to make the learning process meaningful. It is difficult for students to develop their language skills by attending long last classes and listening more and more rules/information about the target language or dealing with  difficult tasks. By the way, for an interesting lesson, it is important to create meaningful context.

So, here I  offer  'teach English through songs' as an authentic text. Songs are one of the most enchanting and culturally rich resources that can easily  be used in language classrooms. They are effective means of learning for both adults and young learners. For me, if I memorize a song, even after two or there years without listening, I can remember the lyrics, the rhythm etc... 

One of the big problems we all face, whether teaching English to children or adults, is maintaining learners' interest throughout our lessons. Consequently, we often have to be very creative in the techniques we use. What makes music such a great teaching tool is  its universal appeal, connecting all cultures and languages. This makes it one of the best and most motivating resources in the classroom, regardless  of the age or background of the learner. 

( Adam J. Simpson,2015) 

When it comes to choosing song, think about; 

•  the language level of your class

• the age of the learners 

• the interests 

• what you are going to teach? ( the grammar point to be studied etc..)    

For example, be careful to use repetitive songs for young learners, use contemporary or fairly recent pop or rock songs for teenagers and for adults, use songs that are interesting to their age group.
There are many ways for teaching procedure and developing techniques, it mainly depends on the creativity of the teacher. Apart, here is an example belongs to Adam J. Simpson ;

• listen to the song
• ask some questions about the title
• listen the song again, this time with lyrics ( you can make a lyric worksheet as a gap fill, learners can fill in the gaps as they listen)
• focus on a particular verb tense or aspect of grammar ( How many examples you can find of the past simple in the lyrics?)  
• focus on vocabulary, idioms, expressions 
• round things off with some creativity

some examples  of techniques;

• gap filling

• focus questions

• true-false statements 

• put these lines into the correct sequence

• add a final verse

• circle the antonyms/synonyms...                             

some examples of songs;

• for introducing a text that looked at vain people : ''You're so vain'' by Carly Simon

• present tense :  '' let it be'' by Beatles

• present progressive :  '' sailing'' by Rod Stewart 

• present perfect : ''nothing compares to you'' by Sinead O'connor

• and for young learners you can find lots of educational songs on YouTube.