8 Mar 2012

English with Music

Can you imagine a world without music? No tunes, no songs, no melodies, no singers or concerts. Music surrounds us and it is an important part of our lives, as well as of our students' lives. They are enjoyable, motivating, full of examples of real English and, therefore, very effective tools for reviewing vocabulary, grammar structures, pronunciation, culture and dealing with social issues in upper-intermediate and advanced classes.

What is very important to bear in mind before choosing a song are the objectives, the resources we will use and the activities we will use so that students can achieve their goals and develop the different language skills.


Try not to choose songs that are popular among teenagers because, although they may love and enjoy them, they will already know the lyrics and the activities you have carefully prepared may become an absolutely flop. 

Digital resources for our classes
Tune into English is one of my favourite sites because it offers a section for teachers and another one for students. In the teachers section you will find lesson plans created by teachers to use different kinds of songs in your classes. Those lessons plans are in word format, what means that you can adapt the activities to suit your students' needs. Within the students area, students will find a lot of games, resources and links to learn more about music and learn English through songs.


TEFLTunes is a great place to find song ideas for teaching grammar and topics. However, not all the resources provided are free. There are free lesson plans but if you want get full access, you will need to subscribe and pay £10GBP.



Lyrics training is another great tool for students to improve their understanding of lyrics. The site includes YouTube videoclips which are organised in different levels of difficulty and cloze-type activities to complete the whole song.

What I do not like so much about it is that it includes a wide range of songs and some of them may be not suitable for pre-teens or teenagers.



Contribute with your ideas!



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2 comments:

Great idea, Inma, of course I'll do my best to contribute, and thanks for sharing!

I love how you have the slideshow right here on your page. How did you do that?

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