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Copyright (C) 1999/2023 by Richard Graham www.GenkiEnglish.com
Teach English with Music Even If You're Not Musically Inclined
Although we hear a lot about how songs can help the English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) or English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom, if you're
not musically inclined it can be tough to make it work. But no need to
worry, I'm going to give you some hints and techniques that I've used to
teach songs very effectively from classes of two kids up to over a thousand.
With a bit of practice ESL songs will save you a whole lot of stress and
time!
Here are my top tips...
If you're using traditional songs, try and pre-teach as much of the language
in previous lessons as you can. Don't teach it as a prelude to a song,
just let the a few of the words fall in naturally during the previous couple
of lessons. ( This idea also works well with drama plays or picture books).
If you're teaching a song specially written for teaching ESL or EFL, you
can probably introduce all the language at the beginning of today's lesson.
The main reason songs work so well is that many kids are what's called
"Musically Intelligent". It simply means that new phrases stick
in their memory if it's accompanied by a melody. It's the same thing that
happens when you hear the new Madonna song on the radio and can't get it
out of your head all day!
But although musical intelligence is very common, some kids are also intelligent
in different ways and we have to try and incorporate as many types as we
can into the class. So for kids who are more physical we add in gestures
and actions for each line of the song. The sillier the better. It's very
often a good idea to let the kids choose the gesture, that way it becomes
their own. As they own it they remember it much more easily.
Just as some kids are more physical, some learn more visually. More effective
than simply writing the lyrics on the board, a colourful picture card to
illustrate each lyric is recommended. Now we have actions, melody and pictures
for each new word or phrase. Ideally we'd also have a smell for each one,
but I think we'll leave that for now, as we have most of the kids learning
styles covered!
This is the key stage and the one that most teachers miss out. Even if
the kids already know the English, and have all the gestures and can see
all the pictures, if you simply play the CD and say "Hey, let's sing!"
they're all going to give you some very strange looks!
The key is to go through the song phrase by phrase without any backing
music. Do the actions and point to the picture cards and make sure everyone
can get a basic grasp of the melody. Don't worry if you can't sing well,
in most countries it's the effort that the kids see and appreciate! In
fact they'll often appreciate bad singing more than good singing. The side
effect of too much karaoke I feel.
If you have a particularly tricky song, start off slow and slowly build
up the speed. The point here is that by the time you've finished you should
be up to or just a little bit faster than the recording on the CD. You'll
be astounded at how fast the kids can get with this method.
In the a cappella section you'll hear the kids getting better at the English
but also sloping off in their concentration. That's when you kick in the
music! Make sure the arrangement is ultra genki and energetic and the kids
will spring to life with a vengeance. Blast up the volume and they'll be
singing their hearts out! Keep the gestures and actions in there and usually
after just one run through the song they'll have all the new language permanently
imprinted in their brains! They'll probably ask to sing it again, which
is fine, but no more than twice, you want to keep them wanting more for
next time.
And that's all there is to it, it's reall quite simple. Once you've done
the song you'll be able to play it again at the beginning of the next class
and they'll have remembered the English almost instantly. It's the best
technique I've found for curing the "we've forgotten everything"
problem you have with long gaps between classes.
Remember the "a cappella", make sure the music is loud and funky
and you'll save more review time than you every imagined!
Be Genki,
Richard
To try this out in your class, have a look at the Genki English CD Set. Every high energy song has been specially written to cover one set of
useful English words and phrases. This website also has hints, illustrations
of gestures and games to go with each theme. Try it out today!
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