Text types: Texts for fun & leisure
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Songs | |
Why should we use songs in the English classroom?: Teaching suggestions
There are many things you can do with songs and music in the classroom. Below are just a few ideas to get you started.
| Singing songs: | Try and establish a regular routine of singing a song together in English lessons. You can introduce new songs gradually, and the class will soon establish 'favourites'. |
| Round songs: | These are songs like London's burning and Are you sleeping? To prepare for a round song, you need to explain that the class will be divided into groups, and each group will sing the song twice, but they start at staggered intervals. So Group A starts singing first and Group B starts singing when Group A begins line 2, and so on. |
| Action songs: | There are many songs which can be sung together with actions. A good one to start with is If you're happy and you know it. Preteach the basic parts of the body and then introduce the song, together with the appropriate actions for each verse. |
For PrimeTeach teaching activities which provide KS2 students with practice in singing songs with actions, see:
| Grammar in songs: | Print out the words to a song and ask the students to identify all the verb groups, noun groups, circumstances or whatever it is you have recently been focusing on in class. If the song is easy to sing, ask the students to sing along while you play the recording. |
| Cloze activity: | Print out the words to a song and blank out one key word in every second line. Give each student a copy of the cloze song and tell them they are going to hear the song played a number of times. As they listen, they should fill in the missing words. Check the answers together. If the song is easy to sing, ask the students to sing along while you play the recording. |
| Misprint!: | This activity is a variation on the cloze. Print out the words to a song but change one of the key words in every second line. Give each student a copy of the song and tell them that it is full of mistakes which they must correct while they listen to the song played a number of times. As they listen, they should correct the incorrect words. Check the answers together. If the song is easy to sing, ask the students to sing along while you play the recording. |
| Cantopop | For more advanced classes, ask students to bring in their favourite Cantopop CDs. Ask them to work in groups to translate the song titles into English and to fill in a summary of what each song is about. Tell them to find pictures from magazines and use these to decorate their charts for a wall display. |
| English songs | Ask the students if they know any songs in English. (Wherever possible, it is good to use the students' choice of music and songs. If you let students choose the songs you will find that they have already some familiarity with them, and an emotional investment which is good for their motivation.) Get the students to bring the songs in to class and prepare them for singing and discussion. |
| How do you feel?: | Prepare a variety of music recordings which create different moods. Some will be fast and exciting, others slow and relaxing. Choose from a range of genres: classical (eastern and western), jazz, disco, techno, folk, pop, etc. Tell the students that you are going to play a short excerpt from just one piece, and ask them to close their eyes while they listen. Stop the music unexpectedly and ask them to describe how the music makes them feel. You might need to introduce some of the vocabulary they will need to describe their moods. You can use this activity to focus on -ed and -ing adjectives (I feel relaxed, the music is relaxing). This activity works well when you use it little and often. It is useful as a very brief interlude to a lesson when you feel you need to change the pace. | |
Film soundtrack:  |
Find an opening soundtrack to a film that the students are probably not familiar with. Prepare a handout which students fill in while they are listening. Ask students to fill in the handout in pairs or small groups while you play the opening music. Here is a sample handout: Listen to the soundtrack.
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| Peter and the Wolf | Find a recording of Peter and the Wolf in which the story is read to musical accompaniment by the Russian composer Prokofiev. Tell the students that they are going to listen to a story about a boy named Peter and his adventures with a wolf. Introduce the other characters (a cat, a duck, a bird, Peter's grandfather and some hunters). You may find it useful to play a recording with the narration in Cantonese first. Once the students know the story, then you can introduce the English language version. |
Depending on the level of the students, you can prepare a range of pre-reading, while-reading and after-reading activities.
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