USING MUSIC IN CLASS

USING MUSIC IN CLASS

"Recent researches in the field of foreign language teaching have pointed out that students’ motivation and interest are among the most important factors for the learning of a foreign language. There are several means to improve the teaching effectiveness and to raise the interest and motivation of the students. Recorded tapes, filmstrips, sound films, songs, comics, newspapers and magazines are all familiar to teachers and students and they have proved to be, in most cases, very effective because they are strongly related to everyday life. We think that among these teaching aids, pop and folk song are materials that best reflect young people’s concerns as they often relate to important trends in modern society. Young people enjoy original folk and pop songs because of their authentic cultural content."(M. Papa, G. Iantorno, p. 7)

Let us highlight a few examples of songs that became an inseparable part of specific events in the past, and sometimes they can entirely characterize a given period or some particular event. In the sixties it was, for example, the protest song “Where have all the flowers gone?”, in the late sixties it was “San Francisco”, which “became the anthem of the “hippie” era”, or in 1985 Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson`s “We Are the World”, which was intended to raise funds to help famine relief efforts in Ethiopia.12 Moreover there is one more advantage why introduce songs in the classroom according to Mario Papa and Giuliano Iantorno claiming that “singing is certainly one of the activities which generates the greatest enthusiasm and is a pleasant and stimulating approach to the culture of foreign people” (M. Papa, G. Iantorno, p. 8)

WHAT CAN WE DO WITH A SONG IN LANGUAGE TEACHING?

Automatic usual and simple answer to this question could be: “A word-gapfill.” However, the answer is not so single valued. And hopefully, the following selected list of Tim Murphey (and references to other sources of activities) will be convincing enough to prove that the answer can be much longer.

What can we do with a song in lesson?

1) Listen
2) Sing, whistle, tap, and snap fingers while we listen
3) Sing without listening to any recording
4) Talk about the music
5) Talk about the lyrics
6) Talk about the singer / group
7) Use songs and music to set or change an atmosphere or mood, as ´background furnishing’
8) Use songs and music to make a social environment, form a feeling of community, dance, make friends
9) Write songs

11) Do interviews
12) Write articles
13) Do surveys, make hit lists
14) Study grammar
15) Practice selective listening comprehension
16) Read songs, articles, books for linguistic purposes 
17) Compose songs, letters to singers, questionnaires
18) Translate songs
19) Write dialogues using the words of a song
20) Use video clips in many ways
21) Do role-plays (as people in the song)
22) Dictate a song
10) Perform songs

23) Use a song for gap-fill, cloze, or for correction
24) Use music for background to other activities
25) Integrate songs into project work
26) Energize or relax classes mentally
27) Practice pronunciation, intonation, and stress
28) Break the routine
29) Do choral repetition
30) Teach vocabulary
31) Teach culture
32) Learn about your students and from your students, letting them choose and explain their music
33) Have fun.

 If we look at this list carefully, we can see that all four skills (speaking, reading, listening, and writing) can be very well and equally practised. The number of books and web pages providing inexhaustible quantity of ideas and precise instructions what to do with a song in a classroom has increased recently.

SONGS AS PRACTICE MATERIAL

Song can be used in a lot of various ways (see 3.4.4). All the skills such as listening, reading, writing and speaking can be practised, the same way as linguistic areas starting with vocabulary, grammatical structures, and ending with rhythm, stress, fluency and pronunciation. Songs are also “especially good at introducing vocabulary because they provide a meaningful context for the vocabulary”. However, it depends on the choice of songs since there are also some songs without meaningful context. From the grammatical point of view, they “provide a natural context for the most common structures such as verb tenses and prepositions”

THE HELP OF SONGS WHEN LEARNING PRONUNCIATION

Songs can be very helpful as far as learning pronunciation is concerned. They provide the authentic language with all its „traps“ (such as connected speech, different pronunciation of the same sound, or difficult pronunciation of some words) laid for learners, who should be exposed to it as much as possible to strengthen their ability to understand it. In the following subsections we will concentrate on three areas of difficulties in pronunciation (sounds, words, connected speech), and on explaining why songs can be useful when the learners are caught into these “traps of language”.

THE HELP OF SONGS FOCUSED ON SOUNDS 

“Sounds are the smallest unit from which words are formed and can be categorised as vowels and consonants.”For the learners of English some sounds may be difficult to pick out because they do not exist in their mother tongue, and they “have to learn to physically produce certain sounds previously unknown to them”. Even though it may be a difficult task for some learners, it is quite important because it can sometimes happen that “incorrectly pronounced sounds strain communication, and it can also change a phrase’s meaning”. Songs can help learners because “the rhymes in songs provide listeners with repetition of similar sounds, and when the students choose to listen to songs time and again, they are indirectly exposing them to these sounds", repeating them, getting better at recognizing them, and finally producing them.

THE HELP OF SONGS FOCUSED ON WORDS
“Words are combinations of sounds which form together to give meaning. A word is uttered in syllables, usually one emphasised syllable (the stress) and the rest weak (unstressed)”. There are several difficulties that may be encountered by a learner. Firstly, “each English word has its own stress pattern, with very complex ‘rules’ to guide learners.” Secondly, “even when the same words exist in both languages, the number of syllables is not always identical.” And lastly “weak syllables are central to English”. There are both several difficulties and several ways songs can support practising these problems. “Words in songs fit the music, helping learners associate the number of syllables / stress in these words, with memorable rhythms. Songs contain endless examples of weak syllables, helping to convince learners of the way English is pronounced”.

THE HELP OF SONGS FOCUSED ON CONNECTED SPEECH v
“Connected speech is the natural way we speak, linking together and emphasising certain words, rather than each word standing alone”. Connected speech plays a very important role in English as it is the way English is usually spoken, but unfortunately not always in English lessons. “Many learners are accustomed to hearing a very careful, clear pronunciation of words, such as native speakers might use when talking very emphatically or saying words in isolation” (S. Rixon, p. 38). However, native speakers usually connect the words. And when the “words are used in a connected natural utterance, some of their sounds are different to those used in very careful speech, and they may become harder for learners to recognise” (S. Rixon, p. 39). The problem is that the learners “normally learn words individually and, especially at lower levels, tend to pronounce each word separately.” Concerning this problem Shelagh Rixon claims that words pronounced in isolation often sound very different from the same words said in connected speech, so there is little point in concentrating too much on single words said out of context. Another problem is that learners “frequently misconceive contraction as being ‘incorrect’, only used in ‘slang’”. But as said a while ago, a native speaker says the words separately either on purpose or when talking emphatically, which means that connected speech is natural, normal and widely used. Songs help learners practise the described subject matters because they “provide real and ‘catchy’ examples of how whole phrases are pronounced often to the extent that students find it difficult to pick out individual words. The music further emphasises the ‘flow’ of the words. Moreover, songs, like other spoken texts, are full of contractions." 

EXAMPLE :

Filling the blanks.

BETTER IN TIME – LEONA LEWIS

It's been the                 winter without you
I                  know where to turn to
Seems somehow I                 forget you
After all that we've been through.

 

Going,coming thought I                  a knock
Who's there, no one
Thinking that I                   it
Now I realize that I really didn't 

If you didn't                       mean everything
                  I'm learning to love again
All I know is I'm gon' be ok.

 

[Chorus:]
Thought I                 live without you
It's gonna                   when it heals too
It'll all get better in time
And even though I                love you
I'm gonna smile cause I deserve to
It'll all get               in time.

 

I couldn't                  the TV
Without something there to                  me
                  it all that easy
To just put aside your

 

If I'm dreaming don't wanna laugh
Hurt my feelings but that's the path
I                  in
And I know that time will heal it
If you                 notice boy you meant everything
Quickly I'm learning to               again
All I know is I'm gon' be ok.

[Chorus:]
                 there's no more you and me
It's time I let you go
So I can be
And live my life how it                 be
No                   how hard it is I'll be fine without you
Yes I will

[Chorus: X2]  

 

 

 BETTER IN TIME – LEONA LEWIS

 

It's been the longest winter without you
I didn't know where to turn to
Seems somehow I can't forget you
After all that we've been through

Going,coming thought I heard a knock
Who's there, no one
Thinking that I deserve it
Now I realize that I really didn't know
If you didn't notice you mean everything
Quickly I'm learning to love again
All I know is I'm gon' be ok

[Chorus:]
Thought I couldn't live without you
It's gonna hurt when it heals too
It'll all get better in time
And even though I really love you
I'm gonna smile cause I deserve to
It'll all get better in time

I couldn't turn on the TV
Without something there to remind me
Was it all that easy
To just put aside your feelings

If I'm dreaming don't wanna laugh
Hurt my feelings but that's the path
I believe in
And I know that time will heal it
If you didn't notice boy you meant everything
Quickly I'm learning to love again
All I know is I'm gon' be ok

[Chorus:]
Since there's no more you and me
It's time I let you go
So I can be free
And live my life how it should be
No matter how hard it is I'll be fine without you
Yes I will

[Chorus: X2]

 

REFLECTION:

This post drew attention to the features of songs, to deeper contemplation about them and their use. Accordingly, it is obvious that songs have a lot of qualities supporting their significance in language teaching. Songs naturally motivate students, they can evoke positive atmosphere and they have considerable cultural
significance, as well as they present an inexhaustible source of materials practising pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary plus all of the four skills.

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