If your students are beginners, they may need to listen to the song a couple of times to accomplish this. By writing down key words and phrases,<\/strong> your students can test themselves and see how they did compared to the actual lyrics. You can then discuss the song with your students and ask them what they understood and see what questions they have.<\/p>\n Next, you can play the song while showing your students the lyrics.<\/strong> This can be accomplished either by playing the song as a lyric video on YouTube<\/a> or by printing out the lyrics from a website like AZLyrics<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can then discuss the results with your students. How did they do? Did they understand the meaning of the song? Were there any words that surprised them? What was clarified after they saw the lyrics?<\/p>\n Feel free to play the song with the lyrics a couple of times so that their ears can begin to recognize the words as performed\u00a0by natives. Songs can be difficult to understand, but by allowing students\u00a0to concurrently see and hear the words, they will learn how to recognize those phrases aurally.<\/p>\n Prepare a worksheet for your students using song lyrics with key words removed so that they will have to fill in the blanks. Remove important vocabulary words, verbs and\/or prepositions<\/strong>. For beginner students, you can make a word bank at the top so that they can see how to spell the words rather than having to generate the words on their own.<\/p>\n See how many blanks they can fill in on their own, and then play the song so that they can check their work. Are there any words that they still can’t understand? Make sure students know the meaning of all new words and understand\u00a0how they are used in the song.\u00a0You can then have students practice these key words by writing a few of their own sentences with them.<\/p>\n Songs are a great way to introduce useful slang expressions that are a lot of fun for students to learn. Prior to the lesson, pick out several slang phrases from the song that you wish to teach your students.<\/p>\n To introduce a phrase, have them first try to infer its meaning based on the context in the song<\/strong>. You can then explain its exact meaning and give a couple of examples of how you might use the phrase.<\/p>\n Then have students practice these phrases with a partner, making a short conversation where they include as many of the new slang words as possible. You could even have them write their dialogue down on paper and then\u00a0read it in front of the class to practice speaking and listening.<\/p>\n This is a very important activity because it can make a huge difference in students’ confidence when speaking English. Pick out key words, phrases and slang from a song you have played for your students to work on for pronunciation<\/strong>. Then say each word or phrase and have students repeat after you.<\/p>\n Pay special attention to problematic syllables and sounds. Depending on your students’ native language, they will struggle with different aspects of English pronunciation. These are the areas to really hone in on.<\/p>\n Don’t simply have them repeat the word and then move on; instead, critique their pronunciation and even explain how they can sound more like you<\/strong>. This may require communicating\u00a0exactly how your mouth and tongue are forming the word. Have students practice\u00a0the specific sounds they are struggling with. Make sure they are using appropriate intonation and placing emphasis on the correct syllable.<\/p>\n Have them imitate all aspects of your speech and keep working with them\u00a0until they can say those key words\u00a0like a native. When they get the hang of it, you can even introduce different English accents, like American, British and Australian!<\/p>\n Have your students put their pronunciation skills to the test by singing along to the song. No song lesson is complete without a singalong! Your students should strive to sound as much like the singer as possible, which, depending on the singer, can be a pretty amusing exercise<\/strong>. This means paying attention to the pitch and rhythm of the song, as well as the pronunciation\u00a0of each word.<\/p>\n The many parallels between language and music<\/a> really come into play here. Since the chorus repeats itself several times, this is a great way to learn new vocabulary through repetition<\/a>\u00a0and commit words to memory.<\/p>\n Sing along as a class and see if there are any brave souls who would like to sing\u00a0the chorus solo. Split students into groups and have different groups of students sing different parts of the song for an added challenge.<\/p>\n Songs provide great insight about their culture of origin. Some songs are even about specific locations or cultural phenomena. Even a more generic song often speaks profoundly about the worldview of that region.<\/p>\n To glean these insights, have students summarize the main idea of the song either by writing a few sentences about it or having a class discussion about the song’s theme<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Do students like\u00a0the message of the song? How is it similar or different from their own culture? Are there specific experiences they have had that relate to the lyrics of the song?<\/p>\n If there are any cultural elements of the song that are particularly foreign to your students, take the time to explain them. This is a good time to show students the music video of the song so that they can see the culture that it takes place in.<\/p>\n This is a fun challenge to test your students’ songwriting abilities! Put students in small groups and challenge them to rewrite the lyrics using the\u00a0melody of\u00a0the song, but changing the words<\/strong>. This is a good opportunity to incorporate other cultural themes or vocabulary into the lesson even if the song isn’t directly applicable.<\/p>\n You can give each group a specific topic or key words that the new lyrics should\u00a0include. For beginner students, this will be challenging, so you can have them just rewrite the chorus. For more advanced students, you can give one verse of the song to each group so that the entire song is complete but each group is only responsible for one part. Then have each group sing their part to the class.<\/p>\n Many songs have\u00a0an instrumental or karaoke version on YouTube<\/a>\u00a0to sing along to.<\/p>\n This is a fun memory game that can help students learn the song’s vocabulary. It is a good activity to do after you have already been working with a song for a little while so that students are familiar with the\u00a0lyrics.<\/p>\n Students will sit in a circle and take turns saying one of the lines of\u00a0the song<\/strong>. Each student needs to contribute a new lyric, and if they can’t remember any, then that student is out and it goes to the next student. You can check off the lyrics as they name them to keep track of what has been said. Eventually, there will only be one student left and that student is the winner.<\/p>\n Alternately, you can challenge students to memorize the song, and then go around in a circle and have each student say the next lyric in order, attempting to go through the entire song. Any student who doesn’t know the next lyric is out, and the next student has to come up with it. The last student left is the winner!<\/p>\n This activity is a good way to make sure students truly\u00a0understand the different phrases and vocabulary of the song by using them in real-world communication scenarios<\/strong>. It’s a good final activity because it challenges students’ writing, comprehension and speaking abilities. You will choose specific vocabulary words, verbs and phrases from the song for your students to incorporate into a skit.<\/p>\n Alternately, if your song does not use a lot of commonly spoken vocabulary, you can have your students write a short story instead of a conversation. Divide students into small groups and have them write a short script that incorporates\u00a0the key words. Beginners\u00a0can make a simple skit out of\u00a0a few key words; advanced students can make an elaborate skit with\u00a0many key words.<\/p>\n Have them perform their skits for the class once they are complete. Look over\u00a0their skits before they perform to make sure they are using the words properly.<\/p>\n A good song choice varies widely depending on the level of your students and the subject matter of your lesson. Visit this post to see a list of songs for teaching ESL students of different levels<\/a>, and check out these suggestions to get started:\u00a0<\/p>\n For beginner students, you will want a song that uses simple vocabulary words, present tense verbs and clear pronunciation by the singer.<\/p>\n At this level, you can use songs with a bit more complexity. Showtunes are a good option because they exist within the context of a narrative, which makes for good discussion.<\/p>\n You can challenge your advanced students by selecting songs that are at a faster tempo and\u00a0include a variety of verb tenses, along with colloquialisms.<\/p>\n If your students are very advanced, you can always have some fun with a challenge song! These move very fast and can help take\u00a0your students’ listening skills to the next level.<\/p>\n Perhaps the biggest challenge in building a lesson around a song is finding the right song. Besides choosing one that you and your students will enjoy, there are other factors to consider so that your lesson is successful:<\/p>\n It’s also great to find a song that is topical for whatever you are teaching. To search for\u00a0a\u00a0song with certain\u00a0words, use a website, such as Lyrics.com<\/a>,<\/strong> that allows you to find a song by its lyrics. For example, if you are teaching the days of the week, you can type in the days of the week and Lyrics.com will show you all the songs that include those words in the lyrics. You can then look at the lyrics of each song to see which one has the best vocabulary for your students.<\/p>\n To easily review a song’s grammar, you can use a lyrics website, such as <\/strong>AZLyrics<\/strong><\/a>. Simply type in the song and it will show you the lyrics. You can then look and see what kinds of verbs, prepositions and idiomatic expressions are in the song. Since many songs include a mix of verb tenses, look for a song with\u00a0a good amount of what you are currently teaching.<\/p>\n If you’re looking for an effective way to teach ESL with great music videos and other video content, then be sure to check out the language learning program, FluentU<\/a>. FluentU<\/strong> takes authentic videos\u2014like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks\u2014and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.<\/p>\r\n <\/p> \r\n You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app<\/a> or Android app.<\/a><\/p>\r\n P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)<\/a><\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n Readalong<\/h3>\n
Song Activities for Vocab and Grammar<\/h2>\n
Fill in the blank<\/h3>\n
Slang practice<\/h3>\n
Song Activities for Pronunciation<\/h2>\n
Phrase practice<\/h3>\n
Singalong<\/h3>\n
Song Activities for Teaching Culture<\/h2>\n
Summarize the song<\/h3>\n
Rewrite the lyrics<\/h3>\n
Song Games<\/h2>\n
Lyric challenge<\/h3>\n
Song skits<\/h3>\n
Top Song Choices for ESL Activities<\/h2>\n
Beginner<\/h3>\n
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Intermediate<\/h3>\n
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Advanced<\/h3>\n
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Challenge<\/h3>\n
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How to Choose Your Own Song for ESL Activities<\/h2>\n
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