Teaching with Songs
Zulfiya Kinjemuratova, Uzbekistan
Zulfiya Kinjemuratova has been a language teacher for more than eight years. She began teaching English at Tashkent School, Uzbekistan. She was a university lecturer at the Uzbek State World Languages University, in Tashkent. At present, she works as an English teacher at Nukus branch of Tashkent Pediatric Medical Institute, in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan. Her current research interests are English for Medical Purposes and methods of teaching English. zulfiya20032003@mail.ru
Menu
Introduction
Background
Songs
Findings
Conclusion
References
Music, songs and sounds influence people’s state and mood. They evoke emotions, encourage, cure and teach. Today, music and songs are used for pedagogical purposes as well. Many teachers include songs in their lesson plans to explain grammar rules, new vocabulary or concepts in a more interesting and creative way.
As learning English is becoming more important than ever in Uzbekistan and is used for different purposes, it is necessary to engage learners in the process of language learning via effective and engaging methods. Teachers are in constant search for essential activities that allow learners to improve their learning abilities of a foreign language.
Through innovative technologies, interactive and communicative methods language teachers can create the right climate for language learning. Currently, in higher education, teachers use music, songs, comics, sound films, stories, , language games, movies, cartoons and even fairy tales to make the teaching- learning process more interesting. Teachers sometimes use these when the theme or lesson is difficult and to keep students motivated to continue learning foreign languages. Playing different language games, listening to music, singing songs, watching various education related films or cartoons can help learners understand and engage in target (non-native) language (Girard & Trim, 1988). The purpose of this article is to reveal how songs can stimulate students to learn new vocabulary.
The present article is mainly on the first year students of Nukus Branch of Tashkent Paediatric Medical Institute, Uzbekistan. At any medical Institute of our country, the students are urged to learn English as a second language. Mostly, first year students come to the Institute with very basic knowledge of English and our responsibility is to organise suitable classes for these beginners and try to arouse and maintain their interest in learning English. My students are usually about 18-19 years old and the majority of them have studied chemistry, biology and mathematics at school as the primary subjects necessary for entering the Medical Institute. As the second language, very few of them have had English at school, some have studied French and the others German. However, today, in any institution, English is included as a must subject. They have English four times a week and initially, take English course for beginners. Nevertheless, after several lessons we witness several issues: a few students are slower in learning, while some are enthusiastic and progressive; some are very active and others are reluctant.
I believe, teachers are responsible for organising an appropriate learning environment to ensure that all students achieve the desired results; therefore, I decided to do something for my students. After some observation and deliberation, I realised singing songs even very easy ones maybe the key to motivating and helping my students.
Using music and thus singing songs seems to be a very effective way in language teaching. According to Cross (1991), listening to lyrics and singing songs develop both listening and verbal while skills while learning a foreign language; besides, singing songs in a group can help overcome psychological barriers, which prevent the reluctant learners from using a foreign language. Songs are also, according to Griffee (1995, pp. 5-6), “especially good at introducing vocabulary because they provide a meaningful context for the vocabulary”. And according to Thornbury (2002, p.13) “The ability of English will improve significantly if we learn more words. We can say very little with grammar, but we can say almost anything with a word.” Therefore, I tried to use songs in my classes hoping to help my students improve their language proficiency and in particular knowledge of words.
As my students’ level of English was low, I mostly selected songs that were very simple and had repetition hoping that students would then have no frustration and would gradually develop their comprehension and memorization of new words. I was hoping to provide them with authenticity and proper context so that students wold better understand the meaning of words and thus to better comprehend and improve their language proficiency.
I started using both audio and video materials in my classes to teach songs. Firstly, my students would listen to a song for general understanding, then for specific details. Secondly, I would engage them in a short interaction (asked the meaning of the title, what words were familiar to them, their meanings and what new words they came across) to ensure their understanding of the song. Thirdly, I provided students with the lyrics to the song and encourage them to underline unknown words for further discussion. After the discussion of meanings of new words, they would listen for the third time. Afterwards, they were given lyric worksheets to fill in gaps, match the new words with their meanings, answer the questions concerning creative and artistic use of words. As home assignment, they were given to write another verse of lyrics to the song in small groups and present in plenary. However, before implementing this activity in the classroom, I considered the age and level of learners, their interests, culture and the topic of the lesson to be covered.
Songs were presented in three stages: pre, while and post. As a pre-listening activity, we discussed the topic, the purpose, the author of a song and its history. We then focused on the vocabulary to be studied. During the listening process, I asked students to focus on key words and new vocabulary. As for post listening, I organised some activities which involved students in writing new vocabulary related exercises and gap filling. Students memorised the songs and participated in big and small group discussions to share their opinions and feelings concerning the meaning and delivery of a song. Moreover, they were stimulated to find other songs related to a particular material and listen to them in the next lesson for further analysis. I came to the conclusion that songs could grasp many of the multiple intelligences, specifically, musical, linguistic, logical, spatial, visual, kinaesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. Thus, it should be underlined that including songs in the lessons can integrate the skills necessary for successful learning and teaching.
One thing that that may seem surprising is that at times we even used very simple nursery rhymes and still the students were very happy and satisfied. And by nursery rhymes, I mean songs as simple as head, shoulder, knees and Toes Family (Sing Along - Muffin Songs, 2013) or the skeleton dance (Super simple learning, 2009).
These songs enabled students to learn by heart some parts of human body in the English language. While singing the song I could act and show and the learners would repeat and remember just like younger learners. And since many easy, they could easily remember and repeat them.
Interactive activities, in which singing songs have their part, are innovative methods for teaching English. As an English teacher, I use them in the classroom and find them to be effective in creating a relaxing atmosphere and entertaining learning process, and eliminating students’ negative attitude towards foreign language learning. Thus, singing songs, even simple nursery rhymes, is useful in teaching English and providing systematic and active learning even to adult language learners.
Cross, D., (1991) A practical Handbook of language teaching, London: Cassel Publishers Limited.
Girard, D. & Trim, J.L.M., (Eds.) (1988) Project no 12. Learning and teaching modern languages for communication. Final report of the project group (activities 1982-87), Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
Griffee, D.T., (1995) Songs in action, Hertfordshire: Phoenix.
Family Sing Along - Muffin Songs, (2013) Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBJ_-MyV2rU.
Super simple learning, (2009) The skeleton dance. Super Simple Songs. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/Jpvuqj5nv6UQ.
Thornbury, S. (2002). How to teach vocabulary, New York: Pearson Longman.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching English Through Multiple Intelligences course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology & Language for Primary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology & Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
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