Song- Music and Songs in English Language Teaching

Kasia Kuźma, Poland

Kasia Kuzma graduated from the Pedagogy Institute, University of Gdansk, Poland. She is Junior High School teacher for one of the state schools in Gdansk, Poland. She is also involved in independent film productions and is interested in Public Relations. In 2006 she won the Best Teacher Award in her school. E-mail: bigblue@wp.pl

Teachers use music and songs in language teaching for several reasons. One of the main reasons is the good atmosphere music creates in the classroom. A teacher of English ought to be creative and innovative and songs in English Language Teaching (ELT) will certainly help to make the process of teaching and learning more interesting and effective.

A piece of music or a song can prepare students for a new activity or simply set a time limit for one. Songs are also claimed to be an excellent tool for language teaching. Learners relate to music as part of entertainment rather than work, which often means that they find learning through songs amusing. Modern songs usually deal with problems relevant to young students so teenagers easily identify with the singers and want to understand the lyrics. Didactically songs are useful in familiarizing with the rhythm of a foreign language and sometimes with the culture of a country of the language. But they also are recommended for teaching phonetics, grammar or for expanding the vocabulary of our students.

There are many different ways of using songs’ lyrics and pieces of music in ELT. We can get students to listen to music which describes people and say what kind of people they are. We can get them to listen to music which describes places or emotions. Our learners can write stories or poems based on the mood of the music they hear. When it comes to lyrics, teacher can ask students to put lines in order, to complete half finished lines or simply to fill the text with single words or phrases that are missing. Teacher can also ask students to listen to a song and say what the title might be or to tell the story described in the song in students’ own words.

Working with Junior High School students (13 to16- year- olds) I quite often use music in classroom for setting a time limit for an activity. According to my experience, the calmer the music, the better as calm music makes students much more concentrated on the task. On the other hand, we have to remember that calm music early in the morning might put the students to sleep. For the purpose of setting a time limit I most frequently and most willingly use soundtracks. My favourite ones are Oscar-winning soundtrack from “Finding Neverland” (music by Jan A. P. Kaczmarek), “The Big Blue Overture” (from The Big Blue Soundtrack by Eric Serra), “Legend” (from the BBC TV series “Robin Of Sherwood” Soundtrack by Clannad) and “Dolphins” soundtrack (featuring the music of Sting). Playing a nice piece of calm music or a slow song is also an effective way of relaxing after a test, for instance. What I do with my teenage classes is having students close their eyes and guiding them through and imaginary "trip" to an island or asking them to think for a while about an activity they like doing or a place they like spending their time in. This kind of activity is great for stressed adults that may sometimes feel uncomfortable for being in class.

Choosing a suitable song/ piece of music is probably one of the most important issues. When it comes to using a song, first of all I always want to make sure if the singer has a nice clear voice. No matter what their level of English, learners are easily frustrated when they cannot understand a word. The recording should also be of a good quality. A studio album would be a better choice than a concert version of a song and what is more a CD will obviously give much better sound than a cassette. Another very important point is whether or not the language and also the subject matter is a suitable level of difficulty.
In my classroom I most often use songs to practice grammatical functions and as an introduction/ filler when discussing such topics as love, jealousy, friendship, money, family ties, growing up and growing old and many others. For the Present Simple tense revision with a group of pre –intermediate 15-year-old students I tried “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton. The song would also be suitable for a cultural investigation. This simple song tells us an authentic story of Eric Clapton growing impatient for his girlfriend to finish dressing for a party. The song is a narrative, dealing with a party the pair attended. Each of the three verses is a scene from a part of the night: preparing for the party, going to the party, and finally coming back home. In each scene, the singer mentions how wonderful his girlfriend is: how beautiful she looks while preparing for the party, how happy he is to be at the party with her, and how grateful he is that she puts up with him after he drinks a bit too much. My idea for using the song in the lesson was to divide the class into groups of 3, each of which has to prepare a step-by-step description of what happens in the story only after the first listening. The students were also asked to answer some questions about the song content. Why do you think everyone turns to see the girl as they appear at the party? (she look splendid, nobody had expected to see her) They are at a party. Why do you think he’s got an aching head? ( loud music, tiredness, drink etc. ) Why does he give her the car keys? (he’s too ill to drive, drink- drive laws etc.) Why does she have to help him to bed? (he’s punch-drunk, he does not feel very well, he’s too tired to manage himself etc.).

I also used the song with a group of adults (elementary level) whom I teach in a post-secondary school and it perfectly worked out. A good song for practising ‘days of the week’ and ‘prepositions’ may be Queen’s “Lazing on a Sunday afternoon” (from “A night in the Opera”), which I tried out while revising prepositions (on, from, to, in) and which may also be used during a lesson on phrasal verbs with go. Another song I would recommend for phrasal verbs revision and practice is “Don’t give up” by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush (the song was also recorded by Alicia Keys and Bono in 2005). What I did was explaining my learners that Peter Gabriel had some kind of nervous breakdown in mid 1980s and the song is to reward the support he got from his family. He was inspired to write this after seeing a TV show about unemployment and family life, and a photo of a family in the dust bowl depression. My idea to use “Don’t give up” was to have a short discussion on the title of the song first and then pre-teach all the necessary vocabulary before listening. The listening part itself was to fill the blanks with phrasal verbs. For a post-listening exercise I divided the class into groups of four. The task was to create a problem solving page in a teenage magazine. One of the two pairs in a group was asked to play the role of a teenager writing with a particular problem while the other was asked to play a role of the magazine’s Agony Aunt (groups were given pieces of paper with a stated problem they wrote with/ advised on). The only rule they were asked to stick to was using phrasal verbs where possible. To what I have experienced, Gabriel’s song works very well with intermediate and upper- intermediate students but I think a motivated group of pre- intermediate learners would be worth teacher’s while.

Except for grammar purposes, a song can also be inspiring when we want to build our lesson around one of the topics that most frequently exist in classes. The lesson can be based on lyrics or we can simply use the song as an introduction. There are also songs teachers like using in many different ways for particular situations during the school year, such as Christmas, St Valentine’s and summer holidays. The topics I most willingly use songs for are friendship, economy/ business, growing up, emotions and fame.

My choices for ‘friendship’ are “Friends will be friends” by Queen and “You’ve got a friend” performed by Carole King, which is my beloved song on the subject. I used the songs with pre-intermediate 13 and 14- year- olds and intermediate 15 and 16- year-olds as an introduction to a discussion on the value of a friend in everybody’s life. The lesson started with a quotation I once found on a postcard: “Friendship isn’t how you forget, but how you forgive. Not how you listen, but how you understand. Not how you see, but how you feel. Not how you let go, but how you hold on!”. I asked my students to think for a while and decide whether or not they agree with the words and give reasons for their decisions. If we have time and the class is eager to talk on the subject of friendship for a bit longer, there are some more questions we can discuss (how would you define a perfect friend? what features of character would you look for in a friend and why? What should be done to keep up friendship? ). Next I asked them to listen to one of the song ( “You’ve got a friend” ) and read the lyrics. We discussed what the singer tells us about and tried to give examples from our everyday life which are similar to the ones in the song. A post- listening exercise (it may be given as homework) was to write a composition on the meaning of friendship.

The songs I usually choose when it comes to the topic of ‘money’ are “Money” by Pink Floyd or “Money, money, money” by ABBA. The songs may as well be an inspiration to a lesson on snobbery or a lesson during which students discuss a saying: money can’t buy happiness.
A lesson on being famous or a lesson anyhow connected with the topic of ‘fame’ enables me to use a 1980 Academy Award for Best Original Song winner “Fame” (performed by Irene Cara, music by Michael Gore). Having a chance to run a cross-curricular Film Club for teenagers two years ago, I introduced my learners to Alan Parker’s “Fame” first and then I discussed the film with my students, exploring the topic of being famous with all its good sides and bad sides, including the price celebrities pay for fame. With ‘emotions’ (above all ‘love’) being the main topic of most songs ever written, we have a wide variety of authentic materials that we can use in class. The songs I especially like to work with are “If I ain’t got you” by Alicia Keys, “You” by Ten Sharp, “All for love” by Brian Adams, Sting and Rod Steward, “Jealous guy” by John Lennon and “Have you ever been in love” by Celine Dion (excellent for Present Perfect). I usually avoid the subject of love during the school year, leaving it for St. Valentine’s. The activities that go together with a song about love usually are: writing a letter or a mobile message from the character in the song, creating the singer’s page from a diary, planning a video for the song or writing a poem.

And finally the topic of ‘growing up’ and ‘growing old’. There actually are three songs I think are worth using here. The first one is “She’s leaving home” by The Beatles. I used the song as a starting point of a discussion on generation gap and young people’s independence. I asked my pre- intermediate teenage students if they think they have a good relationship with their parents. We continued with talking about the period of adolescence and its difficulties. Before listening to the song I divided the class into groups of three, pre- taught all the necessary vocabulary and then introduced the song and lyrics to the class asking them to listen and read. The next step was to retell the story from the song in students’ own words. Next, they discussed in groups what they thought could have happened that the girl left home and they were asked to write a note the girl left for her parents. Students presented their work in open class. At the end of the lesson I explained that the story in “She’s leaving home” by Paul McCartney was an authentic story about a girl named Melanie Coe, who was 17 at that time. I was described on the front page of the Daily Mirror. In real life, Melanie did not “meet a man from the motor trade” but a croupier and left home in the afternoon while her parents were at work. Her adventure ended a week later.

Another song I like using in the class (one more time by McCartney) is “When I’m Sixty-four” and it goes well with a lesson on predicting the future and Future Simple. The song is sung by a young man to his lover and it is about his plans of growing old together with her. Although the theme is about aging, it was one of the first songs McCartney wrote, when he was sixteen. The way I worked with the song was to pre-teach any problematic vocabulary first and later to introduce the song to the class (complete lyrics on handouts). During the second listening I asked my learners to find evidence for these things in the text:

1. The singer is a young man.
2. He is good at fixing things in the house.
3. British houses are cold in winter.
4. He would like to have a house with a garden.
5. He would like to spend his holidays by the sea.
6. He wants to have family.
7. He does not expect to be a rich man.

In a post- listening exercise I asked my students to write a short composition on what they would like their life to be when they are sixty- four.

The major problem that may occur with using songs in the classroom is the non- standard grammar in quite many songs. Let’s take Sting’s “She’s too good for me” lyrics, for instance:

She don't like to hear me sing
She don't want no diamond ring
She don't want to drive my car
She won't let me go that far
She don't like the way I look (…)

But we can still take a benefit from using such a text and ask our students to rewrite the lyrics correcting all the lines they think are grammatically incorrect. It is also difficult to choose such songs that all students will like. According to Jeremy Harmer (see: “The practice of English Language Teaching”) there are two ways of dealing with this problem: the first is to have students bring their favourite songs to class, which I also do from time to time. In this case, however, the teacher may want to have some time to listen to the song and understand the lyrics. The internet can be helpful here. It is good to ask our students to bring a few songs to class, which gives us possibility of choosing the one that would be most useful for the process of learning a language. What is more, we can make sure the lyrics do not contain bad language or unsuitable subject matter. Another solution would be to use older songs and ask students whether they still like them despite their antiquity or to use songs which may not necessarily be new but which are well known because of having the status of “golden songs” of the last 50 years or so.

Music has always been my passion and I have always been happy, both as a learner and a teacher, to take the challenge of working with music whenever possible. I would strongly recommend using songs in ELT as I know students also enjoy it a lot!

Please check the Teaching through Music and Visual Art course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the English for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.