Teaching English to Children Through Songs: An Overview
Mai Tran Thi Thanh, Vietnam
Mai Tran Thi Thanh is an English instructor at Thu Dau Mot University, Vietnam. She is interested in methods in teaching English as a foreign language to various levels of learners, especially to children. E-mail: thanhmai1985@gmail.com
Menu
Introduction
The influence of music
Why using songs in the classroom?
What can we do with a song?
Criteria to choose songs in the classroom
Suggested activities for teaching English to children through songs
Conclusion
References
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 (M. Papa, G. Iantorno, p. 7). Nowadays, there is no doubt that teaching English to children has become a trend. Not surprisingly, teaching young learners is not like teaching adults because children have their own ways of learning. Since children like to play and have fun, the learning and teaching process should be suited with the nature of the children themselves. "Children learn through play" is a sentence that has guided early childhood educators for decades. The nature of children is that they like to play and have fun than studying. Isenberg also stated that play is a need of every child and it is an important childhood activity that helps children master all developmental needs (1993). Play is the work of childhood and is important for learning and development. One of the forms of play that children are familiar is music, in the form of songs (Yuliana, 2003)
As Storr (1992: 1) already pointed out, language and music have been present since our ancestors painted people dancing in the caverns. In fact, linguistic and musical issues are key disciplines in all cultures. Supporting this connection, Pinker (2002: 404) established that there is a strong link between humanity and music when researchers found bone-made flutes in caves in France and Germany (Silva, 2006: 25). Music is, therefore, traditionally linked with human ways of expression and language.
Music is also crucial in the physiological development of human beings. Jusczyk (1986) and Lecanuet et al. (1987), cited in Murphey (1990: 98), claimed that the foetus is able to recognize melodies and their mother's intonation while they are in the womb. In addition, Campbell (2001) carried out a piece of research that evidences the role of music in foetus formation. Apparently, there are anatomic differences among people who have studied music before they are seven years old and those who have not studied it. Music increases neuronal interconnections, and as a result, it enhances language development, namely, language production, text comprehension and vocabulary/lexicon. Furthermore, and from our interpersonal and multimodal perspective, music favours social relationships while it enriches cognitive processes in language learning (Failoni, 1993; Silva, 2006).
The first of the six medicine-men's rules says that "the sound is the principle of everything." They used special drums and rattles to influence their bodies. The sound influences breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure, releases muscular stress, influences body temperature, and increases endorfin level.
Music as one of the neuroleptic factors reduces the signs of nervousness of children and teenagers by 30%. Music is used therapeutically, in psychiatry, pediatrics and child psychiatry. With the aid of music neuroses and function failure (stammer, dyslexia, dysgraphia) are cured. (www.dk-studio.net)
"Mood music is very popular now, whether in the dentist's surgery to relax us, or in shopping centres to encourage us to buy. Heart surgeons now use music to relax operating teams during long and stressful operations. In one London hospital women can listen to music during childbirth to relax them."
(T. Murphey, p. 37).
One of the most common examples, yet among the most prominent is the use of music in films. It forms an essential part, which should evoke the atmosphere of a particular situation, and mainly corresponding feelings such as calmness, wellbeing, pleasure, joy, compassion, fear, thrill, tenseness, and others.
Using songs as tools for teaching a foreign language has many benefits. According to Lo and Li (1998), songs are able to change the monotonous mood in the class and with the smoothing effect of music; they provide a comfortable class environment so that students can develop their lingual skills more easily. Besides, utilizing songs in class environment amuses students, helps them feel relaxed and get rid of their negative attitudes towards a foreign language while learning a lingual structure through a song (Sarıçoban, 2000). In this direction, the amusing and relaxing mood brought by songs to the class eases the effects of certain emotional cases such as excitement, anxiety, lack of self-confidence and the feeling of being threatened, in addition to influencing learning process positively or facilitating it by stimulating the student emotionally (Kramsch,1993). Also songs help motivating the learners as they provide a pleasant atmosphere. The students are encouraged to actively involve in the learning process by making use of their musical knowledge. In this way songs help students to develop confidence for language learning.(Şahin, 2008)
Music helps children develop cognitive skills, as well as enhances language skills, by singing song, children learn language appreciation, vocabulary and rhyme (Shipley,1998). Another thing is that songs and rhymes are learned by heart, and this may form part of a child's linguistic. Music is also crucial for human beings out of school; it is always present in learners' daily life. Music includes a wide scope of fields: "sociocultural, musical, psychological and spirituals dimensions" (McCarthy, 2009: 30). By means of music, learners can feel real-life experiences thanks to songs, nursery rhymes, chants and anthems. Moreover, scholars claim that music is crucial in the physiological development of human beings. An example of this is how an unborn child can recognize melodies and his/her mother's voice from the outside of the womb, something vital for the development of cerebral functions.
T. Murphey also says that "music has the potential to change the atmosphere", but what is more important than his confirmation of this fact is that in this case he means the atmosphere in a classroom, and describes music as follows: "It seems to give energy where was none, and to spark off images when students complain of having nothing to write about. Music is the stuff dreams grow on." (p. 37).
"No one knows why songs are powerful, but everyone knows from a personal point of view they are", wrote Dale Griffee (p. 4). Songs contain the power of music as well as the power of lyrics. While music touches our hearts, the lyrics and their words flow into our minds and so they draw us into their own world. It "grasps our imagination, emotions, and intellect with equal force regardless of our language backgrounds" (V. L. Holmes and Margaret R. Moulton, p. 2).
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).
"In our time, it is hard to escape music and song as it occupies ever more of the world around us: in operating theatres, restaurants and cafés, shopping malls (muzak), at sports events, in our cars, and literally everywhere. It would seem that the only place music and song is slow to catch on is in schools"
(T. Murphey, p. 4)
And it is exactly schools, that could use the best and the most the immense potential a song disposes. "Songs have a place in the classroom for helping create that friendly and co-operative atmosphere so important for language learning, but they can offer much more", claims D. T. Griffee.
According to Cheung (2001), as students more easily learn the things about which they have background knowledge, student motivation is increased when the elements belonging to the popular culture of the target language are involved in the class. Bringing a song listened by the student to the class environment increases students' desire to learn and enables them contribute to the process of learning by making use of their own musical knowledge.
Songs offer many codes that strengthen student memory such as choruses, rhymes and melodies (Maley,1987). Therefore, these codes in songs increase the functionality of songs in language teaching. When a student listens to and memorizes a song involved in the class, the lyrics are embedded in his/her long-term memory. Moreover, neurological researches have shown that musical and lingual processes occur in the same section of brain and that there are significant similarities between musical and lingual syntax (Maess & Koelsch: 2001).
Additionally, being authentic texts themselves, songs provide students with the opportunity of meeting authentic texts belonging to the target language. According to Schoepp (2001), as they feature examples of daily language, songs help students get prepared for the language they will encounter in daily life. Besides, as a part of daily life, they are the tools of informing the students about the culture of the target language. A song is a literary text and literary texts harbor cultural elements belonging to the language in which they are written.
When the relationship between literary texts and life itself is examined, it is seen that the reality of life and human conditions in literary texts are narrated by being processed in the inner world of the author. In this regard, literary texts have a significant role in comprehending human beings and society with their different aspects. In literary texts written in a foreign language, it is possible to find the reflection of the world of that language, a life which is stranger to us (Polat, 1993).
In parallel with these views, songs, as a type of literary texts, reflect culture and transmit cultural values between people, societies and generations. Therefore, while learning a foreign language, a person can learn about a society and its culture through songs.
The majority of English language teachers all over the world use or have used songs for teaching purposes with some good reasons as follow
Songs are highly memorable
We have all experienced the 'song stuck in my head' phenomenon. It seems that songs lodge in both our short- and long- term memory (Murphey 1990) so they are a relatively easy way to remember quite long chunks of language.
Songs are highly motivating
Both young people and adults tend to enjoy being taught through songs.
Songs are personal (refer to generic themes)
Since most songs refer to generic themes (often 'love'), rather than specific people, places or times, listeners tend to identity with the lyrics.
Music and songs are part of everyday life
In the car, at home, at sporting events, at times of celebration, in theatres, at the cinema, and even out in the streets, we constantly hear - and sing - songs. It therefore seems natural to make them an integral part of the language learning process.
Songs are the natural opportunity for meaningful repetition
Which other texts will you find students spontaneously 'practising', both with others or alone?
Songs provide examples of everyday language
The language of most songs is simple, often in a conversational style. More complex songs, such as History will teach us nothing by Sting, could be analysed as any other literary sample. As Tim Murphey (1992) pointed out: 'anything you can do with a text you can do with a song'.
Songs are easy to find
Everybody has access to records, CDs, cassettes, videos, minidiscs, and song. Songs are a source of language for presenting and practising grammar and syntax, vocabulary, pronunciation, and the skills of listening, reading, speaking, writing and translation. Most of the ideas presented about songs in the rest of this article can therefore refer equally well to any reading and listening text. Songs (and texts) are traditionally exploited in three stages, with pre-study activities, while studying activities, and post-study activities. Although real life is not quite so clearly delineated, the classification is a useful one.
Songs bring variety to the lesson
Using songs is one way of 'escaping' from the coursebook and adding new learning experiences. Any commercially-published material is designed specifically for its target market, so teachers are bound to find songs to suit their students.
Songs aid relaxation and group dynamics
According to Murphey (1992) songs encourage 'harmony within oneself and within a group'. He goes on to say that songs sustain patriotism, cultures, religions and revolutions.
Songs are fun
The most successful lessons are the ones where we all feel we've had a good time. Enjoyable learning has to be more effective than teacher-centred procedures.
Songs can deal with ‘taboo’ topics like “divorce; fighting the establishment”
Songs are an effective tool for promoting topics which, for reasons of political correctness, are not often exploited in published language learning materials. Topics, such as 'divorce', 'fighting the establishment', and others, are can often be approached obliquely through songs.
Here is a list of what we can do with a song adapted from Tim Murphey (1992: 9-10) and other resources of activities in teaching English through songs
- Listen
- Sing, whistle, tap, and snap fingers while we listen
- Sing without listening to any recording
- Talk about the music
- Talk about the lyrics
- Talk about the singer / group
- Use songs and music to set or change an atmosphere or mood, as ´background furnishing'
- Use songs and music to make a social environment, form a feeling of community, dance, make friends
- Write songs
- Perform songs
- Do interviews
- Write articles
- Do surveys, make hit lists
- Study grammar
- Practice selective listening comprehension
- Read songs, articles, books for linguistic purposes
- Compose songs, letters to singers, questionnaires
- Translate songs
- Write dialogues using the words of a song
- Use video clips in many ways
- Do role-plays (as people in the song)
- Dictate a song
- Use a song for gap-fill, cloze, or for correction
- Use music for background to other activities
- Integrate songs into project work
- Energize or relax classes mentally
- Practice pronunciation, intonation, and stress
- Break the routine
- Do choral repetition
- Teach vocabulary
- Teach culture
- Learn about your students and from your students, letting them choose and explain their music
- 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.
While utilizing a song in classroom environment, the language of that song, age and language level of the students, areas in which students and the teacher are interested in should be taken into account. In order to utilize songs in the best way, a certain amount of attention is required. Sarıçoban (2000) recommends using songs which harbor frequent repetitions or a story or interpretations on life or cultural elements. Griffe (1992) lists four elements to be considered while choosing a song to be used in the class as follows:
- Classroom environment (number, age and interests of students; lesson hours)
- Teacher (teacher's age, interest in music and aim to use the song in the class)
- Classroom facilities (flexibility in lesson plan, classroom equipment)
- Music (lesson plan and equipment such as the volume, sources of music, copying machine, board, etc.
The content of the song chosen to be used in the classroom is also important. Some songs may contain embarrassing elements for students. Sarıçoban (2000) divides songs into two categories as those suitable for adults on advanced level of language and those appropriate for children. Meaningful and popular songs which also harbor cultural elements as well as grammatical patterns should be chosen for adult students on intermediate or advanced level, whereas more familiar or internationally-known songs should be selected for children. Griffe (1992) recommends using short and slow songs for students on beginner level. Crosswords, drawing or picture showing exercises can be conducted with such songs. For the students with a higher language level, long and fast songs which tell a story should be used. The song to be chosen should have a clear sound and it should be comprehensible; there should not be too many instruments played with a high volume in the song.
A song chosen should always contain a grammatical structure or a lingual subject. The diction of the singer should be clear so that the student will understand the lyrics more easily. The song should be chosen form a music genre favored by a major group of listeners. For example, if the teacher makes the students listen to only classical Turkish songs, then the students may feel bored with the lesson.
Applying these four criteria above during a lesson ensures that songs are optimally utilized in the class.
Activities that can be carried out with songs in foreign language classes can be classified in three groups as pre- listening, while-listening and post-listening activities. Here, a teacher should carefully think about what a student will do before, while and after listening. Below are some recommendations regarding these activity stages and what kind of activities a teacher can use in these stages.
Pre-listening activities
The purpose of this stage is to prepare the students linguistically, educationally, thematically and psychologically for the text. Students might be introduced to the topic and key vocabulary, or any linguistic feature(s) which might help them exploit the text effectively at a later stage. A vital element of the 'pre-stage' is establishing a reason for students to want to read or listen to the song/text. Typically, this might involve setting pre- questions which students answer while encountering the text for the first time.
In this stage, the teacher ensures that students are ready for the listening activity to be carried out. According to Davenellos (1999), the aim of this stage is to prepare students to a topic grammatically, educationally and psychologically. Before playing a song to students, it is necessary to introduce the topic, the keywords and the grammatical structure. In this stage, in order to activate students' background information, it may be suitable to ask the students to guess the theme of a song, to brainstorm about it, to present or to discuss the cultural information that the song includes or to state the keywords and the ideas in the song.
Pre-listening activities enable students to be aware of the purpose of listening to the song and to focus on the meaning of the song while listening. Besides, it is also possible to use songs by deliberately removing a part of their lyrics and to conduct activities in which students predict or derive the meaning of a word out of the context (Vandergrift, 1999).
As pre-listening activities, Sarıçoban (2000) recommends discussing the theme, the title or the story of the song if there is one, informing students about the lingual points to be studied and using a picture to introduce the theme of the song.
Moreover, many activities such as predicting the theme of a song out of its title, putting the lyrics of a song in syntactical order, involving posters about the song and the singer and with the aim of raising awareness, asking students whether they have background knowledge about them and if the song has a video clip, playing it silently and asking students to make predictions about the theme of the song can be utilized in this stage.
Take the song “Five Little ducks” for example. To deal with pre-listening step, teachers can:
- Ask students to close their eyes and listen to see how many sounds they can hear: a dog’s barking (bow-wow), a cock’s crowing; a cat’s meowing; a duck’s quacking; a bird’s singing, a frog’s croaking, a lion’s roaring; a cow’s mowing; a goat’s baaing / bleating, etc. Then, ask students which sounds they heard.
- Ask them to draw little ducks on their notebooks or their small boards. Then, invite five different students to go to the board and draw one duck. Next, teach them the numbers from one (1) to five (5). After that, pre-teach the word “mother duck” by drawing or explanation
- Or, ask students to read the title of the song and guess what happens next?
- Ask them to work in group of three or four students to write down a short story about five little ducks (where? When? What happen? Why?, etc.). Then, ask the leader of each group to present their short story
- Ask them to prepare a small piece of paper. Ask them to draw a 9-square bingo sheet and write down any different nine words which Ss think these words will appear in the song.
While-listening Activities
During this stage, which might be seen as the main focus of the lesson, students perform tasks and activities which directly exploit the song. The tasks might be graded to get more difficult as they get into the song. For example, while listening to a song, such as An Englishman in New York by Sting, a gist-listening task might be to ask the students to identify the topic of the song. Still in the same stage, a later task might deal with specific information and require intensive listening or reading by asking students to mark statements 'true' or 'false'. During this stage, students are frequently required to perform parallel tasks, i.e. read the text while making notes about X, or listen to the song and underline X in the text. After the detailed exploitation of the song, students might then be asked to reflect on its language and content
Listening activities are directly related to the text and students are expected to carry out these activities in the course of listening. In this process of listening and by the guidance of the teacher, students control their comprehension skills and focus on listening to the text.
According to Peachey (2003), in order for students to get accustomed to the voice of the singer or the tempo of the song, they need to listen to that song at least for three or four times. Prior to listening, it is also necessary to grant students with a short period of time for reading the questions they are going to answer while listening.
In this stage, activities such as removing certain parts of the text which are related with the grammatical form, word or pronunciation type in question, checking the accuracy of the predictions made about the song before listening, ordering the lyrics of the song, answering multiple-choice or open-ended questions about the song, picking the words that students hear in the song from a long wordlist given before listening, pausing the song and asking students to repeat the last word they have heard or correcting lexical, grammatical or syntactical mistakes deliberately involved in the lyrics.
Take the song “Five Little ducks” for example. To deal with while-listening step, teachers can ask learners to:
- Fill in the blanks with the correct words
- Rearrange the words to make sense
- Choose the appropriate words from the box
- Choose a suitable form word from a pair of given words
- Guess what happen next by pausing the tape
- Work in different groups. Each group will sing along with the CD player one verse.
- Act it out the song
Post-listening activities
This third stage typically involves follow-up activities which practise the productive skills of speaking and writing in various ways. In the previous stages, the students might have been speaking or writing in order to complete a task, e.g. in the pre- stage students might discuss their personal experience of the theme. However, the purpose and focus of the pre-stage is not the development of these skills, but the means for increasing motivation and introducing the topic.
In the post stage, it is the song or text which provides the stimulus for further activities which enhance other language skills. A classic example is the follow-up work to She's leaving home by the Beatles, where students either roleplay the dialogue between the girl and her parents, or write the letter the girl left for her parents.
During this stage, the tasks and activities will almost certainly involve the integration of previously-taught language with new language and ideas recently introduced through the song.
And, of course, once students have done all this work, their reward might be to sing the song together.
Various activities for assessing the whole process of listening can be conducted in this stage. According to Davenellos (1999), this stage consists of follow-up activities for developing speaking and writing skills.
In this stage, Sarıçoban (2000) recommends using activities such as reading a text about the singer or the theme of the song, commenting and interpreting the song and dramatizing the plot of the song. These activities may vary in accordance with the language level and the areas of interest of students. The teacher can check the answers of the questions from listening stage. For improving writing skills, students can compose a dialogue out of the words of the people in a song; they can summarize, continue the song, or rewrite the lyrics from the point of view of another person in the song. In order to improve pronunciation, students can sing the song individually, with another student or in groups. For improving speaking skills, students can talk about how they feel after listening to the song. Also, some questions can be directed to students with the aim of initiating discussions.
Take the song “Five Little ducks” for example. To deal with post-listening step, teachers can ask learners to:
- Discuss the comprehension questions with their partner (s). It may be yes/no questions, specific questions or inference questions
- Compose a dialogue for each character
- Summarize the song
- Continue the song
- Create a new song with other animals such as dog (bow-wow); cat (meow); bee (buzz); doves (coo-coo); frog (croak); pig (oink)
- Share their feeling after listening to the song
For the sake of children, utilizing songs in lesson environment attracts attention. It is seen that songs are used for many reasons by methods adopted in foreign language teaching. The facts that music soothes learners and that melodies, rhythms and rhymes in a song facilitate language learning improve learners' reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Besides, music and songs are all authentic texts. These authentic texts act as significant sources for children to discover the culture of the target language and to improve their cultural awareness.
For foreign language teaching, if songs are carefully chosen by taking the audience, objectives, language levels of children and song content into consideration and if deliberate activities are carried out, it is possible to make use of songs effectively. Utilizing songs this way provides an enjoyable experience not only for students but also for the teacher. Using songs along with such activities will have many advantages such as saving the lesson from being boring and monotonous and improving student motivation.
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Griffee, D. T. (1992). Songs in action. UK: Prentice Hall.
Jolly, Y. (1975). The use of songs in teaching foreign languages. Modern Language Journal, 59 (1), pp.11-14.
Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Maley, A. (1987). Poetry and song as effective language-learning activities. Interactive Language Teaching. Ed. W. M. Rivers. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, pp. 93-109.
Murphey, T. (1990). Song and music in language learning. An analysis of pop song lyrics and music in teaching English to speaker of other languages. Berna: Peter Lang.
Murphey, T. (1992). Music & songs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Paterson, A. & Willis, J. (2008). English through music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sarıçoban, A. & Metin, E. (2000). Songs, verse and games for teaching grammar, The Internet TESLJournal. Retrived 11th January 2011 from
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/SaricobanSongs.html.
Please check the Methodology & Language for Kindergarten Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
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