[In addition to humanising the song text with learners assuming the role of 'Worried Love', this was an exercise in subject and possessive pronouns as well as possessive adjectives.]

Participants worked on their own for 2 minutes and then, as a group, we listened to and agreed upon the statements that Worried Love should hear from her man. With this approach, the participants basically wrote the text to Rod Stewart's song so we proceeded to listen to it.

Have I told you lately that I love you? Have I told you there's no-one else above you? Fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness, ease my troubles that's what you do. For the morning sun and all it's glory greets the day with hope and comfort too. You fill my life with laughter and somehow you make it better, ease my troubles that's what you do. There's a love that's divine, and it's yours and it's mine, like the sun. And at the end of the day, we should give thanks and pray to the one, to the one.

As most teachers tend to use the cloze format when using songs, participants were then asked which words they would blank out and why. This exercise was added to remind all the participants that even if choosing the common cloze format, word-elimination should be done with criteria. In addition to eliminating pronouns, here were the other words up for elimination and some interesting and useful reasons for 'clozing'-in on these words.

lately --> draw learner attention to lately and recently / lately vs. last - commonly confused by Italian learners of English.
I love you --> They all know this - ups learner confidence
like --> reminder of 'like' as a preposition
one --> its usage in English as a noun is more ubiquitous than in Italian.
heart
glory
laughter -->pronunciation practice - difficult words for Italians.
gladness
troubles

This song took about 15 minutes.

Other pointers for using this song with learners:

In the language classroom, I have given the Mago Domenico letter at the end of a lesson and have students begin working on the modifications for about 5 minutes. Then they are asked to continue the re-writing at home. In the next lesson, this activity is picked up and we check the re-written text together before they listen to the song. In addition to being a review of pronouns and adjectives, the text can be used to review more advanced material by inserting several subordinate activities into the class-work. For example:

1. 1. The text uses the present perfect - why? What if Mago Domenico had asked about what our man said last night? What tense should be used? And how would English-speaking Mago Domenico pose this question?

2. Draw learners' attention to the use of SAY and TELL. The text uses 'have I told you'. What if we were to use say? The difference between say and tell is addressed again when learners deal with the next song (below).

3. What if our man wants to leave us? This would change the text to:

   1. Has he told you lately that he doesn't love you? Students tend to produce 'Hasn't he told you…' so this is a good opportunity to point out that the negative-interrogative does not formulate the opposite of the affirmative but communicates disbelief - Mago Domenico's disbelief that our man has not told us lately how much he loves us.

   2. Has he told you that there's someone else above you?

   3. Has he told you that you don't fill his heart with gladness and don't take away all his sadness?

   4. And that you don't ease his troubles and that ease his troubles, that's not what you do.

   5. Does he tell you that unlike the morning sun and all it's glory that greets the day with hope and comfort too, you don't fill his life with laughter and somehow you make it worse and don't ease all his troubles?

Changing the text to the opposite message is a way to make the learner aware that they can do much more with what is put before them, training them to create their own exercises.

SONG 2.

During the tea-training, participants were introduced to the second song with my introduction that a friend of mine, who is very successful now, is also quite embittered by all the problems which she encountered along the route to her success. And this is the letter she wrote:

You can say what you want about me and do what you want to me but you can't stop me. I've been challenged by this crazy town and was even hit in the face in LA. But there isn't anything in the world that can stop me from doing what I want because I'm not easy to defeat and I'm strong. In addition, my philosophy is that you must continue and move forward because being depressed and feeling victimized doesn't bring you success. So I held my head up high and knew I would survive. Now I'm successful but I'm not angry because I know that confronting difficulty is a normal part of the process.

Even I can't believe that I've succeeded and am now independent but I had to make many sacrifices and pay a price. They tried to stop me but you can't now because I've sacrificed what was necessary.

Now I'm still challenged every day and people are still trying to destroy me. But you'll be quite surprised because I can deal with such challenges. I think you should know that I'm not a coward and am not going to be defeated. In addition, I don't care who will be offended and this philosophy has not failed me yet.

It took so long to get me here so I refuse to live in fear. But you try to take away my success - first they try to make you feel confident and successful and then they tell you that you are no good; it's difficult to understand what they want to do to you.

After a few minutes given to read this angry but strong letter, participants were told that those were not the exact words of my friend's original letter as the original letter contained more native-speaker jargon and some slang:

You can say what you want about me and you can try to do what you want to me but you cannot stop me. I've been knocked down because this is a crazy town and even punched in the face in LA. But there ain't nothing in the world that can keep me from doing what I want to do because I'm too proud, I'm too strong, and I live by the code that you've gotta move on because feeling sorry for yourself ain't got nobody nowhere. So I held my head high and knew I'd survive. Now I made it and I don't hate it because that's just the way it goes.

I've and now stand my own two and I've paid my dues. They tried to hold me down but you can't stop me now because I've paid my dues.

I think I told you that you cannot stop me since I've paid my dues.

Now I'm still tested every day and people try to mess with me. But you got another thing coming cause I handle mine and I thought I'd better let you know that I'm no punk and I can't get down. In addition, I don't give a damn about who's around and that's worked just fine til now.

Took so long to get me here but I won't live in fear. But you try to steal my shine - first they wanna build you up and then they tear you down; it's a struggle trying to follow.

Participants were asked to compare the underlined expressions in the real letter to the meanings in the modified letter to understand the more native expressions. Of course the 'I've paid my dues' was a dead give-away and even though I had replaced 'Anastacia' with 'me' in the sentence about 'messing with me', most had figured out that it was Anastacia's famous and gutsy song 'Paid My Dues.' But what was very nice was that most participants would not have recognised the song had these been left out. So modifying the text was a good way to approach a song without giving it away from the beginning. This is my personal preference - surprising the learner with a popular song that they really didn't understand before the lesson - but during the follow-up discussion later, others suggested working from the original song text immediately.

In any event, participants then followed along with actual lyrics:

You can say what you want about me,
try to do what you want to me
but you cannot stop me!

I've been knocked down, it's a crazy town, even got punched in the face in LA.
Ain't nothing in the world that can keep me from doing what I wanna do.
Cause I'm too proud, I'm too strong, live by the code that you gotta move on,
feeling sorry for yourself ain't got nobody nowhere.

So I held my head high, I knew I'd survive.
Well, I made it, I don't hate it,
That's just the way it goes!


I've done made it through, stand on my own two,
I've paid my dues.
Tried to hold me down,
You can't stop me now.
I've paid my dues.

I think I told you - You cannot stop me, I've paid my dues!

Now I'm still tested every day and people try to mess with Anastacia
You got another thing coming cause I can handle mine and I thought I'd better you know
I'm no punk, I can't get down - I don't give a damn about who's around.
That's worked just fine till now,


Took so long to get me here, but I won't live in fear.
Oh, you try to steal my shine - but first they wanna build you up,
then they tear you down; it's a struggle trying to follow.

This took about 25 minutes, concluding phase II at about 40 minutes.

Other pointers for using this song with learners:

I have found that it is best to give the modified text as a reading comprehension homework so that learners have time to understand and digest the 'gutsiness' of the text, which is what makes this song, once you understand it, so much more 'cool' (personal opinion).

With learners, I also have a follow-up activity of prepositions:

You can say what you want ______ me and you can try to do what you want ______ me but you cannot stop me. I've been knocked _______ in this crazy town and even got punched ______ the face in LA. But there ain't nothing ______ the world that can keep me _______ doing what I want to because I'm too proud and I'm too strong. Besides, I live ______ the code that you've gotta move _______ because feeling sorry ______ yourself ain't got nobody nowhere. So, I held my head ____ high and knew I'd survive. Now I've made it ______ and I don't hate it because that just the way it goes. In fact, I've done and made it through and now stand _______ my own two because I paid my dues. They tried to hold me ________ but you can't stop me now!

Now I'm still tested every day and people try to mess _______ me. But you got another thing coming cause I can handle mine and I thought I'd better let you know that I'm no punk and I can't get ______. In addition, I don't give a damn ______ who's around and that's worked just fine ______ now.

You know, it took so long to get here that I won't live ______ fear. But you try to steal my shine. First they wanna build you ________ and then they tear you __________; it's a struggle trying to follow.

Like I say, I stand ______ my own two and you can't stop me now because I've already paid my dues.

This follow-up preposition activity adds an additional 'textbook' learning element to this song that satisfies the more 'stoic and academic' learners. In addition, it also illustrates how prepositions alter the meaning e.g. "you can say what you want about me" vs. "you can say what you want to me".

Other follow-up activities which I use with my learners are:

1. Changing the subject - let's talk about Anastacia in the third person.
2. Noticing the use of say vs. tell. When Rod Stewart and Anastacia are used together, this reinforces the say-tell difference.
3. Direct object pronouns follow prepositions: " you can say what you want to me".
4. Introduce/review reflexive pronouns from "feeling sorry for yourself…"
5. Reviewing/introducing nobody - somebody, anybody / nowhere - somewhere, anywhere
6. Why 'I've made it' and not 'I made it'? The present perfect for things which are current. If Anastacia were reminiscing about her former success, the verb tenses would have to be changed.

Phase III: Open-Discussion (30 min)

The invaluable 30-min open discussion which followed the two songs (which took no more than 40 minutes to 'experience') provided the following insights, comments and suggestions:

Comment 1: A problem with using songs is that it's not academic and students don't think you are serious.
Comments and Discussion:

1. Songs can be viewed as frivolous if learners see that we didn't put much into it. If we just give them a text and listen to a song, it is indeed little work on our behalf and they perceive that.

2. We can choose songs with more academic relevance, songs with a message, social, cultural or political.

Comment 2: We who teach languages other than English don't have access to such popular songs as Anastacia. Sometimes I wish I taught English so I could use some songs! Comments and Discussion:

1. It is possible to use only music, e.g. classical music - and have students describe what they see when they hear the music - you don't need popular songs for that.

2. As I teach another language and popular songs are lacking, I once asked students to listen to a composition and tell me which musical instruments they heard and to describe the music: tense, fast, slow, melodic etc. This was a good use of music for using descriptive language.

3. Since we don't often tap into musical intelligence in our teaching, we might even consider playing a very short 30 second-long piece of music and ask learners to write out a film scenario. I would choose a piece which is not too popular. This would merge musical, audio and visual intelligences with the very left-brained writing activities.

4. Music and songs provide a whole brain activity. (this comment emerged from the warm-up pros vs. cons activity)

Comment 3: How do you choose the right song? With which level learners do you use Anastacia? It seems suitable for Pre-Intermediate or higher.

Comments and Discussion:

1. 'Popular' is always safe. Anastacia is so popular that even Elementary learners were interested. Of course something less popular like Rod has to be used with more blatant language-learning purpose so students don't think you are just wasting their time. But a popular song is always interesting. If you work forward - song first and then text - with a popular song, then learners all want to know what the song means. But advanced learners who already understand the lyrics in writing might find it boring. If you work backwards - modified text and don't reveal which song it is - students must know that you are going somewhere exciting with this 'weird' text. This is if they are used to your doing things the round-about way and they trust you won't let them down with a dud of a song.

2. I actually ask students at the beginning of each term to give me a list of songs they like and the lyrics to go with them. Then I create teaching material based on the songs and use them for what I want to teach.

3. The song you choose should be authentic - those adapted for language textbooks are boring and students usually find them quite stupid.

Other suggestions for the use of music and songs in the language classroom:

1. It is also possible to work backwards (or rather forwards, depending on your preference) by giving the students the text and have them write the 'common language' version of the text - opposite of what was done here.

2. I used John Lennon's Happy Christmas and first had the students find out more about who the singer was by giving them a multiple choice test about the singer e.g. how many times was John Lennon married? How old was he when this song came out? etc.

3. I use Donna Summers' 'On the Radio' to teach the simple past because it contains a lot of irregular verbs.

4. Have the students listen to a song without the text and at first they may not understand a thing and be slightly put off. But then have them write on the board any words or phrases that they had picked up with the first listening. The collective contribution from the class will bring together many words/sentences of the song. Then ask the learners to piece together the lyrics by organising these single units into the order which they recall them to appear in the song. This shows the learners that it's possible to derive meaning from what seems to be gibberish. To conclude, give students paragraphs or pieces of the lyrics on paper and have them do a jig-saw activity to put the song together.

Conclusions

Judging from the numerous enquiries about when the next T-Training session will be, I venture to conclude that the first session went over well. I hope that this summary might serve at least three purposes for the TXFL world (X being whatever that foreign language may be):

1. to encourage busy, busy, busy Language teaching entities all over the world to unite on a regular basis to exchange didactic and pedagogic ideas, concerns and insights. As you can see, it can be done in 90 minutes, including the eating and drinking;

2. to provide language teachers with ideas of how to go about using songs 'academically', remembering that whatever medium or method we adopt, it is the preparation behind it that renders it didactically worthy; and

3. to provide English language teachers two songs and related activities that they might wish to use in their own EFL classrooms. Good luck and have fun!

References.

There are numerous web sites about using songs for language teaching (using key words such as TEFL and songs through search engines such as yahoo) and some include even texts and songs themselves, if not an entire lesson plan.

Some useful reference books:
Griffee, D. 1992. Songs in Action, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Murphey, T. 1990. Music and Song, Oxford University Press.

Academic articles debating the use of songs for language teaching:
Allan, D., 1995. Using songs in the communicative classroom. ELT News & Views, 2:3, 94-103.
Domoney, L., Harris, S., 1993. Justified and ancient: pop music in EFL classrooms. ELTJ, 47:3, 234-241.
Porto, M., 1996. Songs in language teaching: a response to Dave Allan. ELT News & Views, 3:1, 37.