Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 6; November 02

Singing like a Foreigner

Level: post beginner to intermediate (monolingual class)

• Chose a song sung by an English native speaking singer, but sung in your students' language. If you can't find one get one of your more musical students to translate one and him or herself put it on cassette.
• Give the class the mother tongue version of the song on paper and ask them to listen through to the cassette, underlining all the sounds that give the singer away as a foreigner.
• Get the class singing the song trying their best to be yet more foreign sounding than the Anglo-Saxon singer.

Note: teenagers and people strong in the language intelligence love taking the mickey this way.
While taking the mickey they are getting their mouths around English sounds.

Acknowledgement: We learnt this technique from Ana Robles, Spain She used this Spanish version of a song by Nat King Cole:

Ansiedad

Ansiedad de tenerte en mis brazos musitando palabras de amor
Ansiedad de tener tus encantos y en la boca volverte a besar………