"Using Music in the Classroom" статья

Using Music in the Classroom

    The use of music and songs becomes a common feature in language teaching in our classrooms.

    Songs are part of daily life for most people. Who doesn’t enjoy music at home, while travelling or studying, or even at work? Some people may not like art, dancing, reading, or movies, but almost everyone likes one kind of music or another.

    There are many reasons why song can add a special, extra dimension to the learning process. First of all, it is a motivation because most learners show an increased level of interest when they have a chance to sing it, and move under music.

Music improves concentration and memory,brings a sense of community to a group,motivates learning, relaxes, makes learning fun and  helps students absorb material faster.

    As for me, I often use music and songs during my lessons: to introduce a new theme or topic, to break the ice in a class, to change the mood, to teach and build vocabulary and idioms, to review material,to teach pronunciation and intonation, to teach through songs and rhymes difficult grammar and spelling rules that need to be memorized,to  teach reading comprehension, to inspire a class discussion or to teach listening for details and gist.

Here are some interesting tasks for the use of songs in the class:

1.Filling in the blanks

You can prepare a gapped version of the song and let students complete them before listening and then check afterwards.

2. Strip it

Cut the song into strips. Give each student one strip to memorize. Students put the strips in their pockets. They get up and tell each other their part of the song, without looking at their part or showing their part to anyone else. Students then organize themselves in the right order, speak the song and then listen and check.

3. Change it

Change words (adjectives, adverbs, nouns -names, places or feelings), and invent new lyrics for the melody. If you have karaoke versions of the songs you can then let students sing their own versions.

4. Question it

Have students ask each other questions about the song (about the words, about the topics or about characters in the song). 

For more advanced students you could choose two songs of a similar theme, and split the class into two teams. Have each group listen to their song and draw up a list of (open or True/False) questions. Pair each student with a member of the opposite team and have them take turns asking their questions.

5. Stop it

Put a selection of important words,phrases, word combinations of grammar structure from the song on the blackboard. Students must shout STOP any time they hear one of the new words. You could also stop the song before a word you want them to guess.

   There are so many activities a teacher can actually do when using songs. Music is the universal language of mankind. If you can commit to using music once a week, you may soon see the benefits, and realize that you want to do it more often and in a variety of ways.