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Using songs during lessons is one of the more profitable things that a teacher can do especially when dealing with young learners. When you teach young learners, you will find that they are notorious for having an extremely low concentration span. This means you should not just get into class and start teaching and just teach without spicing up the lesson in order to keep the students interested in your lessons. However, songs are not just used as a distraction for students but they can also be very informative and educational if the correct songs are selected and used a t the right time. They will provide the students with some listening and speaking and this will help improve both their productive and receptive skills. Singing these songs over and over again will allow the students to practice all these skills in a stress free and fun environment and this is a great way to learn and retain the knowledge. I will use the example of one unit that we learnt in this course. That is the unit of teaching new language/vocabulary. When as a teacher you have reached a point where you will have to teach some new language to your students you can use songs to make the transition easier. You can select a song that make use of said vocabulary and then teach the students the song first. When they are now familiar with the song then you can go ahead and teach the meanings of all that vocabulary. This will make the learning of these words so much easier and it will benefit the students greatly while at the same time it will provide them with some fun, much needed entertainment during the lessons. A real win-win situation for all parties concerned. A different selection of songs can also provide the learners, especially ESL students the exposure to some cultural experience and vocabulary from native English speaking countries. This is another valuable way to teach commonly used English phrases and words. e.g having them listen to a Halloween song and they pick up phrases like ‘Trick or Treat”. This will peak their interest and make them want to learn more about these cultures. Although we have discussed some of the importance of using songs like these we also have to be careful how you introduce the songs. If you don’t introduce the sings properly they will end up just being a fun distraction for them without any actual learning going on. This means as a teacher you have to use some methods in order to make sure the students are actually learning. The first step would be to first get the students to listen to the song a couple of times until they can sing along to some of the lines. Keep playing it for the regularly and then you can introduce the song for them to sing it. Also try and make sure the song is going along with the theme of your lessons so that they can be picking up some language they recognize and this will get them to catch on to the songs quicker and eventually understand what the songs are about better. In my kindergarten classes I will use these songs to good effect and I am determined to get the best out of my lessons
