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I have been teaching ELS for over four years and have found the use of songs in the classroom to be an extremely dynamic and effective way to teach grammar points and English idioms. There are hundreds of classic English songs that have been international hits, making an instant connection with students from all over the world. My classes are primarily with adult learners who are coming to study English at the end of a long working day. It is essential to grab their attention and make the lesson enjoyable and engaging. Songs make an instant connection with the students and activate their attention. For almost every English grammar point, you can find a popular song to fit. If you want to work on prepositions, the classic hit 'Under the Boardwalk' by The Drifters offers perfect lyrics e.g. Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, on a blanket…”. If you want to explore the second conditional, you can use Beyonce’s 'If I Were A Boy', for the third conditional – Adele’s 'If it Hadn’t Been for Love. You can use “I’m coming up” by Pink for an introduction to phrasal verbs. The list is endless when it comes to teaching grammar and vocabulary through song. When learning anything, it is essential to connect with the childlike sense of exploration. A song can help connect an adult to this part of themselves, cultivating this curiosity in the confines of a traditional classroom setting. There have been several studies undertaken that highlight how music activates parts of the brain that assist in retaining information. We often use the classic English idiom – 'the song is stuck in my head'. And this, as a teacher, is exactly what we want to achieve with our lessons, we want the information to get stuck in the student’s head in the way that a fun song might. Famously, a US math professor, La McQueen, began rapping his algebra lessons in order to get the difficult information to stick in the minds of his not so enthusiastic teenage learners. The results of creating a rhythm were astronomical and he ended up winning an award after releasing a CD with his effective raps e.g. “Let’s talk about slope intercept. I don’t mind if you interject, just don’t disrespect. I say you have a question for me? What’s y equals mx + b?” There are several ways one can use a song in a class. You can teach a grammar point, drill the vocabulary of the grammar point and then play the song while the students fill in the grammar in a worksheet with some of the lyrics missing. This is a wonderful exercise for the 'study' section of a lesson plan. Another exercise I have found to be very effective is to ask the students to translate one of their favourite songs from their language into English. The students usually have a strong emotional connection to the song and have a desire to share it with others. Students can share their favourite song, teach it to the other English learners, and the teacher can assist with idioms and vocabulary. For mix culture classes, this can be a great way to build rapport and a strong connection within the group. Finally, getting the students to create a short rap of their own, in pairs, with one or two simple physical movements, is also a very fun and dynamic activity for the 'activate' section of a class. Throughout my four years of teaching experience, it has been made evident that the only way information sticks in a student’s head is if the content was made enjoyable; if it appealed to a sense of joy and fun. Songs are an immediate way to remind the student that language, although made up of rigid grammar points, is a fun and beautiful way of expressing ourselves.
