Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Yongfeng Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Shangluo Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.
There is something for everyone when it comes to music. Its rare that a person wouldn’t have any musical interests, so incorporating music into the classroom is a compelling way to teach English as a foreign language and get each of your students interested and involved. Every country and culture has music that appeals to each person's personal preferences. Especially with the help of the internet, genres of music that were once based solely on location can now be found being played in any language all over the world. Due to its ease of accessibility and variety of styles and purposes, music is a great resource for learning a new language, especially for someone learning a language in a country where that language is not a spoken language. In the classroom, songs are a wonderful way to get both kids and adults actively involved in language learning. Songs can be used by every level to help learn target vocabulary in a way that the mind will remember. Utilizing the concept of an earworm (a song that gets stuck in one's head), a teacher can introduce vocabulary that might be harder to incorporate on a day to day basis. Spanish was taught to us at my elementary school and still to this day I can remember how to sing the days of the week to the toon of ‘The AAdams Family’ theme song. This long-term memory connection is equally useful for adults learning a new language, creating a hook for them to remember important vocabulary and grammar that may otherwise be difficult. On their own, a student can utilize music for their own language growth as well. However, unlike music produced specifically for classroom and language learning purposes, popular music is written without proper grammar in mind, so this needs to be addressed by the teacher ahead of time. Keeping this in mind, students still can find popular music very convenient for learning vocabulary and pronunciation due to the high interest factor. Additionally, if a learner does not have access to peers or a teacher that they can speak their target language with on a regular basis, music is a great way to keep up with language practice on their own. Listeners will learn new vocabulary, as popular vocabulary and slang may not be taught in a classroom setting. Through music, learners are also immersed in the common pronunciations of the language. Singing along, or even just following along with the words and mouthing them out, is an effective way of getting comfortable with unfamiliar parts of the language. Songs can also be utilized for teaching more than just listening and speaking skills. The teacher can assign students an Activate phase lesson, or homework, to find a song that they enjoy and write the song in a notebook in order to practice their language writing skills. They can then read over the lyrics they’ve written down and translate any words they know and highlight words they would like to know more about. This kind of activity would be especially useful for older learners because it encourages them to practice the language in their own areas of interest, which is a critical consideration to ensure success and keep older students interested in their learning.
