Teacher Training Course

Last Updated: August 2014

Module 5
Lesson 1: Using Music
Summary

Music in the classroom

Teachers can harness the energy that music creates to build motivation and enhance learning. Outlined below are
some of the various ways in which the power of music can be used effectively in the classroom.

Song writing
Songs have long been used as a teaching tool. Many people find it difficult to recite the letters of the alphabet without
singing the alphabet song. Songs can be used to memorize a long list of related information such as the names of
capital cities, chemical elements in the Periodic Table, mathematical formulas, or the spellings of difficult words. Song
writing can also lead to higher levels of thinking. For students to write such a song, it requires that they synthesize and
evaluate information, the highest levels of thinking. Often it is helpful to give students a structure to create their
songs.

Song dedication

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Instead of students writing their own songs, they could research existing songs to represent a character, group of
people, time period, or discovery. Students could write an essay that explains why the song they selected matches

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what they have studied. Students could even create a whole album to reveal various aspects of what they are studying.
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Writing Prompt
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Music can be used as a muse for creative writing pieces. To teach setting, a teacher could play music from different
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parts of the world or the sounds from a specific location such as the ocean. After hearing the selection, students could
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write a paragraph describing the locale and what may been happening at that locale. Students could use what they
have written to start a short story or a poem.
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Time keeping
Music could be used as a means to keep time that adds enthusiasm to a lesson. An example is using the Jeopardy Song
during the time when students are preparing their arguments for a debate. When the song finishes, that means the
preparation period is over. Music is also a great timekeeper for writing games. When the music is playing, students are
required to free write. When you stop the music that indicates that students should stop free writing and switch
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papers with another student who will continue writing where they stopped.
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Positive background noise

Music has a way of changing the atmosphere of a room. With the right tune, you can help influence the tone of the
class. For a rowdy middle school class, I have seen teachers play classical music to calm the tension in the room. For a
lethargic high school class, I have played theme songs from Broadway plays such as The Lion King to enliven the class
and generate enthusiasm while students are working on group projects or interactive activities. A teacher must use
wisdom when deciding when, which class, and what type of music would be effective to use as a positive background
noise.

Music is a part of life that most young people love. Used effectively, music is another tool that teachers can use in their
bag of tricks to benefit their students in the classroom.

Using Songs to teach a foreign language

Some key reasons songs can work exceedingly well in the foreign language classroom include the following:

1. Songs almost always contain authentic, natural language

2. A variety of new vocabulary can be introduced to students through songs
3. Songs are usually very easily obtainable
4. Songs can be selected to suit the needs and interests of the students
5. Grammar and cultural aspects can be introduced through songs
6. Time length is easily controlled

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7. Students can experience a wide range of accents

8. Song lyrics can be used in relating to situations of the world around us
9. Students think songs are natural and fun

How learners benefit from listening to music

How can you effectively use music in your English or foreign language learning classroom? Listening to certain types of
music has quite a number of additional benefits, which go far beyond teaching and learning. The impact of music and
songs in ELT is well documented.

Benefits of Listening to Music

• Reduces Errors
• Aids in Digestion
• Helps to Regulate Moods
• Moderates Tempo of Activity
• Aids in Isolation from Noise and Distractions

Choosing a suitable song

Probably one of the most important things about choosing a song to do with a class is to make sure that the lyrics are

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clear. There is nothing worse than choosing an unintelligible song. There is also the issue of whether or not the

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language is a suitable level of difficulty. And the language itself should be suitable. The suitability of the subject matter
is a particularly important issue if you are teaching young learners, for instance.
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It's also a question of whether your students are going to like the song. Just because you think the Beatles were the
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greatest band ever doesn’t mean your twenty-something students will feel the same way. It is a fact that finding
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language-wise songs is quite difficult because what you really want is a song with some useful language in it.

1. Some key points to remember when choosing a song

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2. Use songs that are popular with the students whenever possible. Unfortunately, students frequently select
songs for classroom use that are objectionable in some way making the song unusable.
3. Songs MUST have clear and understandable lyrics. Nothing is worse than a song almost nobody can
understand. If you have trouble understanding the lyrics by listening, then another song needs to be selected.
4. Songs should have an appropriate theme. There’s enough bad news, negativity and violence in the world
already. Songs with any type of negative theme should be avoided. There are plenty of positive, upbeat, even
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humorous songs available. Use these.

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5. A language theme should be present within the song. For example, if you are teaching conditionals, a song or
songs with conditionals should be used.
Remember that music pervades virtually every aspect of our lives. Students adore it. It contains numerous useful
elements for language teaching and it is fun for both the teacher and students. So, why not include music and songs in
your language learning classes as well?

What to do with a song and how to select it

Apart from just doing a "fill-in-the-blanks" type exercise, what else can you do with a song?

Doing a song is like getting ready for any listening exercise. You need to plan in advance what you are going to do .You
need to think about all the stages to be covered during the “listening” of the song: Pre-, while- and post-listening tasks
that are going to be language-rich.

The build-up or pre-listening activity is one of the most important stages. As this is the stage in which the teacher
would have to pre-teach some vocabulary, in order to activate students’ schemata. During the "While-listening" stage
you could provide the lyrics but include either information that is wrong, which has to be corrected, or multiple-choice
type answers. You could also try giving students sections of the song, and get them to do it (before listening) as a
"jigsaw reading" exercise, which they could then check during listening.

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Songs that work best are almost invariably those that produce some sort of response to the music. There is the
question of whether or not your class likes the song -- but you really want something a bit more substantial.

Songs with a good story line make a good choice. You can actually exploit videos with good story lines to make
students tell / retell the story, for example Take on me, by A-ha. Your students can also agree (and disagree) on what
happened, and perhaps why it happened (and who was to blame). This would be an excellent post-listening activity.

A song that requires you to actually discern what is going on is also a good choice -- because then your learners can
discuss that during the post-listening activity. At an advanced level, of course, if lyrics are more poetic, arguing about
what the writer actually meant can sometimes work well.

Follow-up activities
Below you will find a number of suggestions for follow-up activities for songs:
• planning a video for it
• actually making the video
• writing a letter (or a mobile phone message) from one of the characters in the song
• writing a diary entry

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Bibliography

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• Keegan, E. Using songs in English teaching, Retreived from Celta-Course-com: http://www.celta-
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course.com/songs.html
• Lee, T. (2009). Music in the classroom, Retreived from Ezine Articles: http://ezinearticles.com/?Music-in-the-
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Classroom&id=1944731
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• Lynch, L. (2005). 9 Reasons Why You Should Use Songs to Teach English as a Foreign Language, Retreived
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from Ezine Articles: http://ezinearticles.com/?9-Reasons-Why-You-Should-Use-Songs-to-Teach-English-as-a-

Foreign-Language&id=104988
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• Lynch, L. (2008). Six English and Foreign Language Learner Benefits of Listening to Music, Retreived from
Becoming a Better EFL Teacher Blog: http://bettereflteacher.blogspot.mx/2008/06/six-english-and-foreign-
language.html
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