subject: How Songs Can Help You To Teach English To Students [print this page] ESL teachers can use music for teaching English to their pupils with great success. ESL songs can bring strength to the classroom, foster students' confidence, and offer a much needed active learning experience for young students who could become easily bored or distracted. They are excellent for adding enjoyment and motivation to your classroom routine!
Youngsters hear whole sentences when they tune in to songs; this helps them understand and remember words and phrases as they subconsciously pick up on syntax and grammar. It leads their new language to be naturally used by them in context instead of isolated syllables or words.
Songs that 'get trapped ' in your students ' heads lead to a constant cycle of learning - the more they hear the song , the easier it and feel about it will be for them to understand all the words and their meanings. . Songs really are a great and exciting alternative to conventional reading comprehension, as they enable the child to become actively involved.
English songs may also help calm an excitable or tumultuous course - you will be amazed at how fast children will settle down and only put on the music. They could also bring new zest for life and assurance to a small grouping of fighting and overwhelmed students. Simply declare a singing time, and see students light up with interest.
Visual learners could be aided by narrative pictures or vocabulary flashcards associated with the tune, as well as by viewing the other students and joining in on the activities that fit the different words.
ESL songs give kids the chance to learn at their own pace within the group - rather than being singled out, they can listen and engage at their own speed, joining in when they can and learning from the group around them. They could feel comfortable since everyone else is also focusing on the lessons, and will slowly build up the nerve to create new words to their terminology and work on their pronunciation naturally.
The fact that songs are fun means that your students can be motivated to work harder in anticipation of singing time. Singing can be students will be easily captured by an energetic activity which ' attention, particularly if hand and body movements are implemented.
Songs may be great memory aids; the context provided aids in correct use of syntax and grammar, and the tune and movements make the words to be remembered by it easier. Songs have an uncanny way of 'sticking in your head', and in the case of English learners, this can be a marvelous thing. Many English songs are far too fast paced and sophisticated for use as a teaching tool. If the words are spoken so rapidly that the children can not differentiate between them, it will take too many repetitions to try and understand the lyrics, leading to frustration and defeat.
In addition, the average English tune has too many words to practically learn, and the words will differ widely in difficulty, says Uceda School. If the terms are too difficult, you have the same issue as mentioned above - playing the tune over and over while the pupils become restless and overwhelmed.
Finding the right songs to make use of in your classroom is vital. Your students that that will be only confused by people with too many words, a melody is too fast, or context is difficult to understand. This will completely eliminate any positive benefits songs could have and demoralize your students as they will fail rather than succeed.
What you really need is songs which have been tailor-made for teaching ESL. Save the function of the mill English songs for background music when you do other activities or games, and pick something repetitive with simple words and phrasing for sing-along time.
Even if your pupils might not understand all of the text at this point, previews will slowly move them from just 'hearing' to actively 'listening' and will help when the time comes to listen to the tune attentively for the first time.
Use language games to help you focus the children's attention on specific words. Whenever they hear a word out of a collection of words that have been pinned to the wall they can run and jump on a flashcard of a noun when they hear it in the track, or clap.
Go on it slow when using songs for teaching English, especially with younger and less experienced students. It is then shelved by play the song two or three times until the next lesson. Break the track down line by line or phrase by phrase until you fin the amount your students are comfortable at, then slowly develop on each line until you get a complete verse learned, then the whole song. Several lessons may be taken by this.
Make up actions to go with the words and use them into the song. Your students can be a valuable resource here - children's imaginations hold a wealth of inspiration! With primary students, once the tune has been learned it can be done then put aside for occasional revisiting. The lyrics can be used later for spelling, reading and writing activities.
