Ldeas For Using Songs In: Winners
Uploaded by
martinchooLdeas For Using Songs In: Winners
Uploaded by
martinchooldeas for Using Songs in Winners
Mark Hancock
Songs can be used in three general ways:
• For skills work
• To focus on the language
• As a basis for analysis or discussion
When we plan classroom activities with songs, it is good to keep these three aspects in
mind in order to get the most out of the song. It may also help us to keep a clear view of
why we are doing the activity. Let me explain this point with an example:
The most common classroom activity used with songs is gap-filling the words. But there
are different ways of doing this. If we play the recording and ask students to fill the gaps,
we are doing a listening for detail activity. If, on the other hand, we ask students to fill the
gaps before listening, it is no longer just a listening exercise. We are focusing the students’
attention on grammar and vocabulary. We should plan beforehand which of these (skills
work or language focus) we want to achieve, because this will probably affect which of the
words we choose to blank out.
However, there are many other ways of using songs apart from gap-filling.
1 Listening s kills wor k
Picture discussion: Find pictures to illustrate the song. Ask students to describe the
pictures and predict what the song is about from them.
Picture-selecting: Show students two or more alternative pictures, magazine photos for
example, and ask them to say which one best matches the content/mood of the song and why.
Note-taking: Ask students to listen to the song and take notes: key words, main characters,
main events, for example.
Word-spotting: Present some key words from the song and some not in the song. Ask
students to circle the words they hear, and perhaps order the words which are in the song.
Error-finding: Give students a copy of the song with some errors, for example wrong words,
extra words or words missing. Ask them to listen and identify the errors.
Sequencing: Give students a copy of the song with the lines in the wrong order or cut into
strips. Ask them to listen and put them in the right order.
Questions: Prepare comprehension questions. Ask students to listen and answer the
questions.
True or false: Prepare true or false statements about the song and ask students to listen and
say if they are true.
© Oxford University Press 1
2 Language focus
Tense-selecting: Erase the verbs and put the infinitive by the gap. Ask students to put the
verbs in an appropriate tense. Listen to check.
Error-identifying: Give students a copy of the song containing grammatical errors and ask
them to correct the errors. Listen to check.
Word-ordering: Give lines from the song with words in a jumbled order. Ask them to order
the words and listen to check.
Text-reconstruction: Erase all the words in the song or parts of it, and number each gap.
Ask students to listen once, then try to reconstruct the text by saying the number and the
word they think goes in that gap. Make it easier by giving first letters or specifying the part
of speech of the word.
Lexical gaps: Give students a copy of the song with gaps. Make sure that it is possible to fill
the gaps by looking at the context. Ask them to fill the gaps by guessing, then listen to check.
Sound search: Ask students to search the text for examples of a given sound, or for rhyming
words.
Drilling: Ask students to practise pronunciation by repeating certain parts of the song.
Focus on a particular feature, for example: weak forms, contractions, stress time, or liaison.
Singing: Ask students to sing along to the song, or chant the words to the music.
3 Content ma tter
Diary-writing: Ask students to write diary entries for the characters.
Letters: Ask students to write letters to or from the characters, giving advice, for example.
Role-play: Ask students to role-play characters from the song.
Imagining: Ask students to develop the characters, imagining what they look like, or what
they do in their free time.
Summarizing: Ask students to summarize the events in the song.
Prior events: Ask students to imagine how the characters ended up in the situation
presented in the song.
