Songs in Teaching

Guidelines

Pre-Listening Activities

1.Key word discussions : present some key words from the song and ask students to guess what the song is about.
2.Grammar activities: (Can also be used AFTER LISTENING)
- fill the gaps in the song (grammar items, like tense-selecting)
- find a definite number of mistakes (Error - identifying)
- transformation (transform the song entirely: from active to passive, from direct to reported speech)
- sequencing
3.Vocabulary Activities:
- lexical transformation (a copy of the song with words replaced by an antonym)
- search (find related words, find words to describe, give additional info)
- lexical gaps (give ss the song with some missing words and ask them to fill the gaps by looking at the context.)

While Listening

Listening For Gist
1.Note-taking: (ask ss 2 listen to the song and take notes – of key words, main characters or main events)
2.Discourse-type recognition: ask ss 2 listen and identify the kind of discourse in the song: is it a dialogue (monologue in somebody’s mind)? A narrative? Is it addressed to the listener or self-addressed?
3.Function recognition: Is the singer promising, warning, daydreaming, tale-telling, complaining, reminiscing, inviting, requesting?


Listening for Detail
1.Word-spotting (present some keywords from the song along with the words that are not in the song. Students should circle the words they hear and perhaps order them.)
2.Gap-filling (see above)

After Listening:

1.Comprehension Questions
2.True or False Statements.

TOPICAL GAMES

C1 Characters:

1.Role-play the characters from the song.
2.Imagining: (ask ss to extend the characters, imagining what they look like, do in their free time, would do in given situations and so on)

C2 Plot:

1.Summarize the events in the lyric.
2.Continuing (continue the story. Can be versed and sung!)
3.Prior Events: ask ss to imagine how the characters ended up in the situation they’re in.
4.Reporting: ask ss to rewrite the lyric as a newspaper article.
5.Story-telling: ask students to tell the story as a personal anecdote to a classmate. The classmate should respond with appropriate emotion, such as interest or sympathy.

C3 Lyric Poetry

1. Genre-transformation (ask SS to rewrite the lyric in a different genre or register: a dialogue, a speech, very formally, very informally, a TV report, a newspaper report, a passage from a romantic novel)
2. Ambiguity: Discuss alternative interpretations of ambiguous passages from the lyric.

C4 Musical Styles

1. Classification (ask SS to classify the musical style)
2. Culture Reflection (Discuss how culture is reflected in the song. Could this happen in your country? COul the male/female roles in this song be reversed? How old do you think this character must/might be?)