Very frequently a professional teacher finds his/her classes boring just because she/he feels that she/he has experienced every minute of the lesson. Even though the lesson may be a new experienced for the students since they haven’t come to the class before and they haven’t done any activities designed for the lesson yet but the teacher cannot deny that she/he has been experiencing all of the things in the lesson with other students almost every year.
When you know that you will perhaps meet this silly phase of your teaching career and you have no choice whatsoever to substitute your teaching subjects because all of your colleges think that you are the expert than songs may become your best solution.
Songs can always be teaching sources for almost any topics and any objectives of teaching. Especially for language learning, songs are not only fun, they have a serious purpose, says Akis Davanellos (English Teaching Professional, issues 13th Oktober 1999). According to him, among some good reasons for using songs in class are:
Songs are highly memorable. You must have known that you are able to listen to a popular song of the day not because every radio station and cassette store in town plays the song everyday but because suddenly most people like to sing the song and let others know that they have memorized the song. Only kids under five years old that is innocent of any social extravaganza when they are heard singing the Peterpan’s songs, for example. Murphy (1990) says that songs lodge in both our short and long term memory so songs are relatively easy way to remember quite long chunks of language.
Songs are highly motivating. Go get your students listen to a song, it can be your favorite or their favorite, and you will know that they enjoy being taught through songs no matter they are young or adults.
Songs are personal. Most songs talk about universal theme like ‘love’, ‘hope’, ‘dreams’ so students may easily personalize the theme by making the songs the identity of their moods.
Songs are parts of everyday life. You can listen to the song in the car, at home, in the office, at times of celebration, at the cinema, and even out in the streets. It suggests that songs are part of our everyday life and it’s not unnatural to use songs as the sources of your language teachings. You use songs and you provide ‘real life’ context to your materials.
Songs are the natural opportunity for meaningful repetition. Without asking your students to repeat, you will soon notice that they start singing the lyrics with the singer if they find the songs interesting.
Songs provide examples of everyday language. The language of most songs is the language of your ordinary language. It’s simple and sometimes it’s in a style conversation. I could stay awake just to hear you breathing, watch your smile while you’re sleeping’ this part of lyrics Aerosmith’s I don’t want to miss a thing’ may serve as a very good example of the S + hear + V-ing pattern.
Songs are easy to find. You must have access to records, CD’s, cassettes, videos, minidisks, or MP3 from the internet or from your colleagues’ collection stored in flash disc and if you still don’t find the song you want, ask the students to help you to find the song. So do not hesitate to bring to the class the song of your favorite or of your students’ favorite.
Songs bring variety to the lesson. Using songs gives ypu all chances to turn away from the course book and exploits your creativity in designing the activities for the lesson in order to invoke students’ new learning experiences. If you still use your course book and like to complement it with songs you are bound to find songs that are appropriate to the topics of the book.
Songs aid relaxation and group dynamics. According to Murphey (1992) songs encourage ‘harmony within oneself and within a group’. He also says that songs sustain patriotism, cultures, and religions. Eventually, songs promote class dynamics.
Songs are fun. Songs make the classroom situation enjoyable and most teachers prove that the most successful lessons are the ones where we all feel we had a good time. Songs can also shift the teaching procedures from teacher-centered procedures to students-centered procedures.
What kinds of things that the students can do with songs?
1. Students read a gapped text, listen to the songs and fill in the blanks.
2. Students listen to the songs and write summary.
3. Students listen to the songs and put photographs/cartoon pictures in the correct order.
4. Students answer comprehension questions based on the song.
5. Students role play the situation as described in the text of the song.
6. Students brainstorm the vocabulary, which might be associated with the topic.
7. Students perform the song.
8. Students sing the song and record it. Play it again and improve on pronunciation.
9. Students write and give speech on the topic of the song.
10. Students write their own lyrics to the tune of the song.
Published by PTBI Newsletter
written by : Mr. Ruwandi, MA
uploaded by: Marisa Fran Lina, S.PdI and Ratna Sari, S.PdI
(F&T)