Teaching listening and speaking through music

As learning English is becoming more important than ever in Uzbekistan and is used for different purposes, it is necessary to engage learners in the process of language learning via effective and engaging methods. Teachers are in constant search for essential activities that allow learners to improve their learning abilities of a foreign language.

Through innovative technologies, interactive and communicative methods language teachers can create the right climate for language learning. Currently, in higher education, teachers use music, songs, comics, sound films, stories, fairy tales, language games, cartoons and movies to make the teaching- learning process more interesting. According to Girard, D. & Trim, J. L. M. “…teachers sometimes use these when the theme or lesson is difficult and to keep students motivated to continue learning foreign languages. Playing different language games, listening to music, singing songs, watching various education related films or cartoons can help learners understand target (nonnative) language [1,p.16]. Inclusion of a wide range of activities is connected with students’ multiple intelligences as well. First founded by Howard Gardner, the theory of multiple intelligences proved to be considered by teachers while developing curricula and material designers to address most of the intelligences for achieving effective teaching-learning environment. The purpose of this book is to reveal how songs can stimulate students with multiple intelligences to learn new vocabulary [7, p.18].

It is probably safe to say that almost everyone loves music. While not everyone appreciates the same kind of music, some like classical, while others love hard rock, jazz. Students especially enjoy listening to, discussing, and sharing their favorite music with each other. Thus, for ESP teachers who may want to “liven up” their classes, we would like to suggest that they offer their students a “music presentation day” in which they allow their students to showcase their favorite songs/singers/bands.

As Thornbury S mentioned music, songs and sounds influence people’s state and mood. They evoke emotions, encourage, cure and teach. Today, we know that music and songs are used for pedagogical purposes as well. Many teachers include songs in their lesson plans to explain grammar rules, new vocabulary or concepts in a more interesting and creative way [6, p. 26].

Songs provide examples of authentic, memorable and rhythmic language. They can be motivating for students keen to repeatedly listen to and imitate their musical heroes. However, incorrectly pronounced sounds strain communication, sometimes even changing a phrase's meaning. Songs are authentic and easily accessible examples of spoken English. The rhymes in songs provide listeners with repetition of similar sounds. Students often choose to listen to songs time and again, indirectly exposing them to these sounds. Here we are going to give some activities using songs during the lesson.

Activity 1

We can choose six words from a song from which minimal pairs can be created by.

– heaven — even

– hunger — anger

– man — mad

We write the pairs separately on cards and give out one set per group of four or five students. The students then match the pairs. They then listen to the song and 'grab' the correct one. Choices are then checked against the lyrics.

Activity 2

We give out the lyrics, with certain words for students to guess the number of syllables, leaving a space by each word to write the number in. Students then listen, checking their predictions. At higher levels, we repeat the activity, with students underlining the stressed syllable whilst listening. We then drill these words and sing or chant the whole song through.

Here using songs is to focus on connected speech. Connected speech is the natural way we speak, linking together and emphasizing certain words, rather than each word standing alone. Contractions (two words forming one) are an extreme example of the way we connect speech, to the extent that the written form too is affected. Songs, and especially the chorus, provide real and 'catchy' examples of how completely phrases are pronounced often to the extent that students find it difficult to pick out individual words. Songs, like other spoken texts, are full of contractions. Students can be keen to reproduce this, in order to sing the song as they hear it.

In this article, we use the following songs. These songs can ease the process of learning the body parts in the English language.

Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes

Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes

And eyes, and ears, and mouth, and nose.

Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.

The skeleton dance

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dancing bones

Doing the skeleton dance

The foot bone’s connected to the leg bone

The leg bone’s connected to the knee bone

The knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone

Doing the skeleton dance

The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone

The hip bone’s connected to the backbone

The backbone’s connected to the neckbone

Shake your hands to the left

Shake your hands to the right

wiggle wiggle wiggle

wiggle your knees [5, p.1]

These songs enable students to learn by heart some parts of human body in the English language. While singing the song the teacher should show the action, and the learners should repeat after the teacher, because beginners form associations when they hear words and see the actions. The rhythm can be easily remembered leading to memorizing the words of the song easily.

Prior to beginning all these activities, ESP teachers should set some ground rules. All songs must be presented in English only. This means that the presenters will only be allowed to speak English when making their presentations. (Students may be nervous or feel intimated when this requirement is made, but with some encouragement from the teacher, we believe that they will eagerly do their best). Furthermore, students should be told that while the actual bands or singers can be non-native speakers, the songs presented in class must be sung only in English. What this means is that a band or singer from Germany is fine to play in the class as long as all the words sung are in English.

Next, students should be given the opportunity to have 2 or 3 of their classmates in their group. We suggest that each group have no more than 4 people, but no less than 3 people. Since each group will be required to do some degree of preparation prior to their giving the presentation, and since each person in the group will be required to speak during the presentation, then having 3–4 people in a group will make things manageable for both the groups and the teacher. Now, we offer some suggestions/ideas which were mentioned in Mallinder, M. & Lee, H. N. book “Using Music in Second Language Instruction”. We hope, any ESP teacher will find to be useful, and we willingly offer to any teacher who wants to use these ideas or suggestions.

1. Each group should tell the teacher a list (3–5 songs) of English-only songs which they would like to present. The students can put their preferred songs in numerical order beginning with the most favorite one, and the teacher can tell the students that if no other group has requested their favorite song before them, they can present that one.
2. After the groups have been told the songs they are allowed to present, the teacher should tell the students that they have to do some research about what they are presenting. Thus, each person in the group will be responsible for sharing different information with the class. We would suggest that the teacher tell the students to learn as much as possible before the presentation about the band/singer/song. Then during the presentation, each group member will present some information which they have learned.
3. Each group should be given approximately 8–10 minutes to complete their presentation, which will include playing their song two times. Putting a time limit of 8–10 minutes is useful for several reasons:
   1. It is long enough for students to play many songs 2 times, while also giving them a chance to speak briefly to the class.
   2. It allows teachers a chance to encourage their students to practice for their presentations, because students will know they do not have endless amounts of time to present their songs. Thus, they will learn that they must practice before hand to ensure they can both speak to the class and play their music in order to have a successful presentation.
   3. We would also encourage teachers to ask their students to create a handout. If possible, it is best if all the students in class can be given a copy of the handout so that they may easily be able to understand what their classmates are saying. However, handouts primarily allow the students in class to follow along with the songs, and to even sing the songs if they choose to do that. A typical handout may include such information as each group member’s name.
   4. Some brief information about the song/singer (or bands) and lyrics.
   5. Students can also include pictures of the singers or the bands, which they can easily get from the internet.
   6. Students can be encouraged to create a handout which is as creative as each group wants to be. [4, p.42]

However, we try to choose songs that are clear, not too fast, up-bringing, memorable, likely to appeal to our learners and easy to create activities for, depending on the area of pronunciation we are focusing on.

As an English teacher, I use them in the classroom and find them to be effective in creating a relaxing atmosphere and entertaining learning process, and eliminating students’ negative attitude towards foreign language learning. Thus, singing songs, even simple nursery rhymes, is useful in teaching English and providing systematic and active learning even to adults.

Finally, for any teachers who may be wondering if using any of the ideas we have presented here will really work for a class they are teaching, we encourage you to simply play a song or two in your class and see how your students react. We believe that teachers who have not used music in their classes previously will quickly discover that songs are a great way for teachers and students to “bond” together, and enjoy the time we have together.

1. Girard, D. & Trim, J. L. M., (Eds.) (1988) Project no 12. Learning and teaching modern languages for communication. Final report of the project group (activities 1982–87), Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
2. Griffee, D.T., (1995) Songs in action, Hertfordshire: Phoenix.
3. Family Sing Along — Muffin Songs, (2013) Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBJ_-MyV2rU.
4. Mallinder, M. & Lee, H. N. (2012). Using Music in Second Language Instruction. Retrieve June 1, 2016 from http://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec12/sart.htm
5. Super simple learning, (2009) The skeleton dance. Super Simple Songs. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/Jpvuqj5nv6UQ.
6. Thornbury, S. (2002). How to teach vocabulary, New York: Pearson Longman.
7. Howard Gardner. Multiple Intelligences, Basic books, 1993