ESL Teacher

I love to sing – remember, I lived in Japan for two years, so I became addicted to the karaoke experience. Now, I know not all of my students will share my love of singing, but pretty much everyone enjoys listening to a song.

One of the most successful activities I’ve regularly done in an ESL classroom is listening to English pop and rock songs and teaching students about the lyrics, in various ways. It’s motivating for them – I even know students whose main reason for learning English is to understand the lyrics of their favourite singer – and it always creates a fun atmosphere. Different activities I’ve tried include:

• Play the song and get students to write down any words they hear (this works well for lower level students who will only understand a dozen or so words)
• Give students the lyrics with some gaps, and get them to fill in the missing words as the listen to the song – the higher the level of the students, the more gaps you can leave
• Make flashcards with words from the song on them, plus a few “red herrings” (especially words that rhyme with those you hear in the song, or sound similar) and get students in groups to “grab” words when they hear them – you can make a competition out of it where the student who grabs the most correct words wins
• With rhyming songs, give students a verse as dictation, but leave off the second rhyme each time and ask them to predict it
• At the end of a song lyric activity, especially if you have Japanese or Korean students who love karaoke anyway, make sure all the students have the complete lyrics in front of them then play the song again, encouraging them to sing along. Just warn the other classes nearby that it could be noisy!

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