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UTILIZING MUSIC AND SONGS TO PROMOTE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IN ESL CLASSROOMS,…
UTILIZING MUSIC AND SONGS TO PROMOTE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IN ESL CLASSROOMS
INTRODUCTION
The present paper aims to analyze the role and potential of music and songs in English language teaching in the light of current research and literature.
STRUCTURING MUSIC ACTIVITIES
1) Pre-listening Stage
This stage can begin with warm-up questions, presentation of useful vocabulary and grammar structures or prediction activities.
2) While-listening Stage
The teacher could ask the students to underline specific words, to rearrange words or lines, to fill in gaps, to spot and correct mistakes or to match phrases with definitions.
3) Post-listening Stage
Students can engage in speaking, writing or reading activities.
INTEGRATING MUSIC AND SONGS IN ELT
SELECTING MUSIC AND SONGS
1) Purpose of the Song :
Grammatical structures or vocabulary covered in the class.
Simple songs with recurring grammar features are suitable for grammar activities.
2) The Age and Proficiency Level of the Students
The music and songs to be selected should correspond to the age and proficiency level of the students.
3) Language Content and Quality of the Song
The songs written in standard language with lyrics identical in their written and recorded form and free from any confusing or inappropriate references.
4) Musical Preferences of the Students and the Teacher
Recommends allowing students to put forward their choices as to the songs to be used as new material in the class so that they become actively engaged in the learning process.
5) Format of the Song
Music can be used either in audio or video format.
6) Classroom Opportunities
Teachers should also consider the availability of resources when they design music activities for the classroom.
Basic equipment as a computer with loudspeakers and a video projector will be needed to play songs or music videos in the classroom.
CREATE MUSIC ACTIVITIES
Free-write/free-draw to the music
The teacher can play different types of music and ask the students to write or draw how they feel about them.
Writing alternative verses of lyrics
Students can be encouraged to write their own lyrics, keeping the original mood or style.
Planning (and filming) a music video
Groups of students can plan a music video for the song, focusing on the characters, the location and the storyline.
Preparing a lyric video
Students can prepare song lyric visualization videos by using song lyrics and relevant images.
Presenting on a musician or music genre
Considering the large number of creative ways that can be found for the adaptation of music and songs to the language classroom.
CONCLUSION
The role of a teacher is not only educating but also motivating students who regard traditional ways of learning as dull and boring.
Music and songs provide teachers with a rich and authentic resource that they can utilize to promote student engagement in ESL classrooms and to make a satisfactory connection between entertainment and learning.
RATIONALE FOR USING MUSIC AND SONGS IN ELT
MUSIC AND LANGUAGE
Music and songs can be integrated into classroom activities as a teaching tool in a way similar to audiovisual material or computer software.
Classroom activities involving music and songs can improve the learner’s interpersonal, intrapersonal and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences in addition to musical and linguistic intelligences.
Musical intelligence develops in parallel to linguistic intelligence.
Music and language are closely interlinked at the neural level and that speech.
Musical hearing and ability is essential to language acquisition.
MUSIC AND AFFECT
Positive affective variables impact cognitive functions and are indispensable in language acquisition.
Strong motivation, high self-confidence and a low level of anxiety in learners will lead to success in second language acquisition.
It is very likely that learners will feel lower levels of anxiety and inhibition if songs are used in teaching new concepts and vocabulary.
The use of music in the classroom can benefit teachers as well and make language teaching less stressful.
The use of songs can help learners receive exposure to authentic language input.
MUSIC AND MEMORY
Authors point out that music and songs can facilitate the longterm retention of the words, phrases and formulaic sequences that learners need to memorize.
Songs present content in a form that may be easily stored, rehearsed, and retrieved from memory.
There is no learning without memory, and language learning in
particular, with the enormous load of vocabulary that it requires, is largely a memory task
This musical structure of songs provides a schematic
organization which allows the retrieval of lyric information.
The way teachers currently tend to use songs in language classrooms around the world can benefit lexical learning.
MUSIC, LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL COMPETENCE
Music and songs offer a realistic context for developing all the four language skills.
Connected speech, pronunciation and intonation can be ideally practised with songs as their lyrics reflect the natural language with words presented at a slower pace than usual speech.
It is particularly suitable to teach unknown words and idiomatic expressions.
Music can help the development of such essential skills as active
listening and differentiation of sound patterns.
Lyrics in songs are “optimal language input because the input chunks provided are manageable for beginning learners, blending rhythm, stress, rhymes, intonation, vocabulary, and sentence patterns
MEMBERS: NAYELY CHANGO AND SHERLYN HUERTAS