📍 Teaching English with music
Today, multiple studies have shown that music 🎵stimulates learning and promotes memorization in a natural way and that music has the power to shape students’ brain to make learning other languages easier and smoother. Using music in the English learning classroom is not new, but it is worth considering how we can use it more effectively in the classroom. Lyrics training may give you the answer, let’s explore it~
📍 What is Lyrics Training?
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| Screenshot from Lyrics Training |
Specifically, it mainly aims to improve and practice the listening skills of language learners by allowing them to fill in the gaps in the lyrics. In addition to the website, it also has applications that you can download from here. That is to say, it can be used not only on a computer, but also on a mobile phone or ipad. How user-friendly it is!
📍Why Lyrics Training?
I know, you might want to ask me: why don’t I play the music on other music apps like You Tube Music ➡️ search and copy the lyrics into a document ➡️ the words to be filled? I will show you the unique advantages of using this website compared to the traditional way of teaching English with music:
- You don't need to spend time searching for music. Lyrics Training contains a large selection of songs (with lyrics) that you can choose from depending on the genre.
- You don't need to drag the mouse back and forth to locate a particular lyric. Lyrics Training can cut the song into each sentence automatically.
- You don't need to delete the words that need to be filled in yourself if you don't have enough preparation time. Lyrics Training offers four levels of fill-in-the-blank exercises: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert.
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| Screenshot from Lyrics Training |
📍How can we use Lyrics Training?
It is very easy and fun, simply play a song and ask students to enjoy the music while filling in the gaps in the lyrics. If you want to know how to use Lyrics Training in more detail, this video may help:
Honestly, I wouldn't suggest you use it for the whole lesson 🙅, it would turn into a music lesson rather than an English lesson, wouldn't it 😝? Here is an example of how I use the music 'If I were a boy' to teach my students about the second conditional.
I search for the song on Lyric Training and then click on the 'New Exercise' button to select the words I want my students to fill in. Once saved, it will appear in ‘My Exercises’.
☺ Step 2 - Activity Instruction
Before the song is played, I ask my students to listen carefully and shout out the answers in the gaps at the end of a phrase.
☺ Step 3 - Inductive Approach
Ask students to work in groups to observe the form of the words filled in and to summarize the structure of the second conditional sentence.
📍Any limitations?
- Sometimes there is an advertisement of about ten seconds before the song video plays which may distract students.
- If the answer is not correct, you cannot enter it. This means that if the student cannot work out the answer, all you can do is either tell them directly or wait for them until they find the right answer.
📍Conclusion
Lyrics Training can provide you with a wealth of resources and convenience for teaching English with music. Also, I highly recommend that you introduce this tool to your students, especially those who like music. They may become more autonomous in their English learning with Lyrics Training!
Hi Mia. Your post is clear and structured as usual. As a music lover, I love the idea that using music in language teaching. And I think it definitely is a helpful tool to conduct an inductive teaching approach to teach grammar. But it may not be that useful to teach vocabulary I think. Besides, do teachers have to find songs which are suitable for their teaching aims by themselves or does the website provide some options for some aims (for example when you search subjunctive mood, the website can tell you "if I were a boy" is suitable)? If teachers need to think about the songs by themselves, maybe it is quite time-consuming I think.
ReplyDeleteHi Evain, thanks for your comment! For your question, I'm sorry to say that this website can't automatically provide the songs that teachers need 😭. I think it would be really useful if Lyrics Training can have this function. So, that is also one of the limitations of this website, thank you for pointing it out!
DeleteHi Mia. What a wonderful post. Everything is so clear and easy to read! I really enjoyed reading it. When I first tried to use Lyrics training, it was a bit boring because depeding on the level mode you choose, it only allows you to continue with the game if you get the right letter correct. Maybe, it would be more helpful if they gave some extra tips such as showing the first letter of the word or at least a few. I like the idea you introduced of students shouting the words - this really could bring some fun to class. I will definitely try it with my students soon. I am still not sure if I would use it to teach something related to vocabulary or grammar, but definitely, I would use it as a free activity to bring students closer to each other and have some fun in class.
ReplyDeleteHi Jordan, thank you for your sincere comments, I totally agree with your opinion. As I mentioned in the limitations, the game only continues when I type the correct letter, and this really needs to be improved! Because sometimes even listening to it many times does not mean that the correct answer can be obtained, which would be a huge waste of time. Also, it may undermine students' self-confidence.
DeleteHi Mia. I love the organization and content of your post. As someone who identifies self as having some dyslexia, I have enjoyed reading your blog surprisingly！ What makes me care most about using this tool is the balance between fun and learning, which you also mentioned. I think a better way is to use this for after-class learning. If in class, teachers need to be careful in the choice of songs, considering students' level, music preference and so on. Maybe we can do a survey before we use this in class.
ReplyDeleteHi Mona. I really appreciate you enjoying reading my blog ❤️. I like your idea about doing surveys before classes. Although we can't cater for every learner's needs and preferences, it is very helpful for us to get to know our students better.
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