Music is a wonderful way to engage learners in the classroom. It breaks up the monotony of worksheets that are often used to practice vocabulary and grammar points. Here are 10 ways to spice up your language lessons with music.
1. What’s the Word?
Function: Listening for details
Level: High Beginner +
Materials: worksheet with song lyrics that contain mistakes in vocabulary items
Instructions:
Create a worksheet from lyrics of a song by replacing words with certain vocabulary items the class is working on. Students correct the mistakes as they listen to the song. For example, if you are working on university subjects, you can use the song Don’t Know Much and replace the subjects in the song with subjects being taught in class (‘Don’t know much about history’ becomes ‘Don’t know much about chemistry’). Students listen and correct the mistakes.
2. Re-order the Lyrics
Function: To listen for details
Level: High Beginner +
Materials: song lyrics cut up into strips
Instructions:
Students work in pairs. They listen to a song and put the strips with the lyrics back in order. Long songs that are not too slow and have very little repetition are perfect for this kind of exercise. The level of difficulty of the song should match the level of your class.
For example:
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Gordon Lightfoot (High Intermediate +)
3. Memories
Function: To describe memories
Level: Low intermediate +
Materials: a song that brings back memories for you
Instructions:
Start lesson by playing a song that is special to you as it reminds you of something or someone. To keep the students interested, you can make a gap fill with the lyrics. Then tell the students why this song is so special. Describe the memory. Then divide the students into pairs. Ask each person to choose a song (can be from their own culture/language) and write about the memory it brings back for them. Students present the song and the memory to their partners. Volunteers come up and sing part of their songs and describe their memories to class.
4. Word Search and Songs
Function: To learn new vocabulary
Level: High beginner +
Materials: lyrics with missing vocabulary words (same part of speech)
Instructions:
Start lesson by playing a song. Ask the students to write down as many nouns as they can from the song. Then put the students into pairs and give them a word search you created with all the nouns in the song. Ask students to use their lists and find as many of the words as possible. When time is up, the group that found the most nouns from the song wins. Make sure to go over meaning of words and show students how to remember any new words with various learning strategies.
5. Musical Analogies
Function: To review vocabulary
Level: Low Intermediate +
Materials: worksheet with lyrics and gap exercise, analogy worksheet with answers from the song
Instructions:
Begin by handing out the lyric worksheet and having students complete the blanks by listening to the song. Take up the answers on the board. Then hand out the analogy worksheet and ask students to work in pairs. The answers to the analogies can be one of the gap words or any other word in the song.
For example: Grass: green Ocean: _blue_
6. If I Could Change the World
Function: To describe hypothetical changes
Level: High Intermediate +
Materials: Eric Clapton’s Change the World
Instructions:
Start lesson by asking students about people who have made a difference in the world. What have they done? Then ask students to listen to a song about a man who would like to change the world. They are to listen for things he would change and write them down. Take up the answers after the song is finished. Then ask each student to write down 5 things they would change about the world. Then put the students into groups. Together, they must come to an agreement on 5 changes they would make. Students present changes to class.
7. Music and Art
Function: Expressing and Supporting Opinions
Level: Low Intermediate +
Materials: various pictures of works of art, different musical pieces (jazz, new age, classical)
Instructions:
Put up various pictures of art around the room so it resembles an art gallery. Give each painting or picture a number. Give students time to move around the classroom and have a good look at all the pictures. Then break the class into pairs. Play different excerpts of music and ask students to match the music to the artwork. Students need to come up with reasons supporting their opinions. Their opinions are presented to class.
8. Make an Album Cover
Function: To express opinions
Level: Low Intermediate +
Materials: excerpts from an album no one has ever heard of, magazines, paper, scissors, glue sticks, markers
Instructions:
Students listen to a variety of excerpts from songs off an album. They make note of feelings, images, and ideas they get from the songs. Then they are divided into groups and told they are the artist’s creative team. They must come up with an album cover for the songs they just heard. They discuss their ideas and choose images from the magazines to create an album cover. These covers are presented to the class and then displayed around the room.
9. Questions and Answers
Function: To give reasons
Level: Low Intermediate +
Materials: songs that have Wh-Q questions in them, answers to the questions on index cards (one word, one card)
Instructions:
Start the lesson by reviewing Wh-words and question formation. Then play a couple of songs that have Wh-Q in them. Students write down all the Wh-Q they hear in the songs. Then divide the class into groups of three. Each group gets a set of index cards which have the answers to the questions (mixed up). It is a race to match the answers with the questions. Answers are presented to class.
For example: Why must we wait until tonight?
…because we have to work all day.
10. Musical Cryptograms
Function: To review vocabulary
Level: Low Intermediate +
Materials: worksheet with lyrics and gap exercise, cryptogram worksheet using words in the song
Instructions:
Begin by handing out the lyric worksheet and having students complete the blanks by listening to the song. Take up answers as class. Then hand out the cryptogram you created using some of the vocabulary or phrases in the song. Students must decipher the number-letter code in small groups or pairs. Some letters and codes are given. Groups race to finish first.
For example:
Author’s Bio
Hilda, like many in ELT, has worked in a variety of contexts. She is currently a tenure-track Assistant Teaching Professor at Thompson Rivers University. She is working in EAP, the TESOL Certificate Program, and the MEd. She previously owned and ran her own private language school. She also has years of overseas experience. Hilda holds a PhD from Rhodes University and has contributed to the BCTEAL Journal as well as numerous other journals. Hilda’s experience in so many areas of EAL make her an excellent addition to the board as the Private Sector Representative (2021-2023).
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