Inglés Maestros

TOPIC 17. Songs as Poetic Vehicles and as Literary Creations in the Classroom. Song
Typologies. Techniques for the Use of Songs for Lexical, Phonetic and Cultural Learning.
.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Songs as poetic vehicles and as literary creation in English lessons
3. The importance of songs in the foreign language classroom
4. Song typologies
5. Techniques for the use of songs for lexical, phonetic and cultural learning
5.1 Lexical learning
5.2 Phonetic learning
5.3 Cultural learning
6. The use of songs in the classroom
7. Conclusion
8. Bibliography

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 Inglés Maestros
TOPIC 17. Songs as Poetic Vehicles and as Literary Creations in the Classroom. Song
Typologies. Techniques for the Use of Songs for Lexical, Phonetic and Cultural Learning.
.

1. INTRODUCTION

There are many different resources that can be employed in the classroom
to support the teaching-learning process. In this topic, however, we are
going to analyse the convenience of teaching a language through music and
specifically, through songs.

Songs not only improve listening and speaking skills, but they also make
English lessons fun and create a comfortable atmosphere.

2. SONGS AS POETIC VEHICLES AND AS LITERARY

CREATIONS IN THE CLASSROOM

The lyrics of a song are usually poetic language and, as Roman Jakobson
claimed, the main feature of this kind of language is that it is created to be
enjoyed. Music and singing have been used as a universal vehicle of human
expression since ancient times (we have always wanted to communicate our
feelings, our political ideals, to tell stories, etc.).

Since we are very young, music and songs are significant in our lives. Songs
have a powerful effect on people, young and old. The reason for this is that
they appeal to our emotions, making them memorable. If we add
movement to the songs, the formula is going to be even more successful,
as children need and enjoy movement.

We must also consider the fact that literature is not only written texts, but

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 Inglés Maestros
TOPIC 17. Songs as Poetic Vehicles and as Literary Creations in the Classroom. Song
Typologies. Techniques for the Use of Songs for Lexical, Phonetic and Cultural Learning.
.

also the oral tradition that includes rhymes, lullabies, traditional songs,
sayings, etc. Songs can be a source of creativity for our pupils to express
themselves in a way that they probably would not be able to do if they had
to say the words without music (we can invite our pupils to change the
words to the songs promoting, in this way, verbal creativity).

3. THE IMPORTANCE OF MUSIC AND SONGS IN LANGUAGE

CLASSROOM

The studies of Salcedo and Harrison (two linguists) concluded that songs
and music are effective input that interacts with the listener’s brain affecting
the foreign language acquisition process. They corroborated the existence of
a spontaneous repetition of the lyrics of a song after hearing it. Krashen
considered this spontaneous repetition to be the consequence of the
stimulation of the Language Acquisition Device (which was named by
Chomsky and refers to an innate hypothetical tool that children have to
learn a language extremely quickly, whatever language it is).

Songs can fulfil an important role when it comes to teaching a foreign

language to children. There are multiple reasons to support their use in our
lessons and they provide a holistic or global approach.

The Affective Filter Hypothesis is one of the five developed by Krashen

(basically, it is an explanation of how the affective factors relate to language
learning). Krashen explains that for optimal learning to occur, the affective
filter must be weak or low (the more the students are confident and
uninhibited, the greater apprentices they are).

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 Inglés Maestros
TOPIC 17. Songs as Poetic Vehicles and as Literary Creations in the Classroom. Song
Typologies. Techniques for the Use of Songs for Lexical, Phonetic and Cultural Learning.
.

Related to this, teachers must provide a positive classroom atmosphere so

that students can be motivated to learn (motivation is a requirement for
effective learning). Songs are enjoyable and motivating as they help to
break the classroom routine and children play an active role (having the
opportunity to sing at the same time as everyone else, thus lowering the
anxiety level).

Songs are usually memorable. If students are able to remember the song,
then they will be taking the language from their short-term to their long-
term memory (making the vocabulary significant for them). Their repetitive
style also helps develop automaticity (a component of language fluency
which involves both knowing what to say and producing language rapidly
without pauses, and also the main cognitive reason for using songs in the
classroom).

A further reason to support the importance and use of songs in the English
classroom is that songs are a good way to achieve linguistic purposes since
they teach language (they provide a meaningful context for introducing or
reinforcing vocabulary and structures inductively, gaining insights into how
language works).

In addition to this, songs, chants and rhymes are particularly useful to

teach stress, rhythm and intonation in a stress-timed language such as
English (because the rhythm forces us to put the stress in the right places).
Pronunciation is improved too as the students are concentrating on sound
rather than meaning.

Finally, we must mention that songs can be used to teach cross-curricular

contents (like Geography or Mathematics) and they also convey cultural

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 Inglés Maestros
TOPIC 17. Songs as Poetic Vehicles and as Literary Creations in the Classroom. Song
Typologies. Techniques for the Use of Songs for Lexical, Phonetic and Cultural Learning.
.

aspects.

Now that we have seen how important songs can be in the classroom, we
will look at how we can classify them.

4. TYPOLOGY OF SONGS

There are many ways of classifying songs. The first classification we are
going to carry out is according to C. Graham (an author and teacher who
has written many books about teaching through jazz chants). She divides
songs and rhymes into four categories according to the way they can be
memorised. Therefore, we have imaging: which helps to create a mental
image (Jack and Jill, for instance). We have method of location (loci):
where the ideas or objects to be memorised are located somewhere familiar
(Head and Shoulders, for example). The third group is the pegword
method: where the ideas are connected to specific words (1 bun, 2 shoe…)
and finally the fourth group is called rhyming, where the information to be
memorised is found in a rhyme (30 days hath September, for example).

Brewster divides songs into two types: action songs and traditional and pop
songs. The idea in action songs is that if our pupils can move and do what is
said through matching words to action, language is learnt more deeply
(here we have, for example, skipping rhymes such as Tiny Tim or the so-
called counting-out rhymes when deciding who is going to be “it” in “Hide
and seek” or “Tag”). Although traditional songs are often very popular with
young children, our older pupils may find them a little childish and so we
may use pop songs (these songs can be used because they fit in with

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 Inglés Maestros
TOPIC 17. Songs as Poetic Vehicles and as Literary Creations in the Classroom. Song
Typologies. Techniques for the Use of Songs for Lexical, Phonetic and Cultural Learning.
.

certain grammatical patters (such as You’re Beautiful by James Bunt for the
present and I will always love you by Whitney Houston for the future) or to
fit in with a topic (such as Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day when
dealing with loneliness and A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles when dealing
with work).

We will now move on to discuss how to use songs in foreign language

teaching.

5. HOW TO USE SONGS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE

TEACHING

When choosing a song, we must keep in mind our aims and select one that
will help us achieve them.

It is the teacher’s responsibility to choose the most suitable song for each
group of students. However, it is also advisable to allow students to choose
songs since doing so gives our students some sense of responsibility in their
own learning process and it also breaks down the barrier between the
students and the teacher, creating a warmer atmosphere in the classroom.

As we have seen, songs are useful to teach various aspects related to

language. Let’s focus on lexical, phonetic and cultural learning.

5.1 Lexical Learning

Songs can be used to introduce, to practice, to extend or to review

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 Inglés Maestros
TOPIC 17. Songs as Poetic Vehicles and as Literary Creations in the Classroom. Song
Typologies. Techniques for the Use of Songs for Lexical, Phonetic and Cultural Learning.
.

vocabulary. Perhaps action songs are the type most commonly used to
learn vocabulary, as students can act them out while they are singing, thus
associating a concept with the corresponding action (they can also point at
the objects or pictures of the items of vocabulary mentioned in the song,
hold up a flashcard or mime the concepts). Lexical structures can also be
taught through songs like everyday phrases or idioms. Some songs (such as
The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars: “Chilling”, “My old man”) are excellent
examples of colloquial English.

If we want to go beyond simple vocabulary, we can also use songs as a way

of teaching grammar. By being exposed to comprehensible input without
awareness, an unconscious acquisition of the language occurs. The
repetitions and rhythm will help students to remember grammar structures
or basics about word order like adjectives before nouns, adverb order, etc.

5.2 Phonetic Learning

Songs help children become aware of individual sounds but also sounds in
connected speech. It is a known fact that young students have a natural
ability to reproduce unknown sounds without any effort. Children, in their
willingness to sing the song, reproduce the sounds they listen to,
concentrating on sound rather than meaning.

More importantly, as Brewster considers, prosodic features like stress,

rhythm and intonation can be taught through songs. Repeating the natural
rhythm found in songs is a beneficial way to establish the stress pattern of
spoken English (English is a stress-timed language in which stressed
syllables tend to occur at fairly regular intervals).

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 Inglés Maestros
TOPIC 17. Songs as Poetic Vehicles and as Literary Creations in the Classroom. Song
Typologies. Techniques for the Use of Songs for Lexical, Phonetic and Cultural Learning.
.

5.3 Cultural Learning

We can use songs to teach the sociocultural aspects of English-speaking

countries in our lesson. Speaking a language is not just a matter of knowing
how it is spoken; in order to be communicatively competent, we also have
to know how their native speakers think and live (sociocultural
competence).

Many aspects of culture are reflected in songs, and they are also a cultural
manifestation. For instance, songs like Happy Birthday or Christmas carols
show us how native speakers behave at festive times and the way they
congratulate each other. Others give us information about the norms of a
society, such as songs that include dialogues like "How are you?" "What's
your name?" and there is an answer "I'm fine, thank you", "Nice to meet
you", etc.

Songs are a tool to internalise all the previously mentioned areas of

language. Once internalisation has occurred, normal usage in the real world
will take place.

Examples of useful techniques are: gap-filling (one of the most common

ways to work with songs), spot the difference (when you do not use gaps
but introduce simple mistakes so that students can find and correct them),
select your choice (students have to choose one of the alternatives we
offer) or cutting the song into pieces (asking them to order the song and
then playing them to check).

As with any other listening exercise, we should remember that we have to

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 Inglés Maestros
TOPIC 17. Songs as Poetic Vehicles and as Literary Creations in the Classroom. Song
Typologies. Techniques for the Use of Songs for Lexical, Phonetic and Cultural Learning.
.

prepare our pupils with a pre-listening activity (at this stage, it is crucial to
introduce target vocabulary or grammatical structures contained in the
song). In the while-listening stage, we listen to the song providing the
pupils with visual aids, gestures, etc. In the post-listening stage, students
can write another verse for the song in pairs or small groups.

7. CONCLUSION

I think that most of us would surely agree that if children find a lesson
uninteresting, they will not learn the foreign language in the same way as if
the activities are stimulating and fun (despite having an innate ability to
learn languages).

Songs can be used to encourage and to motivate students to learn English

as well as to improve their linguistic skills and cultural knowledge.
Furthermore, we are benefitting our musical and kinaesthetic learners, who
learn through music and movement.

We still carry on singing we are adults, so it is only natural that we include

songs and music into our English lessons. Songs provide a valuable source
of authentic foreign language and children learn songs almost without any
effort, an aspect we can take advantage of.

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Graham, C. Creating Chants and Songs. Oxford University Press. 2006

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