1. Learning with
songs
Sara Falagán Izquierdo
Isabel Rojo Santamaría
Elena Castro Queipo

2. 2
Index
Page
Why should teachers use songs to teach?
By Sara Falagán Izquierdo
3
Which activities can teachers do?
By Isa Rojo Santamaría
5
Some websites where you can teach and learn English
By Elena Castro Queipo
8

3. 3
Why should teachers use songs to teach?
By Sara Falagán Izquierdo
I’m going to talk about song’s features and explain them. The question is ‘Why
should teachers use song to teach?’
Songs have some fantastic features to teach and learn English easily and funny.
I believe it is important to see this pyramid because in it we can see how important
practice is. In this group, ‘practice by doing’, we can include learning songs.
Also songs are a tool that can be read, heard and demonstrated in a group. For this,
songs are the best way to learn English.
We can teach with songs...
We can teach a lot of things with only a song.
Vocabulary: Songs are the best way to learn vocabulary. It isn’t a new method.
It has been used for a long time and it has been known for many years. Vocabulary like
animals, parts of the body or action verbs are the most frequently taught at school.
Pronunciation: The best thing about songs is that you can listen to the word’s
pronunciation. Sounds are recognized and pupils repeat them. It is a way of learning to
speak and understand with special attention to the sound system of language. To practice
pronunciation songs with clear lyrics must be chosen.
Grammar: Songs have grammatical structures that we can use to teach. You can
extract them and create a lot of examples to explain in class.
Culture: Songs are culture; you can teach and learn where they come from, who
wrote them and what kind of songs they are.

4. 4
Song's features and advantages
‘The brain love music’
There are some features which make the pupils learn better with songs than in a
traditional way. This method influences learner's motivation.
A good characteristic is that songs are repetitive and they have rhythm. For this
reason, students can easily memorize any material.
Other important features of songs are:
- They are social (children sing with others).
- Children are active. With songs you can dance and represent what say the song.
Children need to move and with songs can do it.
- It isn’t necessary translate.
- Songs are adaptable to needs.
- Children like them.

5. 5
Which activities can teachers do?
By Isabel Rojo Santamaría
Vocabulary:
We can choose different styles or rhythms to sing, dance and learn with the
same song. (If we transmit them the origin of this songs, we are also transmitting
culture, tradition)
We can also use repetitions with claps to remember a specific letter or a
specific word.
We can usually know specific topics in each song such as parts of the body,
farm animals, wild animals etc.
Students can internalize diary activities like hygienic habits.
“Calendar Polka” or “Days of the week” are examples to know the time
organization in our culture, and we can practice them with the method of omitting
letters.
Teachers can use different strategies to develop this kind of activities. Some of
these are: make mistakes to capture their attention, with a silent word (or white spaces
if they have the lyric). We start this kind of activities with one advantage: in general,
students like songs especially when they are songs they listen to on the radio (new
songs)
During the process, they are listening to the good pronunciation and with them;
they can learn phonetics and sounds.
Sometimes, movement is very important (“head and shoulders”) because it help
them to remember some words. With songs children are more active and they make the
activity more fun for kids.

6. 6
Another alternative is to invite children to draw something while they listen to
the music, what they suggest, possibly related to what the song is about.
It is very good option to ask students what song they would like to work
because it will be much more motivated.
Phonetic:
Sounds, phonemic awareness “Fox in socks” or “alphabet phonics” to practice
pronunciation, chose clear lyric songs.
Grammar:
When we sing songs, or just when we listen to them, we are unconsciously
learning different grammatical structures. These structures are usually very repetitive,
and teachers can adapt them to each level, not only attending to vocabulary, also
grammatical structures.
One of the activities we can practice to promote learning of different
grammatical constructions can be first listen the song which has a repetitive melody,
and then try to sing the lyrics.
There are some specific expressions that can be learned with songs, such as
movements or greetings (move right, good morning ...) and gestures are also very
important to memorize them.
Other common grammatical constructions for higher levels are comparisons of
tenses. For example, what was done in the past and what is done today.
There are songs about everyday actions that we do, like going to school, open
/close windows or doors, clap, play with friends, etc. All these action verbs have
simple constructions that children learn easily because they are things that they do daily,
so, they understand them.

7. 7
Also, question-answer songs can be used and we believe them are very useful
because children are involved from the beginning. An example would be the songs that
are asked about what do you need to...? or weather questions.
Finally, we would like to mention riddles. They are a very simple and an
entertaining way to learn both vocabulary and grammar. Children love them because
they are very attentive because they want to be the first to guess the emotion. This
activity gives us the possibility of contests and you have a great time.
Culture:
In the previous sections we have seen how most of the songs have a cultural
component because their own specific expressions learn to express things that are
cultural, customs and daily activities. In addition, we find typical country songs that
can help us to identify ourselves with people who do not belong to our culture,
especially when working with immigrant children.
There are also original songs from different times of the year and specific parties
such as Christmas carols, Halloween etc.
Now, we are going to talk about two kinds of activities that we believe may
involve many of all positives things that we have explained about how to work learning
English with children through songs.
The first one is KARAOKE, this is a social activity and with it, children can
develop not only music, learning vocabulary, culture, phonetics and grammar in
English, but also other more personal skills such as competition, loss of shame, fun...
The other one are the JAZZ CHANTS, which have lots of possibilities to work
with, even improvisation. This kind of activity can be use with all ages, topics,
grammar structures etc. because the main thing is follow the Jazz rhythm.
To sum up, the important thing is not to sing well, the performance; if you don't
sing well...just produce the rhythms (“keep them the rhythm”)... the important thing is
to make students aware to read the message in English.

8. 8
Some websites where you can teach and learn
English
By Elena Castro Queipo
In intentet, you can find some pages with a lot of chants. You can use this chants
when you teach Enlish.
In more than one page give a explanation about the different types of songs that
you can use.
http://www.ehow.com/way_5485987_chants-learning-english.html
In the first page, I find and explanation about the different types of songs that you
can find.
ABCs
Young students learn the value of the letters in the English alphabet by learning
how to chant the ABCs. This is a valuable lesson because it incorporates the letters that
are used and the correct way to say them.
Vocabularly Chants
As students learn group vocabulary words. List all of the words that are used in
your classroom, such as Desk, Chair, Board, Chalk. Then, create a chant. Point to
objects in a certain order, and have students chant the names of those objects. Create a
chant that the entire classroom can call out based on these words.
Song Chants
Many songs, like nursery rhymes and songs written for children, can be chanted
instead of sung. As students chant these songs, they will be able to learn the vocabulary

9. 9
in them. As students learn the various songs that they are chanting, the vocabulary in
those songs will become an important part of what they are learning.
http://dreaminenglish.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/teaching-children-english-with-
chants/
In the second page you can find several Free Download Chants .Here are the
topics, the chants are clasifying in diferents cathegories: ABC Phonics, Animals,
Clothing (2 chants), Days of the week, Happy New Year, Opposites, Months, Places,
Sports.
http://anglomaniacy.pl/carol3.htm
In this page there are games, grammar, expresion, vocabulary and songs. There
are some Christmas carols, and other songs about other vocabulary. In this page there
are the lyrics of differents songs and a soudtrack, the children can listen to the
soundtrack and then, they sing the song. Some songs including movement.
http://www.teachchildrenesl.com/songs.htm
Finally on this page there is a list of songs with their description. You can choose
the chant that you want and download it for your class. This page is good because you
known what like the song is before you download it.

10. 10
Bibliography
Carolyn Graham (2011) Seen on http://jazzchants.net/
BBC Teaching English (2012) ‘Using songs in the classroom'
Seen on http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/tips/using-songs-classroom
David Deubelbeiss (2011) 'Using songs in the efl classroom' Seen on
http://www.slideshare.net/ddeubel/using-songs-in-the-efl-classroom
Types of songs. Seen on http://www.ehow.com/way_5485987_chants-learning-
english.html