Songs For Teaching English (ESL)

Subject: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: Naemanson
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 07:50 PM

Here in Guam we have the English Language Institute, a small college associated with the University of Guam. The head of the ELI wants to talk to me about including music in her program and hiring me to do it. We will be talking after Christmas and probably after New Year's Day.

ELI teaches English to mostly Asian students. They get Students from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Viet Nam, China, and others. The students are usually young, college age kids with a few older people mixed into the classes. Generally they have some knowledge of English when they start and are fairly fluent when they finish.

I figure there are plenty of Mudcats out there with experience in teaching and I know there is a huge knowledge database out there in music. I am looking for ideas on how to use music to teach English and what songs might be good to include. I am looking for any ideas, good, bad, or indifferent.

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: Peace
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 08:19 PM

Place to start

Google

ESL Through Music

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: Peace
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 09:18 PM

Also, google this. Looks good.

ESL Lounge: Songs for English Teaching. Free song lyrics.

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: Gypsy
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 10:03 PM

What a neat site! Just sent the info to our fiddler, who is an ESL teacher. thanks for posting!

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: mg
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 11:18 PM

I'd start with the most standard songs, so they could join in camp fires etc. if teh opportunity arose -- home on the range, working on the railroad, clementine...even though it would be hard to explain some of the phrases etc....mg

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: mg
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 11:19 PM

I think I would start with this land is your land...get a sense of geography, hopeful sentiments etc. mg

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: cptsnapper
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 11:21 PM

Contact Brewhouse Music: they've been involved with recording songs for similar projects & can be contacted on Eric Cowell" .

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: Kaleea
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 01:40 AM

I have found that the early Beatles songs are quite easy to translate into most languages, & easily understood by people anywhere.

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: Dunkle
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 07:40 AM

The songbook "Rise Up Singing" is a valuable resource; it has the words and chords to hundreds of songs that are fun to sing in groups, together. It can be bought, I think, from the Sing Out! website. It's something that every ESL teacher who's brave enough to sing with his/her students should have access to.
Don

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 09:22 PM

TYPICAL - Typical - typical - AMERICAN.

Why teach another language? Does not the current language perform?

Why must the second language be English? China's economy predicted to surpass the USA and the UK....teach Chinese. Or why not French? (if you are a loser become a total loser) The Deutcher's have about the best positioning in the world for the coming decade.... teach them German!!!!!

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: RichM
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 09:32 PM

Dear Guest: Peace be unto you.
The question asked was songs for teaching English (ESL) ie, English as a second language.

This is what my son has done around the world, in the Galapagos Islands, in Tanzania,and currently in Dubai.


No one was implying English was the only language to learn as a second language. Why, you yourself could likely teach a second language to others too, I'm sure.

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 09:35 PM

Dunkle - the very last song-book you should consider is "Rise Up" the title in inself implies revolution.

Gaumaians are a peaceful loving folk....willingly they have sacrificed themselves for food to the more militant Tongans, ... who have in turn have offered themselves to meat-eating tribes of the Maori.

Leave well enough alone in the fields of the Lord.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: GUEST,cookieless Beast of Farlington
Date: 20 Dec 04 - 11:18 AM

I used to teach English as A Foreign Language and wrote a song to teach the use of 'used to'. It was called 'My Little Brother' and while it was deeply embarassing in an artistic sense, it seemed to do the trick in getting across all the things he used to do. (Actually, he didn't used to do any of them because I made it all up, but that is beside the point)

I taped it and played it to the students, used worksheets so they could listen to the lyrics and fill in the gaps, asked questions using 'used to' to check comprehension and got them to tell each other about 'The Things They Used To Do' which, coincidentally, is a blues song but that is also beside the point.

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: Naemanson
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 07:15 PM

Thanks for all the info. I really appreciate it. I've been so busy with Christmas and all that I haven't had time for checking in with the responses. I hadn't realized that what I was being asked to do was a tried and tested method and that is the most important thing I could learn right now.

Thanks for the point of humor, Gargoyle. I hadn't realized what a sacrifice the Guamanians had made. They are so modest they don't talk of it themselves.

Subject: RE: Songs For Teaching English (ESL)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 08:35 PM

You might dust off "Kumbaya," which has the value of repetition, a great tune, and introducing one verb at a time. It was a song I used for a Christmas holiday concert at my high school in Ethiopia back in the early 1960's; I taught it to a group of South African refugee students who taught me how the song could be sung in chords. No telling what you can learn from your students!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble