Song lyrics s to teach english

THE USEFUL ENGLISH SONG LYRICS IN EFL/ESL CLASSES
By Oscar Terreros Lazo
Issued in November 2011




Introduction

When you reflect about the studies that have been done to lower the affective filter and the importance that this aspect has had in English teaching, you find the positive effect that motivation has to reduce theaffective filter. Then if the teachers’ use their knowledge and ability to design activities to the class that are really motivating and enhancing students’ self esteem, the opportunities for students to do successful tasks is increased. The key point here is to design these activities that have structural, lexical, phonological and other features that are meaningful and acceptable to be used in class– they need to be practical, entertaining, and motivating at the same time. In that case, these motivational activities are useful to succeed in the target language teaching by lowering the affective filter when creating tasks that are achievable, carefully designed and funny as well. Consequently, using songs in English in class is a good form to prepare these tasks since the artists that haveperformed these songs are representative stars from the English culture – which is another key component when learning L2. A language is not only grammar, vocabulary, phonology, and other academic features, but it is also a cultural expression of the language itself for English native speakers. “Music has been used for the EFL/ESL for decades. This is mainly due to the fact that songs from Englishspeaking countries are a worldwide predominant cultural fact” (Richard Grünert Pg 2)1. Based on this consideration the article presents that using English song lyrics to teach English is beneficial when teachers have in their minds these three considerations: the general background related to the usage of English song lyrics in the EFL/ESL classes, the careful selection of the English songs, thetasks that are adapted from the English songs. Additionally, this article presents the practical usage of this proposal at ICPNA faculty.

The background related to using English lyric songs in the EFL/ESL teaching process
First of all, the taste for the arts is inherent to the human being as an out of the prehistoric activities that until now exists. Consequently, learning a language is not onlylearning the sound system, grammar and lexis of the language, but it is also its culture, which is the reason why learning the different aspects of cultural expressions of a country such as their language art, history, and music represents nowadays a good way to integrate the understanding of the nation which speaks a different language from other human nations – understanding songs as part astheir own cultural heritage. “The understanding of the teaching and learning process should be integral to language and culture learning and therefore part of the professional component” (Byram and Morgan Pg 72)2. In general, in the music field, there are good artists that have created great English songs that reflect their culture and language so that using their song lyrics could be very beneficialfor ESL/EFL learners in order to reduce the affective filter. In the book “Teaching Language Arts to English Language Learners” the authors state that singing and reciting poetry are activities that can help English language learners develop skills because they help reduce anxiety and inhibition (Vásquez, Hansen and Smith Pg. 140)3. As a result, there are cultural expressions and positivefeelings from these expressions that teachers can use in their classes so that the theoretical framework supports teachers’ using songs in an English class.

Recommendation for the careful selection of the English lyrics for the EFL/ESL teaching
There are two main concerns when choosing songs in English that would be use in class for the exercises that are not going to be so overwhelming....