Press play on the CD player, sing, dance around and gesture like mad… that’s all there is to it right? Actually, there are so many ways to maximize the effectiveness of singing in the ESL classroom! This is my guide to stepping up your singing game…
There are a lot of things we can do to prepare ESL students for singing a song. It can be quite an awkward experience to teach students a new song, if they have never heard it before. It ends up being a teacher performance for an audience of varying degrees of enthusiasm! I like to try and eliminate this by fully preparing my students before we start singing together. Here’s what you can do
PRE-TEACH THE LANGUAGE
We often choose ESL songs that fit our lesson theme, so hopefully it is quite easy to pre-teach some of the language points in your song. I often use the song flashcards for speaking activities, before using them in our song. This gears up students for understanding and singing with enthusiasm.
LISTEN TO THE SONG
This may sound obvious, but listening to the song beforehand can be a big help. But as teachers, we don’t want to let students simply listen without any kind of task, oh no! Ask them to listen out for a few things beforehand. Another task that I like to do while listening, is to ask students to put flashcards in the order they appear in the song. If your students can read, why not give them lines of the song, and ask them to put them in the correct order while listening?
SPEAK BEFORE SINGING
It can be easier to slowly speak through the words of a song, before trying to sing. If your students are able to read, it is great literacy practice. I often do this with my older students. You can do it at a much slower pace than the song, and work on pronunciation of difficult words.
There are a lot of things we can do to get the most out of singing in the classroom. Some of these techniques can also help with kids who lack concentration, or feel awkward singing in front of their peers.
GESTURES
Kids of all ages like to gesture while singing. It gives them something to do with their hands, and helps with memorizing the song. It can also reinforce meaning. Create your own gestures that will work for your students before you teach a song. Make sure you have them memorized, because you don’t want to confuse your students by forgetting or changing halfway through.
VOLUME AND SPEED
Ask students to sing quietly this time, or perhaps loud!!? If you are singing without music, you have the option to sing slowly or fast. These variations keep students interested. Head Shoulders Knees and Toes is a great one for speeding up.
WORD SUBSTITUTION
In a similar vein, we can add variety by omitting or changing a repeated word in a song. In Head, Shoulders why not miss out a word each time you repeat the song, so by the end you are only singing one word of the main phrase.
“…., shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes”
“…., shoulders, knees and …., knees and ….”
“…., ….., knees and …., knees and ….”
You can change a word that appears often in a song. In “Miss Polly had a Dolly” you can change either Polly, Dolly, or both!
“Miss Polly had an apple that was sick sick sick,
She called the doctor to come quick quick quick,
The doctor came with his bag and his hat,
He knocked on the door, a rat a tat tat.
He looked at the apple and he shook his head,
Miss Polly put your apple into bed, bed, bed.
He wrote on the paper for a pill, pill, pill,
I’ll be back in the morning, yes I will, will, will.”
POINT AND SING
For students who are shy, especially older students, I sometimes give them pictures to point at while learning to sing a song. I ask them to point at the correct picture for each line/part of the song. This gives them something to do, and takes the performance part out of singing.
ARRANGING THE SONG
If you want to take it to the next level, why not create your own vocal arrangement! You can ask different students to sing different lines, alone or in small groups. For a challenge, why not get the students to take one word each, singing in turn. “Are, you, sleeping, are, you, sleeping, brother, John?” How quickly can they sing one after another. Do they try to sing each syllable, or are they able to sing each word correctly?
Once you have finished singing, there is sometimes that awkward silence. “Good job!” the teacher feels obliged to call out. I like to launch into a few closing questions about the song, to wrap up. If your class was singing “Miss Polly Had A Dolly”, ask them if they have a dolly? Ask them if they went to the doctor recently?
How about setting the song as homework? A lot of songs can be found on YouTube, so if you find a suitable version, why not give the students the link/QR code and ask them to listen at home.