A syllabus of useful phrases which young learners can learn from the hooks of famous pop songs.
The Goal
The motivation that led to this idea is probably more important than the activity itself, because it could lead to other equally effective activities in the future.
Although the benefits of teaching functional phrases are widely accepted in principal, a breach remains between the theory and much of the young learner teaching material on offer.
Language lessons for primary students tend to follow a fairly predictable route. They begin with colours and numbers, then animals and everyday objects such as stationery and household furniture. Why is this? Why are children usually taught how to say “It’s a yellow triangle” before “Where’s the bathroom?” and “There is a panda” before “I’m hungry”? Outside the classroom it seems unlikely that pandas and triangles will play a more significant role in day-to-day communication.
The fact is that concrete objects such as yellow triangle and panda are easy to teach and assess because they are visual and can be elicited by simpy waving a picture. Learning words that are easy and quantifiable gives both students and their teacher a sense of achievement, which is no bad thing. However, a balance needs to be struck between what is easy to learn and what is functional and genuinely useful language in the real world.
The majority of primary-aged course books which I have come across seem to be failing to strike that balance. Each unit of the books tends to commence with a list of concrete nouns to be taught and assessed. This is probably fine initially, but as learners move beyond the most common/useful everyday objects (pencil/car/dog, etc.), they continue to be bombarded with evermore obscure vocabulary sets which seem to be selected simply because they fit in with a particular topic and are easy to teach.
Anyone who speaks a foreign language badly (for me it's French) knows that learning sets of concrete nouns is as easy as opening a menu, requiring little or no input from professional teachers. It's when you want to string words together in a coherent sentence that you need the help.
My 8-year-old students are currently using a fairly typical coursebook which is excellent in many respects. However, the vocabulary goals in one unit are:
Creeper, Beak, Toucan, Sloth, Branch, Anaconda, Pool, Jaguar, Anteater
And in another:
Jail, Sheriff, Robber, Wagon, Handcuffs, Barrel, Pistol, Saddle, Rope
What my students need is communicative competence using functional phrases to make requests, express feelings and ideas. What they have is a flashcard with a picture of a jungle vine on it.
Of course, teachers can use this vocabulary as a vehicle to drill practical chunks:
“Can I have a creeper?”
“Ooooh, what a lovely saddle!”
“My barrel is better than your rope”.
But the star of the show and the focus of students' attention is the creeper on the flashcard, not the genuinely useful language we are building around it.
This doesn’t feel right, so I think we need to find ways to shift the focus onto whole chunks of functional language and make them more memorable for young learners. Unfortunately, whilst this is not a novel objective, there seems to be a sparcity of activities to get us there, so:
The mission:
To make functional phrases as memorable and teachable as physical objects by associating them with something tangible.
Using Music.
For useful phrases to be as memorable as physical objects they need to be anchored to something concrete (something you can see, hear, smell or touch) and songs are an excellent vehicle for the following reasons:
It’s delivered with a catchy (memorable) rhythm. – (audio tag)
Learners can associate the phrase with an image of the singer. – (visual tag)
Students hear the language in context.
The class can hear/drill it repeatedly without boredom.
There is a focus on the sound of the language and pronunciation.
It’s likely to be encountered outside the classroom, reinforcing learning.
Students are motivated to learn because it’s impactful and fun.
Let me be clear, this isn’t about playing entire songs. It’s about finding pop songs which deliver a useful phrase in a catchy, repetitive hook and focusing exclusively on that hook.
Listen, repeat, chant and learn.
Each term I have 10-12 useful phrases which become one of my principal learning goals to be taught, practised and assessed. They don't necessarily cover every communicative need in a logical order but I'm convinced that these complete phrases are considerably more useful than the assorted nouns presented by the coursebook. After the first month, I was thrilled to find 8-year-old students regularly using chunks like "it doesn't matter" and "What do you mean?" in context.
Procedure
At the bottom of the post I've attached the powerpoints which I used for the first 2 terms.
Content
Each PowerPoint begins with a contents page listing the songs and key vocabulary, click on the slide number to jump to the relevant slide.
There is a review slide with all of the phrases together (click on each image to play it).
On each song slide there is a hyper link to the contents pages in the bottom right.
Introduce the phrase
Start by playing the relevant part of the song (embedded YouTube clip, top right) and elicit the target language. Then click anywhere on the slide to reveal the text and have students listen again/sing along.
Drill and chant
Drill the target phrase (usually the text in white) so that students are able to replicate the sound and rhythm (think about how it really sounds in the song, not how it's written). Then replay the song and get students to sing/chant/shout the phrase, lowering the volume each time it comes up:
Wyclef Jean: I got fifty Bentley's in the West Indies Students: It doesn't matter! Wyclef Jean: I got a pocket full of cheese and a garden full of trees Students: It doesn't matter! Wyclef Jean: I just won the bingo bought a crib in Rio Students: It doesn't matter!
My kids don’t know/care what Wyclef is on about but ………….. It doesn't matter! The important thing is that they are repeatedly shouting out and learning a really useful piece of language.
Every week or so we add another couple of chunks, but keep on going back through previous ones to help it stick (they all have their favourites and often vote for the ones they want to do)
Reinforce and practice.
Each chunk is linked to an image of the singer on slide 3. Elicit the phrases by pointing to each artist and click on them to check (see picture 2, above).
I have pictures for my target phrases on the board so I can point and elicit them in class.
The images can also be used as flashcards (attached below) which can be used in all the same ways we use coursebook flashcards. The only difference is that now, instead of playing with “saddle” and “wagon” my students are now focused on practical phrases that will help them to communicate effectively.
Next step
I will build up another couple of term's worth of songs and I'm sure you can think of others. However, it's not the activity but the overriding goal which is important. The songs will eventually run out of steam, but a focus on the objective of making functional phrases tangible, could lead to a rich vein of ideas.
Resources
PowerPoint (online version) - you may find the "hard copy" attached below runs more smoothly