M

Learning the Song in Your Heart

M’s Story

Everybody likes music, many of us are pretty shy about showing it. My students often feel the same way about speaking English. Once we have a lot of fun singing together, it is easier for people to speak English with each other.

Keywords

Music, Play, Instrument, Sing, Melody, Lyrics, Play an instrument, Sing a song, Let it out

Lesson Ideas

Sing.

Pick a song that is easy to sing. Not too high, not too low. Not too fast, not too slow. Pick a song everybody knows. Hum it. La la la it. Sing it.

Break up into groups and write new lyrics using vocabulary and language structures that are important for your lesson. If one group wants to sing their own song- yay! Variety is the spice of life.

Activity Sheet

Are you a creative person? I just have rough drafts for most of my activity sheets, maybe you can help me think of better designs for these.

Music can help us express ourselves emotionally and English-ally. Just watch people at karaoke. Notice how many people let a lot of their feelings out, and how many people let a lot of their English out too. Speaking up in class can be pretty hard, but belting out “Lemon Tree” or “Baby Shark” is just a lot of fun.

You can start with just writing down some songs people sing. Songs they sing when they are happy, sad, angry, or …More advanced students can turn the paper over and write a paragraph explaining how one o the songs helps them express their feelings. With any luck people will start singing right now, if not make a mental note of the songs people like to use later.