English Songs An Efficient Instrument of English Teaching.doc

毕业论文(设计)English Songs: An Efficient Instrument of English Teaching1. Introduction12. Significances of using songs in English teaching22.1 Arousing students interest in learning English22.2 Improving students pronunciation32.3 Broadening students knowledge of English culture42.4 Promoting students communicative ability53. Shortcomings of using songs in English teaching63.1 Distracting students attention from English teaching63.2 Unclear teaching aims when using songs63.3 The negative effects of unusual language features on students74. The standards of choosing songs for English teaching74.1 To choose appropriate English songs74.2 Choose English Songs to Improve the Integrated Comprehensive Ability84.3 Emphasizing quality instead of quantity95.Ways of using songs in English teaching95.1 Ways of using songs in teaching listening9Using songs in listening teaching is adopted as a primary attempt for better fulfillment. There are some listening suggestions:95.1.1 Filling in the gapped lyrics95.1.2 Reordering the scrambled lyrics105.1.3 Using song pictures105.2 Ways of using songs in teaching speaking105.2.1 Discussing and retelling the story105.2.2 Performance based on the song115.3 Ways of using Songs in teaching reading115.3.1 Reading and Learning Grammar and Vocabulary, phrase115.3.2 Reading and doing some exercise135.4 Ways of using songs in teaching writing135.4.1 Doing writing practice.145.4.2 Composing words for tunes14This activity is quite challenging on stress and rhythm. To make it easier, teachers can ask their students to compose words for songs which are popular in students native country. And structures and vocabularies from the textbook course may be very successfully set to the pleasant tune.145.5 Ways of using songs in other activities146. A Teaching plan of using song in English teaching157. Conclusion211. Introduction Nowadays, some students who learn English as a foreign language may lose their interest in learning and show negative attitude towards English learning. In order to deal with this problem, teachers have to explore ways to arouse the learners interest in learning the language and make English teaching effective. Songs, according to many scholars, can be an efficient instrument in a foreign language teaching. In recent years, the value of English songs in motivating students to learn English is widely acknowledged by many Foreign Language teachers. In language classes, many Foreign Language teachers have adopted meaningful English songs in teaching. Songs may take up the whole class period instead of only being used as warming-up activities games and so on. English songs are seen as a unique teaching tool, vital in communicative language teaching, providing language teachers with rich and varied resources. English songs can be used not only for purposeful language practice, but also for motivating students interests and enhancing students involvement in learning English. So EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers can try to use songs in their English classes. 2. Significances of using songs in English teaching2.1 Arousing students interest in learning English Einstein once said: Interest is the best teacher. It is the interest that makes the class lively and funny. Another educator, Tolstoy, said, “What successful teaching isnt done by force, but is done by stimulating the students interest”(2000:163). A successful teacher can stimulate the students longing for study. However, some listening, speaking, reading, and grammar classes do not appeal to students. English songs are very useful to give rise to interest. Some English songs have vivid contents, sweet rhythm and include a story. These things make students feel that studying English is very interesting. Research done by Jingbo Chen (2004) indicated that: in junior middle school, 43.5 percent of the students like listening to songs; 50.5 percent of them like both singing and listening to songs, 6 percent of them dislike neither singing nor listening to songs; within senior middle school students, 6.67 percent of them like just singing songs ; 40 percent of them like just listening to songs; 50.47 percent of them like both singing and listening to songs, 2.86 percent of them dislike neither singing nor listening to songs. So using songs in English teaching will certainly arouse students interest in learning the language, and this method also embodies the teaching principle making learning an enjoyable thing.2.2 Improving students pronunciation Pronunciation is an important aspect of English teaching. When the students learn songs, they can come across the plosive, semi-vowels, linking, and incomplete plosive and so on. These aspects are very important in phonetics. For example, the song Lemon Tree, Parts of lyrics areIm sitting here in a boring room; Its just another rainy Sunday afternoon. Im wasting my time, I got nothing to do. Im hanging around, Im waiting for you. But nothing ever happens, and I wonder. Im driving around in my car, Im driving too fast, and Im driving too far”. When teachers teach this song, they should not only pay attention to the sound linking, for example, here in a boring room, just another., around in ., but also the plosive and the incomplete plosive, for instance,go(t) nothing, bu(t) nothing. The teachers may make use of this song to clarify the phonetic system. The students should know this song rhythm. Songs can help establish a feeling for the rhythm and stressing spoken English. Girls and Boys Come Out and Play gives a useful lesson in English rhythm and stressing, such as, “Girls and boys come out and play, The sun above is bright today, Leave your work and leave your sleep, Come and joint us in the street, Come with a shout and bring your call, Come with a smile and bring your ball, Down the steps and up the path, All the fun will make you laugh.” This song makes class funny and lively. Generally speaking, the best way to study English well is to listen and speak more. If students only learn English by learning words and grammar, they are easy to forget. Studying for a long period will make students bored, but English songs can solve this problem. It makes students relaxed, happy and in learning English.2.3 Broadening students knowledge of English culture Linguists think that the ability of language communities should contain two aspects: language ability and interaction ability. The interaction ability is the competence of users social culture. In order to have the interaction ability, teachers should introduce culture in English teaching. In other words, let students know some cultural background knowledge. There are many ways to introduce culture; however, English songs can be one of the most interesting and receivable way. For instance, “American the Beautiful, Red River Valley, Chick Go the Shear, The Blue Bell of Scotland” and so on. These songs display the different folk custom about America, Canada, Australia and England. For another instance, “All the Pretty Little Horses” describes the sufferable life of slavers. “Home on the Range,” narrates the exploration of western America and pastures were swallowed. The Christmas song “Jingle Belles” can go deep into knowing the western countries magnificent day. So through using songs in English classes, students knowledge of English culture can be broadened.2.4 Promoting students communicative ability If you want to learn English well, listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating cant be separated, because they affect each other. For instance, speaking affects straightly writing, reading, listening and translating. If the students can speak English as fluently as possible, they have much more opportunities to communicate with other people. Then English songs are tools to improve students English competence. Students can develop English-speaking ability by singing songs in English. Teaching low-grade students simple English songs will help students quickly grasp the technology of sentences, such as: “Hello, Hello, How are you?” “Can you spell?” “This is a pen, this is a book.”. For high school students, leaning to sing English songs can greatly stimulate their enthusiasm for learning English. Although some students are poor in English, the moment they take up English songs, they are to improve their English. During learning songs, they get pleasure of learning English from the graceful rhythem and the lyrics which contain foreign cultural background knowledge, and gradually free their mind of hate and fears about learning English. We konw that English songs are part of foreign culture. As a matter of fact, English songs is a window to see foreign culture. So for intermediate and advanced learners, English songs make them eager to know and talk about some countries natural and human landsapes, history, customs and habits, politics and economy. Through discussing the topics mentioned above, they could easily improve their communicative ability. Apart from the significances mentioned above, there are other advantages of using songs in English teaching. Some of these advantages are as follow: singing can build students confidence by allowing them to enjoy a degree of fluency in reading before they have achieved in speaking; learning English through songs also provides a relaxed, non-threatening atmosphere for students who usually are tense when speaking English in a formal classroom setting. 3. Shortcomings of using songs in English teaching As each coin has two sides, using songs in English teaching has some shortcomings. In this part, the paper will discuss some shortcomings of it. While using songs in English classes, we should pay attention to their shortcomings and try to overcome them.3.1 Distracting students attention from English teaching Students usually like singing and do not think this is learning. Some of them, especially, young learners might pay attention to singing, not to learning itself. So if a teacher decides to teach a language point through songs, his or her students might not pay enough attention to the teaching point, the teacher should call the students attention to learning properly.3.2 Unclear teaching aims when using songs Songs used in English classes are beautiful. Everyone in the class will involve in it, both students and the teacher. If a teacher just pays attention to or pays too much attention to the rhythm of the song, it will be hard for him or her to show the teaching aims clearly, even he or she will forget the teaching aims. If so, that class will be regarded as unsuccessful. Therefore, teachers should pay attention to the teaching aims and make them clear.3.3 The negative effects of unusual language features on students Rees (1977) have learned the following:A stumbling-block we encounter when dealing with English songs in a foreign situation is the unusual word-order, the false rhymes, and the low-frequency, archaic, or dialect words. These factors will affect our teaching. But an isolated example of some unusual language-features is not likely to have a lasting effect on the learners language. If it is not already obvious, we must emphasize to our listeners that the language of songs, like that of poetry, has conventions of its own which separate it from everyday spoken language. (p.226)If there are too much unusual language features in the song, we should abandon that song, lest they affect students language learning.4. The standards of choosing songs for English teaching4.1 To choose appropriate English songs When teachers choose English songs, they must follow some rules. The melodies should be simple and beautiful to be excellent devices for motivating students. The style of music should meet students taste, taking into account the social and cultural norms of Chinese society. The idea of the songs should be easy to follow. The lyric of the song should be so clear that the song can be used as exercises or the students can grasp at least certain repeated words and phrases. The content of the songs should meet learners level, and for specific teaching purpose. At the same time, it must abide by the purpose of language training requirements. Because the students ages are different, their understandings are quite different. Thus, choosing English songs should be based on the students ages. Famous educator, Jeremy Harmer, pointed out “Speaking is the skill that the students will be judged on real life situation. Its an important part of everybody interaction and most often the first impression of a person is based on his or her ability to speak fluently and comprehend”. Therefore, choosing the suitable English songs tends to be important for the teachers. For example, Row Your Boat this song is suitable for pupils. Some easy words, lively rhythm and sweet contents can motivate the pupils interest. However, some English songs may be sung by college students. It looks very complex. Lyrics is long, content becomes complex, such as “Yesterday Once More”. Different songs are suitable for different person. But these songs have a common pointthey can be applied in teaching. They can also create a happy and relaxed English teaching environment.4.2 Choose English Songs to Improve the Integrated Comprehensive Ability Teachers should train students varied ability by using English songs. In the process of applying English songs to English teaching, teachers should improve students integrated comprehensive ability. When English songs are used in the classes, teachers should conduct them as cohesive whole, consisting of several related tasks: listening, reading, story telling, free talk and writing. For instance, the exercise of “listening to the song and filling in blanks” can be used to train students listening ability; “Reading loudly and learning to sing” can be used to practice students English-speaking ability. In order to improve students integrated ability, teachers should choose the appropriate English songs in teaching. 4.3 Emphasizing quality instead of quantity The quantity must meet certain requirements. The number of songs used in class shouldnt be too much. Together with other types of language classes, this type of class should be employed occasionally, aiming at making classes activities varied. Overusing English songs in class may weaken students interests and abate their absorbing of systematic knowledge. The class may change into music class. It is the quality, not the quantity that should be guaranteed in English teaching. Hence, teachers can use English songs once a week or twice a week but not too often. 5.Ways of using songs in English teaching5.1 Ways of using songs in teaching listening Using songs in listening teaching is adopted as a primary attempt for better fulfillment. There are some listening suggestions:5.1.1 Filling in the gapped lyrics This activity can be used in both pre-listening and while-listening period. Teachers give students the lyrics with certain words blanked out and ask them to predict what the missing words are before they listen to the song. While-listening, they have to listen carefully and fill in the missing words. The blanks should not normally be too close to each other. But if they are, the students should be given several opportunities to hear the song. (Newton, 1998) 5.1.2 Reordering the scrambled lyrics This activity can also be used as both pre-listening and while-listening exercises. Take several photocopies of the lyrics, cut them into single lines or pairs of lines, and put them into scrambled sets. Divide the class into groups of three to five and give each group a set. Tell the groups to put the lyrics into the correct order. Then play the song two or three times so that they can check and if necessary change the order they have. 5.1.3 Using song pictures This kind of activity can be used while songs are used to tell stories. Find or draw a picture which illustrate the story. The contents of the story are written down with some blank filling-information gaps. Give the students the copies of the picture. Ask them to listen to the song and complete the gap fillings. Alternatively, teachers draw simple pictures to illustrate the story which is told in the song, cut them out, and make a worksheet with the pictures out of order. Then teachers ask the students to listen to the song and put the pictures in order. (Phillips, 1998) 5.2 Ways of using songs in teaching speaking Using songs in training speaking can be regarded as assistant of training listening. So in most occasions of using songs in English classes, speaking should be practiced after listening. There are some speaking suggestions:5.2.1 Discussing and retelling the story This activity can be seperated into three parts. The first part is listening and guessing the name of the songs. It can be used before listening. While using a popular song by a well-known singer, play the beginning of the song and see whether the students can guess the song and the singer or not. Ask them what they know and think of the singer. This activity can be done in groups. The second part is making speculation based on the title. Put the title of the song on the board. Have students in pairs and ask them to guess about what the song is about and share their opinions with other pairs. The last part is discussing and retelling the story. After playing the whole song to the students several times, ask them to express their feeling of the theme mentioned in the song. And discuss some relative topics in the class, or ask the students to summarize or retell the song. 5.2.2 Performance based on the song After listening to the song