Music - food for the soul – is indispensible for human’s life. Music helps us not only relax after a hard-studying time but also relieve stress. It is a useful tool to foster our soul as well. However, in the scope of this post, I prefer to mention about another utility of music which related to studying rather than entertainment purpose only. Concretely, what I want to emphasis here is that we can “improve our English through songs”.
Music, especially songs, can bring us a variety of significant benefits that support our English learning process.
Learning English in every classroom with academic lessons may be very stressful for many ESL learners (learners of English as second language). Hence, every ESL learner can get inspiration to learn English better by the methods mixing “studying” and “entertaining”. Concretely, ESL learners can learn and improve their English through enjoying English songs.
A variety of significant benefits of learning English through English songs are about to be introduced in this post as follow:
- Enriching our fund of English vocabulary
English song can be considered as a special vocabulary teaching tool. Many students try to learn by heart new English words taught in academic lessons by repeating them incessantly, but this way of learning vocabulary does not work effectively as people’s brains cannot remember too much information mechanically. However, after listening for an English song containing English words for many times, learners can memorize them more easily. Moreover, by learning by heart the song lyrics, students can also add their knowledge of English vocabulary lots of new vocabulary that are not taught at school.
- Improving pronunciation
How to pronounce English correctly and fluently is one of the most complicated troubles for almost all English learners. It is not easy to speak with standard pronunciation and intonation system as the native speakers do. However, this can be surmounted partly by using English songs. By listening to English songs regularly, students can get familiar with the sound of every English word and then they can imitate the way that native singers pronounce words in the songs with their linking, stress, and rhyme.
- Developing listening comprehension skill
Listening to English is also considered as the hardest skill for students to master. The first reason is that students may not understand what they are listening in case they do not have the text in their hands to both listen and look at words. A second reason is the various accent and intonation of the native English speakers. In addition, each country has dialects and regional accents which can confuse the listener. All of these elements make English listening skill a major challenge for ESL learners. And it is believed that listening to different English songs regularly is a way to help students to get familiar with those various pronunciation, accents and intonation. If English learners can be patient enough to practise listening to English songs and learning the lyrics as well as trying to sing those songs in English every day, their English listening ability will change positively.
- Expanding knowledge
Music in general or songs in particular can give students insight into English-speaking culture and how English-speaking people think and feel. In addition, students also have chance to understand more about history of people or famous landscapes as well as important events appearing in the songs. Furthermore, listening to different types of songs or genres of music will provide learners knowledge of music such as singers, genres, etc.
- Steps to learn English with songs:
Here are some basic steps that can help you learn English with songs effectively:
- Choosing right places as the resource of songs: There are various websites on the internet containing a plenty of English songs for your choices. You can use the video or just mp3 only. Some reliable websites and channels followed by lots of listeners are: Youtube, nhaccuatui.vn, mp3.zing.vn…
- Choosing suitable songs: It is very hard for you to start with a difficult song having quick and complex rhythm. Therefore, you should choose ones with slow melody, clear sound and simple content, then gradually enjoy the ones with faster melody and more complicated words.
- Recording lyric: Play the songs many times and while listening, you can record as many words or phrase possible. You may make some mistakes when noting down what you listen to, but it doesn’t matter.
- Learning lyric and vocabulary: See the whole lyric and check your record, then complete it. Looking the new words appearing in the song up in dictionary then learn by heart the lyric to learn vocabulary naturally.
- Sing along: Play the song again and sing along. Do not afraid of making mistakes because you have lots chance to practise again and again
- Sing by yourselves without seeing the lyric: It is the final step done when you have already remembered the rhythm as well as the lyric of songs. And you can sing at any time as long as you are free.
With the benefits from using songs in learning English above, it is the time for you all to try a new method to improve your English – learning through songs. These following websites will be useful for you to understand more about roles as well as ways to learn English effectively with music.
By Bui Thi Chi
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