Sing Along
Many teachers like to use songs in their classes to work with vocabulary or grammar. But you can also use music in English for self-study to practice your pronunciation andlearn new phrases. Here are some tips on how to do it.
When a teacher chooses a song, he or she is usually interested in studying a particular point of grammar, like the perfect tenses, for example. The song your teacher chooses will have lots of good examples of the present perfect, but you might not like the style of music very much.
When you are choosing your own study materials, of course you will choose what you like the best! There is an amazing variety of musical styles, so look for an artist or a type of music that you really like and buy a CD or digital recordings.
Now choose one song to start with and follow these steps:
- Listen to the lyrics and see what you can understand.
- Find the lyrics written out on the CD insert or on the Internet. Many bands have their own websites with information about the group. This is also very interesting reading!
- Listen to the song again and sing along while you read the lyrics.
- Once you memorize the song, keep listening to it and singing along.
If you find that this really works for you, ask your teacher to make some lessons plans with songs. This can help you find out about new musical groups, and you can suggest some bands that you like.
