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Music as authentic text | passion4theprofession

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Music as authentic text | passion4theprofession

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Music is a universal language. Using authentic musical selections with language learners can be very motivating to students and a friendly way for students to hone their listening skills. Songs lyrics can be presented in written format, as an audio clip or as a music video (sometimes with subtitles). And, at times, students may be familiar with the artists.
Why use music as authentic text in the language classroom?

Includes repetition

Reinforces pronunciation

Shows language structures in context

Connects to culture, history, current events

Can be used as a classroom management strategy

Improves listening skills

Motivates students' interest in the target language

Reinforces grammar and syntax

Encourages creative thought in the target language

Konig, Patricia. "Language Can Be Music to Students Ears." The Language Educator, 2011.

Strategies using music as authentic text

Here are some examples of lesson activities you might use as processes for interpreting songs:

Alternate Title: Invent a new title for the song.

Alternate Verses: Given every other verse of the song, imagine the missing verses.

Before and After: Imagine what happened before and after action(s) in song.

Category Lists: Place words heard in specified categories. Variation: Given lyrics, read and place words in categories.

Chronological Order: Given a list of actions in song, decide probable order of occurrence. Listen to verify correctness.

Cover Design: Draw a CD cover to represent theme in song. Variation: Given a CD title, imagine the cover. Cover Speculation: Make conjectures based on CD cover.

Dialogue Adaptation: Adapt song to a dialogue.

Figures of Speech: Locate similes and metaphors in lyrics; discuss.

Four Corners: (1) After hearing song, go to designated corner of room ("love," "like," "don't like," "hate") and discuss impressions. (2) Line up to show degree of like/dislike for song; discuss. (3) Rotate partners in inside-outside circles to share opinions about song.

Grammar Recognition: Raise hand/card or stand when you hear a selected grammatical feature in song (specific tense, gender, subjunctive, etc.).

Guess the Title: Listen to song and try to guess title. Imitate the Songwriter: Write a new song on the same topic or change original lyrics.

Incorrect Lyrics: Correct lyrics as you listen to song (listen for extraneous words or substitutions).

Key Words: Take word card or picture and stand when/if you hear your word in song. Variation: Given a list of possible words, check off if you hear a word in song.

Letters: Write a letter to the singer.

Lyrics Modification: Substitute other logical words for underlined words in song.

Motivation: Speculate about reasons for writing song.

Name That Word: When music stops before end of song, tell last word sung. Variation: Predict next word.

Predictions: Before hearing song, predict which words might logically fit in lyric blanks or which words would rhyme.

Ratings: Listen to snippets of songs to rate/compare.

Stories: Narrate or write out story from song. Variations: (1) Retell from another person's point of view. (2) Write as a newspaper article.

Title Associations: Given song title, brainstorm list of words you might expect to hear in song; check off list as you listen.

Video Speculation: Imagine video of song.

Word Search: Given list of words, listen for synonyms/antonyms in lyrics.
Examples of tasks using music in multiple communicative modes
Songs not only provide practice in the interpretive mode for students, but can also serve as a springboard to interpersonal and presentational tasks.

I invite you to visit my website where on the page entitled " Authentic Resources," you will find multiple links for songs in the target language, often aligned to vocabulary and grammar points:

Many of our language colleagues have aligned popular songs in the target language to grammatical structures that they demonstrate in context and have generously shared those lists/databases with the rest of us.

French:
Clarisse Les chanteurs français et leurs chansons (crowd-sourced database)
German:
Ten Songs with Hidden German Grammar Lessons
Spanish:

El mundo de Birch Spanish amazing music database!!!

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Music is a universal language. Using authentic musical selections with language learners can be very motivating to students and a friendly way for students to hone their listening skills. Songs lyrics can be presented in written format, as an audio clip or as a music video (sometimes with subtitles).

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SUPER SONGS! How my “song of the month” inspires and motivates my students! – La Maestra Loca

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SUPER SONGS! How my “song of the month” inspires and motivates my students! – La Maestra Loca

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I love love love teaching a song of the month. It is something my students SO look forward to at the beginning of the month! As soon as they cross the threshold of my door it is the first thing they're looking for on the board. I keep the song title there all month long. These are some of my favorite stories from the "results" of teaching a song of the month:

Parent emails saying that their children are singing in Spanish at the top of their lungs.

Two students telling me that their parents have banned Spanish music while they are home because it is all their child will listen to ON REPEAT all night long (this one was both hysterical and depressing)

Students sending me Instagram videos of sleepovers and all of them doing karaoke to our song of the month

Being on the bus (a 17 hour bus ride with 8th graders... ODM) to North Carolina and a student's phone provided the music and EVERY OTHER SONG IS FROM SPANISH CLASS, and practically the WHOLE bus is singing along

During a school dance, I was sneaky and requested "¡Soy YO!" by Bomba Estereo and the instant it came on the kids all screamed and rushed the dance floor. #proudteachermoment.... Then they proceeded to pull me to the center of the dance floor and I led them in my typical baila como maestra dance.

Every teacher incorporates music into their classroom differently. What I do is a matter of preference based on what I know about me, my classroom, my student population, the levels I teach, and the amount of time I get with them each week. The reason I like doing a song of the month, rather than a song of the week, is it really lets me take my time, and it allows the kids to really come to know and love the song. Since I teach Middle School, I only see my kids once a day for 45 minutes. I know that this is a LOT compared to some, but if I commit to a song of the week then I would feel like at least half (if not more) of my classes each week would need to be about the song. Since the CI umbrella is SO big, I know we will want to do a lot more than focus on the song all week. As much as I LOVE the idea, I can't participate in the Locura de Marzo each year because I feel like it is too many songs too quickly. I don't think most of my classes have the language to comprehend the songs well enough for it to be worth the precious minutes I have with them. This is another reason why doing a song of the month is just perfect for my students and my classroom. I have the time to pre-teach and integrate the vocabulary of the song into the CI "discussions" we have so that they can enjoy the song more when they listen to it because they UNDERSTAND what they're hearing.

There are several different things I do throughout the month to really "milk" the song I choose. First I introduce students to the artist. I talk about where they were born, how old they are, we talk about their families, we use Google maps to look up the city they live in and we compare it to the one where they were born. If it is an artist who has received awards for their music we talk about those and if it is an artist like Shakira who is a philanthropist, we talk about what good they do with their money. I create a slideshow as my talking piece for this. The best part is one slideshow can be used in all of my levels, I just vary my vocabulary.

Many times, the artist has an Instagram, Twitter, or website. I will link to these in my presentation. My kids love seeing how many followers the artists have and they have amazing memories and like to compare one artist's stats to another. Often times, artists' twitter feeds are really fun to read because they are written in Spanish and higher level classes can work together to understand the meaning of the tweets. Many of my students follow their favorite artists now and they're the first to tell me about new songs or albums being released.

Next, I introduce the song itself. If it received an impressive amount of awards, I may talk about that, or if there is a very specialized vocabulary then I will introduce that to the students. For example, in "La Gozadera" there are lots of words that are very cultural and not very high frequency, but with a simple picture to establish meaning, it can help with comprehension when we do listen to the song.

Many songs don't have a specialized vocabulary so much as a very repetitive chorus. I love our song of the month THIS month ("Vivir mi vida" by Marc Anthony) because it uses "voy a _______" so much. (I am going to________) over and over and over again. We started class just talking about what everyone was going to do in various different contexts. In one class, it was a student's birthday, so we talked about what he was going to do. We all took guesses and then asked the student what he was actually going to do. In another class we talked about the upcoming dance, and in yet another we just talked about our upcoming weekends.

Another activity I'll do at some point is I will give my whole class word clouds of the song. A word cloud is literally a cloud made of words. The bigger the word, the more times it is repeated in a song. What is brilliant about this is it is literally identifying the high frequency words in the song for you! There are loads of different activities you can do with a word cloud. Here are some of my favorites:

Listen and highlight: Have students listen to the song and highlight, circle, or underline, words as they hear them in the song. It is really important that you first establish with the students that you understand they will NEVER be able to circle or highlight every word, every time, and that you know they sing very fast. (Anxiety will be very high if you don't do this.)

Pair up, fingers up: Pair students up, have them sit across from each other with the word cloud in between them. Have them race to point to words on the word cloud, as they hear them. They should NOT use pencils or pens (I learned that gets way too dangerous way too quickly!)

Use the word cloud before you listen to the song the first time. Have students identify words they don't know vs. words they do know and recognize. I have students write definitions to words they know next to the words in pencil for 1-2 minutes (depending on the level of the class) before we go over the meaning of the high frequency vocabulary.

Of course, I sometimes use traditional cloze activities where students fill in the blanks for words they hear as they listen to the song. One of my favorite activities(student's too) to do closer to the end of the month, after they've heard it many times and they've become accustomed to the song, is to cut the ENTIRE song up into simple sentence strips and have them construct the song. I learned this from Jenny Wetzig and Mark Mallaney and their presentation at CCFLT, 2017. I usually have a student do the cutting for me for service hours after school because I have to do it 7-8 times so that I have lots of them. I put each "song" in its sentence strip format into an envelope. Then I group students into teams and give them the envelope. Actually, I don't think I've ever just "given" them the envelope. Martina Bex, lovingly said that I fairy sprinkle them over my students. Sometimes I just dump them all over their heads. Either way, it is more fun for them and for me. Then, for the entire period, I play the song over and over and over again on repeat as the students construct the song. In my lower levels I may chunk it up and just play the first 30 seconds over and over until everyone has that and then I'll move on to another section. Either way, by the end of class, the students whether knowingly or not, are all singing the song and jamming out together as they search for the sentences to piece together something that they know and love. It is epic.

If you would like to try this but you're not sure where to start, I do have some song of the month resources available on my TPT account, and they are all ready made and scripted out with what questions you can ask and how you can present the information to your kids. What I hope more than anything is that you can start integrating more music into your classrooms because it is such a simple, fun, fast way to get students interested in listening to Spanish outside of your classroom without you even asking them to!

The resources in my TPT store now are below and as I make more I'll post more!

Until next time,

HAPPY TEACHING!

Love,

La Maestra Loca

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SUPER SONGS! How my "song of the month" inspires and motivates my students!

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I love love love teaching a song of the month. It is something my students SO look forward to at the beginning of the month! As soon as they cross the threshold of my door it is the first thing the...

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PBL in the TL: 10 Songs for Spanish Class 2017

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PBL in the TL: 10 Songs for Spanish Class 2017

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Published by on

Sra. Birch inspired me to post a top 10 list for songs I'm using in Spanish class these days. While I'm not doing as I have in the past, we will be doing some musical starters along the way. (Plus I plan to play these on an endless loop so their brains will be hostage to the Spanish FOREVER! MWAHAHAHAH! PS did you know that you can right click on the video and make one video loop over and over? DOUBLE MWAHAHAHAHA!)

Also, I had a little bit of success posting Instagram challenges where the kiddos could get Classcraft points for posting videos of themselves doing something with the week's song and tagging me. I slacked off a little after the first few though, so I have planned three different types of challenges I will offer depending on the song:

Dance moves - post a video of yourself singing or lip syncing with the song and doing the moves.

Lyrics collage - post a collage or Snapchat story of you and a friend acting out each line with the lyrics on each photo.

Theme Spark- post an Adobe Spark video with inspiring your own photos or stock photos that convey the overall message of the song with the chorus lyrics.

~Top 10 for 2017~
"Nuquí" by ChocQuibTown (2016)
It's true I can't get enough of this hiphop pop group from Colombia! It doesn't hurt that their most recent single has an endlessly catchy chorus with high-frequency vocabulary! I also made up a little dance to go with it (and had my endlessly adorable daughter demonstrate the moves).
Instagram Challenge: Dance moves
"Duele el corazón" by Enrique Iglesias (2016)

THE hit of the summer, but I'm opting for he lyrics video because A) it looks pretty cool and B) I like being employed (underwear scenes can be skipped in class though). Again, more high frequency vocabulary, impossible to get out of your head, and, you know, ENRIQUE.
Instagram Challenge: Lyrics collage
"Sobre mí" by Sin Bandera w/ Maluma (2016)

Did you know Sin Bandera was back??? College me is so excited. So far my students aren't AS excited, but I'm still pretty sure I can get stuck in their heads. Also the vocabulary is still pretty high frequency, but building in complexity. And I kind of liked Maluma's moves, so I spliced them together for dance time
"Sofía" by Alvaro Soler (2016)
"Soy yo" by Bomba Estéreo (2016)

I mean, how could I not? This song is almost too easy, but after the variety in "Sofía" lyrics, I think this'll be a nice break. Plus: THE MESSAGE!
Instagram Challenge: Theme Spark "Hasta el amanacer" by Nicky Jam (2016)
Starting Spanish I with this song as a call and response was THE best choice I made last semester. EVERYONE was hooked ( including YouTube!). I am eternally indebted to Sra. Whisenhunt for asking me if it was too risqué-which, kind of, yeah. In fact I had a reporter in the room when one kiddo decided to REALLY interpret-no one seemed to mind but me, though. I'm saving this in Spanish II due to lower-frequency vocabulary, also a late treat.
Instagram Challenge: Lyrics collage"Diferente" by Lasso (2016)
I'm not sure we'll get to this one, but it hasn't actually been that popular, but I figure it'll speak to a subset that doesn't always get spoken to. Plus Venezuela. Plus message. And there are some good cognates and idioms in here (e.g. hay que).

So that's my Top 10 going into 2017! Also, I'm sharing my playlist here too in case you also have evil plans to get super-catchy songs stuck in your kids, plus it has a few more bonus videos that we've enjoyed this school year.

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10 Songs for Spanish Class 2017 | PBL in the TL

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Sra. Birch inspired me to post a top 10 list for songs I'm using in Spanish class these days. While I'm not doing coros as I have in the past, we will be doing some musical starters along the way. (Plus I plan to play these on an endless loop so their brains will be hostage to the Spanish FOREVER!

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Comprehensifying and Extending Authentic Resources : Otra historia de una canción: "No soy como tú crees"

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Comprehensifying and Extending Authentic Resources : Otra historia de una canción: "No soy como tú crees"

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I have been on the hunt for good songs by female artists lately and I found someThe story includes lyrics (in bold in the story/presentation) from the song. It is a bit ridiculous, but students might get a kick out of it. I will tell the story I also created this I also made a great resources from Kristy Placido for the song "No soy como tú crees"($3 for a big time saver and totally worth it!!)" After looking at her resources and watching the video, I decided to write a story (feel free to make a copy and adapt) about the video. before we watch the video. There will be lots of opportunity for some good PQA with this story!
presentation (feel free to make a copy and adapt) with basic information (al estilo Canción/Artista de la semana) about the singer, Ana Mena, and the story with screenshots from the movie. Quizlet with vocabulario importante to play Quizlet Live before telling the story. After playing Quizlet Live with vocabulario, listening to the story, answer PQA related to the story, reviewing with Textivate (my favorites: Multiple Choice and Millonario), and playing Quizlet Live with Preguntas de Comprensión, students should be able to understand and appreciate the song a lot more!

I hope some of you can use it too!

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Otra historia de una canción: "No soy como tú crees"

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I have been on the hunt for good songs by female artists lately and I found someThe story includes lyrics (in bold in the story/presentation) from the song. It is a bit ridiculous, but students might get a kick out of it.

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Like many Spanish teachers, I use music in my class. Through El Mundo de Birch website ( http://elmundodebirch.wikispaces.com/Music+Lights+the+Language+Fire!), I discovered the singing group Nota. They won the TV show Sing-off, and they are from Puerto Rico. They sing in Spanglish. While many of my students look forward to songs, they really like songs that are in Spanglish especially at the beginning levels. I used the song My Girl which many of my students knew at the beginning of the year ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5hZSmyLdR8). I have included my cloze activity along with some quick comprehension questions that I used after the students watch the video. I loved watching my students sing along!
nota my girl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhcIucJDLUs

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Like many Spanish teachers, I use music in my class. Through El Mundo de Birch website (http://elmundodebirch.wikispaces.com/Music+Lights+the+Language+Fire!), I discovered the singing group Nota. They won the TV show Sing-off, and they are from Puerto Rico. They sing in Spanglish. While many of my students look forward to songs, they really like songs that are in...

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Throwback Thursdays: 18 songs for Spanish I/II classes – Maris Hawkins

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Throwback Thursdays: 18 songs for Spanish I/II classes – Maris Hawkins

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Throwback Thursdays: 18 songs for Spanish I/II classes

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I had a chance to compile all of the songs that I have published on this blog into one PDF! I also fixed some typos that I noticed. (Please let me know if you ever notice any typos!) I have 17 d...

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Por Fin Te Encontré - Adexe & Nau (Cali & El Dandee ft Juan Magan, Sebastian Yatra cover) - YouTube

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Por Fin Te Encontré - Adexe & Nau (Cali & El Dandee ft Juan Magan, Sebastian Yatra cover) - YouTube

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Adexe y Nau - Por Fin Te Encontré (Cali & El Dandee ft. Juan Magan, Sebastian Yatra cover)

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ChocQuibTown - De Donde Vengo Yo - YouTube

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ChocQuibTown - De Donde Vengo Yo - YouTube

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ChocQuibTown - De Donde Vengo Yo (Official Music Video)

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Songs to Teach Spanish: 40 Ways to Sing and Learn - Spanish Playground

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Songs to Teach Spanish: 40 Ways to Sing and Learn - Spanish Playground

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When it comes to language learning, songs are extra special language. They have a dimension that makes them more than language. Using songs to teach Spanish is incredibly effective. I think of music as language glue, because it sticks language to the human brain in a way nothing else can. Just think of all the lyrics you can sing and how easily you can do it!

Many songs introduce kids to culture. They can teach everything from geography to food. Values and history are part of many songs, too. You can tap into this cultural component using a variety of activities.

To use songs to teach Spanish, incorporate visuals, movement and text. Below are 50 ideas using songs to teach Spanish to kids of different ages and levels. You can do many of the activities as listening activities first. Once kids know the song, they will sing along.

Movement with Songs to Teach Spanish

Do gestures that represent the lyrics.

Teach sign language for key vocabulary.

Do actions like jumping or turning around that lets kids use their whole body. You can associate an action with a word, or do them to the rhythm of the song.

Have kids move toy animals to make them do the actions in a song.

Do traditional finger plays or make up your own.

Learn dance songs like La mascota by Pim Pau, La Yenka, or Chuchuá

Draw in rhythm to music. Cantoalegre has amazing activities for dibujo rítmico.

Toss balls in rhythm to the song.

Do traditional handclapping games, group clapping games or make up your own. Here are a few posts with clapping games to get you started.

Learn the cup rhythm. It can be done with many songs, but the most popular is Si me voy.

Sing songs for daily routines, like A guardar for picking up or Al agua pato for bath time.

Invent songs using familiar tunes to sing about what kids are doing. You can sing things like Ponte, ponte, ponte los zapatos to the tune of 10 little fingers. Yo canto esta has a version of La bamba for washing hands.

Using Pictures and Objects with Songs to Teach Spanish

Point to pictures cards or parts of a scene when words are mentioned. All the songs to teach Spanish from Rockalingua have lyric sheets with pictures.

Hold up pictures or words when you sing them.

Make a caja de canciones with figures for different songs. This wonderful idea is from a blog called Rejuega.

Act out the song with puppets as you sing.

Tell a song as a story with puppets. Add dialog and incorporate lines from the song as narration. Try it with Los pollitos. It is so fun!

Represent the lyrics with picture cards and have kids put them in order as they sing.

Use clip art or draw a scene to make a coloring page to represent the song.

Use a felt board to tell and sing the song.

Let children bounce a stuffed animal to the rhythm of a song as you sing.

Reading and Writing Using Songs to Teach Spanish

Create cloze exercises (fill-in-the-blank) with key vocabulary using the lyrics.

Put the lyrics on cards and have kids put them in order as they sing

Have kids write in rhyming words as they listen.

Ask reading comprehension questions about the lyrics of a song.

Find synonyms and antonyms for words in the lyrics.

Have kids write new verse.

Let kids change one line to change the meaning of the song.

Let kids substitute one word for another to change the meaning of the song.

Illustrate the song in one scene and label the words.

Illustrate the song line by line or verse by verse and make a mini book.

For little ones, represent key vocabulary with pictograms. Read and sing together.

Use the lyrics of a song as shared reading.

Treat songs as literature. They are poems put to music, so you can talk about stanzas, literacy elements and themes. Consider the rhyme scheme and figurative language. If the song tells a story, talk about the elements of plot structure.

Culture Activities for Songs to Teach Spanish

Talk about places, names, food, or culturally relevant objects mentioned in songs.

Use songs to talk about regional variations in vocabulary.

Teach songs related to holidays and other celebrations.

Talk about, or better yet, make and taste foods mentioned songs. José-Luis Orozco has recently released ¡Come Bien! Eat Right! It has wonderful songs about food! For older kids, if you want to go to the extreme,try Lupita's Taco Shop, which lists a staggering number of Mexican foods.

Learn about instruments from different countries. Daria's World Music has lots of great information and materials. You can find crafts and coloring pages here.

Book Activities for Songs to Teach Spanish

Sing the words of a simple picture book. Here is a good example with Luna, a book published by Kalandraka.

Read picture books that come with songs on CD. Here are a few favorites:

Barefoot Books publishes wonderful picture books with CDs. The CDs have a song version of the story. Try Algarabia en la granja or Vivamos la granja

There are many lovely collections of traditional songs for children. Many of these include the music in the book or have CDs.

Finally, as you are working with kids and music, follow their lead. I have had preschoolers spontaneously sort Legos to color songs and older kids sing duets with themselves using their phones. Kids are imaginative by nature and music inspires them. There are countless ways to use songs to teach Spanish to children!

Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks via Compfight cc

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Songs to Teach Spanish: 40 Ways to Sing and Learn - Spanish Playground

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When it comes to language learning, songs are extra special language. They have a dimension that makes them more than language. Using songs to teach Spanish is incredibly effective. I think of music as language glue, because it sticks language to the human brain in a way nothing else can.