Music: Teaching Page

Take advantage of the power of music and use it in your ESL classes. We've created this page to provide resources, lessons, and ideas on teaching with music. There are printable materials for classroom use, lessons, lyrics, and ideas. We also have two discussion forums and links to other web sites about music. Get ready to jam.
	Low Prep Ideas for Using Music in the ESL Classroom
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Discussion

Lesson Exchange--Stop by PartyLand's Lesson Exchange discussion forum for ESL teachers. Add your own idea about how to use music in the ESL classroom or read other teachers' postings.

Music--Now that you're thinking about music, visit PartyLand's discussion forum for ESL students and teachers. Read what other people have to say about music and add your own ideas.

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Lessons

Conversation Question Cards: Music--A conversation card set on music. For suggestions on how to use these cards, take a look at Ideas for Using Conversation Card Sets.

Musical Impressions--You bring four songs to class and copies of this classroom handout. Then divide the students into groups of three, and monitor as they engage in meaningful discussion. For use with high-beginner and low-intermediate students.

ESL Scavenger Hunt: Music--This is an Internet scavenger hunt intermediate and advanced students can do in pairs or individually. This lesson will take 45-60 minutes. To use this scavenger hunt, print the page and review the tasks with your students before bringing them to the computer lab. Once there, students can come directly to this site. (Clicking on the links from this site will result in a new window opening in their browsers.) This scavenger hunt will teach students about the International Lyrics Server, MIDI karakoe, on-line music quizzes, and more. Please note, the MIDI karakoe site requires QuickTime. If your computers are not equipped with QuickTime, I recommend skipping this site rather than having students download the program. (This Internet lesson was inspired by Charles Kelly's ESL Treasure Hunt on Music.)

The All Music Guide--This Internet worksheet introduces students to the extensive on-line music resource called the All Music Guide.

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Lyrics

Here are the lyrics to some songs you might want to use in class!

The Beach Boys: Wouldn't It Be Nice

The Eagles: Hotel California

4 Non Blondes: What's Up?

Guns 'N Roses: November Rain

Led Zeppelin: Stairway to Heaven

Madonna: Holiday

Elvis Presley: Suspicious Minds

U2: One

Reading

Looking for more music lessons to download from the web? Check this out.

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Ernie's EFL Song Activities

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The following printable handouts each focus on specific songs. (Okay, I'm a U2 fan.) Designed for use in small groups, each lesson includes pre-listening discussion questions, a vocabulary exercise, a listening fill-in, and discussion questions. Though these lessons were designed for high-intermediate listening/speaking classes, they could easily be adapted for other skills or levels.

U2: One U2: Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World

Search Cool Stuff for your favorite CD, band, or musician.

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scene.gif.gif (11950 bytes) The Scene: Web Links

'Want to learn more about music and ESL? Check out these cool sites.

Music in the EFL Classroom--This section of Ernie's Song Page gives teachers some exciting ideas for how to use music in ESL/EFL classes.

Teaching English with Songs and Music--Ian Hewitt brings you more ideas on how to use songs in ESL/EFL classes, an Edutainment site.

Ernie's EFL Song Activities--Activities to use in class with beginner, intermediate, and advanced level students.

Songs (IES Sierra Magina)--Classroom exercises and activities for several popular songs.

Materials for Teaching English:Songs and Lyrics--E. L. Easton's fantastic page of musical links for ESL students and teachers. This page includes unbeatable resource material on topics like American music, children's songs, and Christmas carols. There's also a section for students that includes links to interactive quizzes on music. This page is a must-see.

International Lyrics Server--This database allows you to find lyrics for thousands of songs. (Proofread the lyrics.) You can search by song title, by album title, or by artist. You can use this database to create lessons like the ones above. If you create a lesson and would like to see it posted here, send it in!

Lyrics on the Internet--A set of links to pages that provide song lyrics.

John's Music Testing Center--At this cool web site, students can listen to songs and take fill-in quizzes on different songs. The computer checks their answers. You will need RealPlayer to use this site.

Karakoe QuickTime Songs Jukebox--Do your students (or you) like karakoe? If so, check out this web site. There are a lot of songs here. You listen to a MIDI file and see the words on your screen. Of course, you should sing along! You will need QuickTime to use this site.

An Internet Treasure Hunt for ESL Students--This is an Internet lesson for ESL students. Students learn how to search the International Lyrics Server and the Digital Traditions Folk Song Database and are introduced to MIDI files and Yahoo's List of Links to Musical Artists. This cool lesson is brought to you by Charles Kelly and the Internet TESL Journal.

VIDNET--Free Music Videos On Demand--You can watch music videos at this web site. To watch the videos you need VivoActive, which you can download for free.

SchoolHouse Rock--The Unofficial Site--Blast to the past! Did you grow up with SchoolHouse Rock? At this site, you can relive the experience; read the lyrics, listen to the songs, and watch the videos.