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Article: Music and Storytelling in the EFL Classroom
We can use music and chants as warmers or warm ups with students of all ages.
Music can be used as Karaoke to help students improve their pronunciation and fluency. Even though the lyrics of songs undergo transformations and aren’t always pronounced or ordered in the way we use spoken language, they are very helpful in reducing students’ resistance to using the language. Because songs are often poetry, we can also study the meaning, research the story behind the lyrics and encourage students to speak about what the song means to them or how it makes them feel
During class, I use background music to encourage students to think and learn while performing different tasks in English. Of course, the background music is always instrumental and usually classical, such as Mozart, Vivaldi or Handel. Studies have found that listening to baroque and classical music while studying, helps students to retain what they studied. Luz Maria Ibarra creator of the Brain Gym concept has several series of CDs. I frequently use tracks from Gimnasia Cerebral 1 as they were specifically created for classroom use and have all the components necessary to assist student learning. Background music can also be used as a non-verbal way of dividing class time into various segments by turning the music off when focusing on speaking and whole class work and turning the music on when students are working on individual or group activities. Remember, this is background music and needs to be played very quietly. As a suggestion, use instrumental rather than vocal music because the students do not focus on the music.
Another activity I like to do is playing music while my students use blank paper with coloured pencils or markers and their imaginations to create pictures that express what the music tells them. When they explain their drawings, they are using a form of storytelling.
So, in my opinion, we can combine music and storytelling to complement each other.
Just as we encourage our students to use their imaginations, we must use our imaginations, too, and create lessons that incorporate whatever it takes to impress our students favourably to encourage them to learn.
Storytelling can be used for listening activities where we read a short story or use a recording of a short story to engage our students. We cannot just read in a monotone voice. We have to breathe life into the characters as well as ask questions while we’re reading to ensure our students retain their interest. We also need to prepare interesting and meaningful activities involving all four skills. These can include changing the story to a role-play, having students read the story aloud or anything else you can think of that promotes interactive work.
In a humanistic, communicative classroom, it is imperative for students to tell their own stories. Getting our students to tell their own stories is also great for practicing listening and speaking. Therefore, you can ask them to make up their own stories about whatever subject you are studying in class or whatever subject they want and get them to tell them, read them or perform them. Traditional oral storytelling involves knowing a story and being able to tell it without using a book. Perhaps students have favourite stories from their childhood that they can tell to the class in English. To encourage their imaginations, they can create visuals to accompany their stories.
I hope that now you have more insight into the reasons for using these fun activities in your second language classrooms, you decide to make the most of music and storytelling in your lesson plans.
Summary
The use of music is an excellent tool to improve student’s pronunciation. Even though the order of the lyrics and the pronunciation might differ from the way that we use them in spoken language, they are extremely helpful in making students speak. Also, songs are a form of poetry so we can study the meaning and story behind the lyrics. Another way of using music to help students to improve their speaking skills is playing music in the background of the class; it has been shown that the use of background music helps learners to relax and to have a better understanding of lessons. Other practical activity is to give students a blank piece of paper and markers, so they can create pictures that come to their minds while listening to the music in the background and create a story with them, consequently when they are explaining their drawings they are using a form of storytelling; combining music and storytelling. The use of these strategies should be prepared, questions should be asked and life should be brought to the stories to engage students. In summary, students should be encouraged to tell their own stories, or to make stories about their favorite subjects in order for them to be interested in this type of activities.
About the author of the article:
Roberta King, Mexico
Roberta King has been living and working in Hidalgo since 2001. After nearly 30 years in the business world, she decided to pursue teaching English as a second language when she finished her B.A. in English in 1999. Roberta received a TESOL certificate from the Houston-based International TESOL College in 2000 and left a lucrative post in the business world to fulfill a dream to teach in Mexico. Since then, she has received an MBA and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in TESOL. Roberta works at Hidalgo State University (UAEH) in the Language Self-Learning Centre. E-mail: ttrking@hotmail.com
Good job! The article is written in first person and you wrote the summary in third person, so you kept the rules of our country and that it is ok. On the other hand, I would say students' instead of student's, in the first line and I would place a period instead of a comma in the tenth line after the word "them".
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