Using Music to Teach Language Patterns

"If I were a rich man...." Are you humming already?

My husband didn’t think I could get a class of middle school EFL students to sing along with me. Actually, he didn’t even think I’d really sing in front of the class. But I did, and they did…and they have now mastered the second conditional. 

I was teaching the pattern where we talk about something unlikely, untrue, or impossible (if + simple past tense) and what we would do if it were true. "If I had time, I’d help you." "If I were you, I’d be careful." "If I knew how, I’d do it." I needed some fun activity to reinforce the pattern.… Suddenly, I started humming. “If I were a rich man,…all day long I’d biddy biddy bum….” Eureka! 

Using music is one of the strategies in Larry Ferlazzo’s invaluable book The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox, which was my lifeline when I first started teaching EFL nearly 2 years ago (*see below for blog posts I wrote on other strategies from the book). In fact, I was so excited about it that I facilitated a discussion of it last year with the secondary EFL department at my school and am doing the same again this year with elementary teachers. I’ve incorporated many of his strategies into my classes, but I never managed this one. Until now.

First, I gave them a sheet of the lyrics and went through it, making sure students understood what they meant. Then I played a YouTube clip from the movie showing the song with subtitles. The homework assignment was to watch that five-and-a-half-minute clip two more times—and be prepared to sing the chorus together the next day in class. 

As I said, my husband doubted either I or the kids could pull that off—but we proved him wrong.  I told them how I’d loved that song so much after the first time I saw the movie when I was in middle school, that the next Saturday, on a housecleaning job with my best friend, we’d started singing and dancing. Then the owner of the house walked in on us. 

We reviewed the grammar pattern, then I turned on the YouTube clip. They all sang. Not loudly, but I could hear them! Once I found the pitch (there’s a reason my husband didn’t think I’d do it), I started my Tevya impression, stomping around the front of the classroom in time with the music, waving my hands. The chorus ended, and the students kept singing, so I let it play through the first verse and the second chorus. 

When I stopped the video and said, “I won’t make you sing the rest,” the class let out a disappointed groan! I asked, “Do you want to sing the whole thing?” Big grins. So we played on. When it was all done, I jokingly said, “You all have GOT that. Maybe instead of the quiz Thursday, you can just sing the chorus.” One student lit up like a Christmas tree. The rest of them vetoed that idea. 

The next day, doing a review exercise, I’d respond to a hand raised with a question by singing the first line, “If I were a rich man…” and the questioner would say, “Oh! Past tense!” Eventually students started cuing themselves with humming. Not a great TOEFL test strategy, but it's a place to start.

The next day one of the students came in and told me he’d watched the whole movie last night. I hope the rest of his homework didn’t suffer, but that was a whole lot of English practice he got!

Music to teach a language pattern—definitely a strategy to add to my toolbox. Now I’m trying to brainstorm a list of songs to match with other grammatical structures. Any ideas for me? How do you use music to teach language patterns?

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*Blog posts I've written on other strategies from The ELL Teacher's Toolbox:

• Prompting Fluency in Writing for EFL Students
• One Easy Exercise for Paying Attention to Language
• Another Easy Exercise for Paying Attention to Language
• ELL Reading Comprehension: Mixing It Up
• The Value of Practicing Debate
• Scaffolding Active Reading Strategies
• Summarizing Is a Skill: How Do I Teach It?
• Cultivating a Culture of Reading in Every Class as the Year Begins