You probably already know a lot of songs in English, and maybe even some poetry. Knowing and understanding the words is great for learning English, as I'm sure you already know. However, there can be more to songs and poems than that. Below are some more ideas for using them to learn English, or indeed any language. I’m going to use songs in my examples, but poems can be used in just the same way.
1. You may have already heard of ‘Gap Songs’ – where there are gaps (blank spaces) in the text of a song, and you have to fill in those gaps as you listen to the song. You can find ready-made examples on various websites or create your own. Rather than simply filling in the gaps with the original words, you can start by filling in the gaps with your own words, not the original ones - even if you know some of them. There are at least two ways of doing this:
- Can you insert words on a theme? For example, work-related words only? Here is an example using ‘Your Song’ by Elton John:
‘And you can tell everybody that this is your laptop
It may be quite obsolete but now that it’s on
I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind
That I changed your password…
How wonderful life is now you’re on holiday.’
- Talking of being on ‘holiday’, if you need to practise a specific sound, such as ‘h’, see if you can fill in the gaps only with words that begin with that sound. Here’s an example with the song ‘Hey Jude’ by the Beatles:
‘Hey Jude, don’t make it hard
Take a hot song
And make it better
Remember to let horses into your home
Then you can start to hide it better’
After you’ve found your own words, you can then listen to the original and see if you can understand, and write down, the original lyrics.
2. If your English is already advanced, another idea is to read the original lyrics of a song and re-write them completely, so that it still has the same - or approximate - meaning, but with different words. Let’s take Hey Jude again:
‘Hello Jude,
It doesn’t have to be difficult
Find a miserable tune
And try to improve it.’
3. Have you ever tried translating a song text into your own language? It doesn’t have to rhyme or have the same amount of syllables in each line, but you can try doing that as well if you want an even bigger challenge.
4. It could also be interesting to cut up the text of a song (one you don’t know already) and see if you can put it back together - or create your own version.
5. Finally, as a writing or speaking exercise: have you ever thought about what each line of a song or poem really means? How the writer might have been feeling? If the words relate to your life in any way? If it reminds you of a particular person, or period in your life? Write down your thoughts or discuss them with someone else in English.
How have songs or poetry helped you to learn or improve your English? What worked for you, and what didn’t? Please don’t hesitate to write in the comments below or let me know using the contact form.
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