Creative Use of Music: Sing a Song

Many people shy away from singing songs with adults, but it’s actually great.  As long as you are willing to embarrass yourself and sing in front of everyone, the students will almost always follow suit.

I remember one of my first classes ever.  I had a group of beginners and we were working on body parts, so we did the Hokey Pokey.  There was a 40-year-old business man that absolutely refused to participate.  I said no problem.  I taught the song and actions and then we played it for real.  Halfway through, the business man stood up and joined us and he was the most animated and into out of the entire class, lol.

Singing is actually really good for Turkish students because it gets them to link words together, a major problem many students have here.  You can’t sing word-stop-word.  It just doesn’t work   Singing can help any group of learners with stress, rhythm, and linking words.

Songs are also just a great way to warm people up in the beginning, wake them up in the middle of a lesson, or fill the last five minutes if there’s nothing else to do.

I almost always use children’s songs because they are short, fun, and have lots of repetition.  I always have the students perform the actions as well Some of my favorites are:

Baby Bumble Bee

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Little Bunny Foo Foo

Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar

The Hokey Pokey

Related Links:

Pictures Painted in Sound

Music in the Background

Song Stories