Memorize a Song

Learning and enjoying songs can be a great way to improve your listening, vocabulary and pronunciation. In this activity we are going to use two websites to help you find, listen to and memorize the words of a song.
First you'll use YouLyrics to find the words and a video of the song, then you will use MemorizeNow to help you learn and remember the words.

Task:

• First go to the YouLyrics site at: http://2hats.net/yl/ You will see featured and the most recently listed songs and videos.

• You can either select one of these or search for a song you like, by typing in the name of the song and artist at the top of the page.

• Once you have found the song you want to learn, watch the video and read the lyrics. If you click on the link to one of the videos it will open and play beside the lyrics.
• Once you have watched the video, copy the lyrics and go to: http://www.memorizenow.com/
• Paste the lyrics into the text field, add a title then click on the 'add' button. The title will appear in the 'items to memorize' list.

• You can then click on the title and start to memorize the words. If you click on the arrows above the text, words will start to disappear from the text.
  
• Try to remember the missing words as you read through the text. If you can't remember them you can click the back arrow and the missing words will appear again.

• You can gradually remove more and more of the words until they all disappear. If you have problems remembering the words listen to the video clip again and this will help you. You can also try to remember the words with just the first letter as a prompt. Just click on 'Letters'.

• You can also start to remove the letters by clicking on the arrows. If you want to see the complete text again you can either click on the 'memorize' button again of 'display all' and this will show you the complete text.

You can also save the activity to your computer desktop so that you can revise and review the words at a later time. Just click on 'save' and follow the instructions. Listening to songs and trying to learn and memorize the lyrics is an enjoyable way to improve your listening and vocabulary skills and if you sing along it can also improve your pronunciation. I hope you enjoy this activity.

Here you can find all the song related activities for EFL and ESL students

Related links for teachers:

• Using Movie Soundtracks in the EFL ESL Classroom
• Animated Music Videos for EFL
• Get the Stars to Sing Your Students' Words
• Can Music Aid Memory of Text?
• Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
• Karaoke with a Social Network
• Another Great New Karaoke Site

Best

Nik Peachey