Train yourself to hear song lyrics

Listening to songs is a great way to learn a language. It's easy to listen to a song many times, especially if it's one that you enjoy and this can really help with your listening and pronunciation.
This activity is based around the Lyrics Training website. The site helps you to listen to and understand songs.

Task:

Go to: http://www.lyricstraining.com here you can search for a song that you like or select on from the home page. Once you click on a song it will start to play, you can then select your level.

• You then see some of the words of the song with some gaps. The song will stop so that you can write in the missing words.

• You can also select your own language so that you can see a translation of the lyrics in your own language.

• Click on 'Help' to see all the instructions.

I hope you find this useful. Here you can find more song based EFL / ESL activities.

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

Write a Blues Song in English

Listening to music and songs is a great way to improve your listening skills, vocabulary and pronunciation.
In this activity you create a Blues song and then listen to it. You will then listen to some more Blues music and do some listening dictation.

Task:

Go to: http://www.thebluesmaker.com/ and click on 'Start it Right Away'.
There are ten steps to creating your song. In step 1 complete the first line of the song. The song starts " I lost my .." and you choose the end of the line by clicking on one of the 4 choices.
Then move on to step 2 and choose the harmonica sound you want next. Once you have the sound you like, continue and choose the next line of the song.
Continue through all the steps until you get to step 10, then click on 'Finish my Blues'. Wait a few moments and you will be able to hear your song.
Once the song has finished playing, you can share it by sending it to your friends. Just add email addresses and click send.

If you enjoy this song, you can find more Blues music on YouTube by going to 'Browse', 'Music' and 'Blues' (or click here: Blues).
Try to find a song you like and write down the lyrics / words of the song. Once you think you have written down all the lyrics, go to: http://2hats.net/yl/ Here you will be able to search for the video and the correct lyrics to check your work.

I hope you enjoy this activity and the music you listen to and create.

• 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

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

Learn from English Song Lyrics

There are many great reasons to study song lyrics, not least because you enjoy listening to the song. You can learn new words from them, singing along helps with your pronunciation, reading as you listen helps with listening and reading skills.


So today's activity uses a site called Lyrics.com where you can find loads of song lyrics as well as music videos of people singing the songs.

Task:

• Go to: http://www.lyrics.com/ think of a song in English that you like or a singer who sings in English.
• Type their name or the song name into the search field and find the song or singer.
  

• If you can't think of a song just select one of the popular ones from the home page

• You will then see the lyrics and on most songs you can also find a video. Play the video, listen and follow the lyrics.

• You can either just listen or you can try to sing along. Doing either one or both will help with your listening reading and pronunciation.
• Try to listen to a new song each day, or select one song and try to memorise the lyrics by singing along a number of times.
  

I hope you enjoy this activity. Here you can find more music related activities.

Related links for teachers:

• Can Music Aid Memory of Text?
• Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
• Karaoke with a Social Network
• Another Great New Karaoke Site
• Great New Karaoke Site
• Sending Bubble Joy to your EFL / ESL Students
• 12 Second Video Clips for EFL ESL
• Great Video Commenting Tool
• Video conferencing for EFL
• Send Free Video Messages
• Create your own game

Best

Nik Peachey

Write a Song in English

Not everything you do when you are learning a language as to be serious. It's great to use the language you are learning to have fun and to communicate with people.


In today's activity we are going to use one of my favourite websites Let them Sing it For You to have some fun, create some songs and listen to famous people singing them.

Task:

• First you need to write a song. This doesn't have to be difficult. You can write a song about yourself or a friend by using their name.
  
• You simply create a sentence about the person using the letters of their name to start the first word of each line.
  
• Here's how it is done using my name (Nik). I have three lines, each beginning with the letters of my name.
  N
  I
  K
  

• So a make a line about myself starting with each letter.
  Not very good at sport
  I like to go to the beach
  Know a lot about different websites
  

• Once you have your short song, go to Let them Sing it For You and type the words into the field and click on the arrow.

• The site will then convert you words into a song that you can listen to. Here's mine.
  Nik's Song
  

• You then just email the song to your friends or yourself.

• If you want to hear other songs you can go to a Lyrics website like A-Z Lyrics and copy and paste the lyrics to create songs to share with your friends. You could also send them some singing messages instead of emails.

I hope you have fun with this website and create lots of songs in English.

Here you can find more Song and Music Activities.

Related links for teachers:

• Can Music Aid Memory of Text?
• Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
• Karaoke with a Social Network
• Another Great New Karaoke Site
• Great New Karaoke Site

Best

Nik Peachey

Spot Talent for your Record Label

Many people learn English so that they can listen to and understand some of their favourite singers, but today's activity takes your English a step further. Using a website called 'The Next Big Sound' you are going to listen to new musicians and try to guess which ones will become popular.

This site is a combination between new music site and a game. To play the game, create a record label, listen to new music and choose the ten bands or singers that you think will become most popular, you can then follow them each day to find out how popular they are as other people listen to their music and select and rate them. You can also change your mind and drop one of your ten bands and select a new band. It's all up to you.

Task:

• Go to: http://www.thenextbigsound.com/ You'll need an email address to sign up for the game. You also need to think of a name for you record label.

• Once you have signed in, you can choose a type of music that you like and start listening to different bands.
• If you hear something you like then you can click to 'sign' the band to your record label. You can find out more about each band or singer by clicking on their name. This will show you all the songs they have uploaded to the site and also some biographical information.
• Make sure you sign up 10 bands or singers.
  

• Once you have done this, you can come back each day and check to see how your record label is doing. You can also find out if the singers and bands that you have signed up have added any new recordings.

• If you want to get a high score in the game you might want to change the some of the bands you have signed. You can drop some and add some new ones if you think they are likely to do better.
• I hope you enjoy this activity, find out a little about running your own record company,enjoy listening to some new music and of course develop your English vocabulary and reading skills.
  

If you have a band or you sing, you might like to upload some of your own songs to see how you do. Perhaps you can start a career as a singer.

Come back tomorrow for more EFL ESL activities.

Related links for teachers:

• Another Great New Karaoke Site
• Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
• Karaoke with a Social Network
• Great New Karaoke Site

Best

Nik Peachey

Write a Music Video Review

Listening to songs in English is a great way to improve your listening skills, but if you write about them you can also improve your writing.

It's easy to find music videos. Just got to the Musicians channel on YouTube or type the name of your favourite singer or band into the search field.


Task:

• Go to the Musicians channel on YouTube at:
  http://www.youtube.com/members?s=mv&t=w&g=1
  

• Or type in the name of a singer or band you like and click on search.

• Find a video clip and listen to it.

• Now write about the clip. You can use these starter sentences to help you

1. The mood of the music is…
2. The song is about…
3. The singer's voice is…
4. The singer reminds me of…
5. The video makes me think of….
6. What I like about the song is…
7. What I like about the video is…
8. I don't like….

• Once you have finished, you could post your review as a comment on YouTube. To do this you'll need to register first and then log in.

If you publish your review why not share the link with us by leaving a comment at the end of this blog post. I'll try to publish all the best reviews in a week or two.

Best

Nik Peachey

Related links for teacher:

• Video conferencing for EFL
• Tutorial: Using Videos from YouTube
• Subtitling your video clips

Learn a Song in English

Learning a song in English can really help with your pronunciation and listening skills.


Karaoke Party has lots of songs with the lyrics and videos of the original singer.

Task

• Go to the website: http://www.karaokeparty.com/en
  (You don't have to register or have a microphone, but if you do it will be more fun)
• Find a song which you like.
• Click on the Preview button to listen to the song, or watch the video
  
  
  
• Look at the lyrics (words of the song) at the bottom of Each page.
• Try to sing along.
  
• If you register and log in, you can get a score for your singing, but you'll need a micrphone.

I hope you enjoyed this activity. If you did then try to learn a few more songs.

More EFL activities tomorrow.

Best

Nik Peachey

Related links for teachers:

• Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
• Karaoke with a Social Network
• Great New Karaoke Site
• Another Great New Karaoke Site