MUSIC IN ENGLISH TEACHING
INTRODUCTION
Halina
November 2014
A. Benefits essential to using any music
1. High interest high motivation memorable
2. Lowered inhibition level
3. Reaches learners with right brain strengths
4. Reaches learners with auditory strengths
5. Helps promote class bonding
6. Helps create shared frame of cultural reference also illustration of
grammar in context
7. Rhythmic element helps reinforce English prosody and fluency
B. Some Criteria for choosing songs for
classroom use
1. Most importantly: you like the song and want to share
it!
2. Words easily comprehensible
3. Enough repetition to provide oral practice
4. Well-written from a native speaker perspective
5. Contains values and themes you want to introduce
6. Describes different musical genres
C. For listening comprehension
a. Fill in before listening to cultivate guided listening and
hypothesis formation
b. Fill in during listening
c. Scramble lines of lyrics on large index cards can be ordered as
students listen
d. Mark stress patterns ("beats") on lyric sheet while listening
e. Transcribe entire song while listening, dictation style (or assign
small groups one verse each), then check w/ master copy of lyrics
D. For reading comprehension
For reading comprehension/cultural studies - Gangsta's
Paradise is an excellent song.
1. Explain target vocabulary and idioms, then illustrate in
context
2. Study as literature, examining prosodic and thematic
features
3. Compare and contrast w/ a related reading
E. For pronunciation/speaking practice
1.Sing along with music track only - "karaoke" style
2. Sing/chant song in alternating assigned solo parts
3. Memorize and perform song(s) for class
4. Discuss topic or content of song in large or small groups
5. Have songs sung as part of daily routine
6. Role play the lyrics of pop songs in front of the class
F. For writing practice
1. Add additional verse to song in small groups
2. Write it as a dialog.
3. Write parody or new set of words to known
melody
Q & A practice
a. Does this song remind you of anything in your own life?
b. What do you think happened next, after the story in the
song?
c. Do you agree with the point of view of the singer? Why or
why not?
d. Tell what happens in the song
e. Think about the relationship between people in the
song.
G. For culture-based activities
1.
Use with accompanying readings to teach values, history…
2. Use as part of unit on teaching tolerance, or as intro to Cultural
Diversity studies
3. Have students prepare 5 minute written reports about their own
much loved song
4. Play the songs for the class
Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio
This is a reworking of Stevie Wonder's 1976 song „Pastime Paradise." It wasn't
Coolio's idea to use Wonder's song; a singer named Larry Sanders - who goes
by the stage name L.V. (Large Variety) - started working on it and sent a demo
to Collio, who was looking for a song to record for the 1995 movie Dangerous
Minds.
Starring Michelle Pfeiffer, the film is about a troubled school and the challenges
faced by the students and the idealistic teacher played by Pfeiffer. Coolio wrote
a lyric to express the feelings of despair and abandonment felt by the kids at the
school,
Gangsta's Paradise
The song first appeared on the Dangerous Minds soundtrack, and when it
became the basis for the movie's marketing campaign - heard in trailers and
commercials for the film - MCA knew they had a hit on their hands. The song
was released as a single, going to #1 in both the US and UK, and included on
Coolio's second album, which was titled after the song.
The first line of this song comes from the bible, Psalm
23:4: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with
me."
"Can music be a poetry?
Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio
As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I take a look at my life and realize there's none left
'Cause I've been brassing and laughing so long that
Even my mamma thinks that my mind is gone
But I ain't never crossed a man that didn't deserve it
Me be treated like a punk, you know that's unheard of
You better watch how you talking, and where you walking
Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk
I really hate to trip but I gotta lope
As they croak I see myself in the pistal smoke fool
I'm the kinda G that little homies want to be like
On my knees in the night, saying prayers in the street light
They been spending most their lives living in the gangsta's
paradise
They been spending most their lives living in the gangsta's
paradise
We keep spending most our lives living in the gangsta's
paradise
We keep spending most our lives living in the gangsta's
paradise
They got the situation, they got me facing
I can't live a normal life, I was raised by the strip
So I gotta be down with the hood team
Too much television watching got me chasing dreams
I'm a educated fool with money on my mind
Got my ten in my hand and a gleam in my eye
I'm a loped out gangsta set trippin banger
And my homies is down so gonna rouse my anger fool
Death aint nothing but a heart beat away
I'm living life do or die, what can I say
I'm twenty three never will I live to see 24
The way things is going I don't know
Tell me why are we so blind to see
That the ones we hurt are you and me.
They been spending most their lives living in the gangsta's
paradise
They been spending most their lives living in the gangsta's
paradise
We keep spending most our lives living in the gangsta's paradise
We keep spending most our lives living in the gangsta's paradise
Power and the money, money and the power
Minute after minute, hour after hour
Everybody's running, but half of them ain't looking
What's going on in the kitchen, but I don't know what's cooking
They say I've got to learn but nobody's here to teach me
If they can't understand it, how can they reach me
I guess they can't
I guess they won't
I guess they front
"Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio
Exercise
1. "I've never crossed a man...” Here "crossed" means...
a. made angry or provoked
b. crossed to the other side of the street
c. met
2. " Me be treated like a punk". here, "punk" means....
a. rebellious
b. prostitute
c. wood
That's why I know my life is out of luck fool
They been spending most their lives living in the gangsta's
paradise
They been spending most their lives living in the gangsta's
paradise
We keep spending most our lives living in the gangsta's paradise
We keep spending most our lives living in the gangsta's paradise
Tell me why are we so blind to see
That the ones we hurt are you and me.
Tell me why are we so blind to see
That the ones we hurt are you and me.
Writer/s: WONDER, STEVIE/OTHER, WRITERS/RASHEED, DOUGLAS B
Publisher: EMI Music Publishing, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing