Use of Songs, Karaoke & Internet in foreign language learning

Method for motivating language learners created by European partnerships within three projects:

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

“Languages and Integration through Singing” (LIS)

“French and Spanish language competence through songs” "Find A Delightful Opportunity to learn Portuguese through

Internet and songs”  

The “musical” approach increases learners’ motivation and interestimproves acquisition of language skills allows cross cultural understandingallows to include in the learning process the most diverse groups of students:

- age - ethnic or national origin- social status - education level

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Didactic & Socio-cultural aspects

Why to use songs in the classroom (Griffee 1992)

Positive environment.

Student interest emotional potential

Linguistic Input relationship between rhythm and speech

Cultural Input social information.

Authentic texts in the target language.

Complement other teaching materials.

"Music is for the soul what a gym is for the body.“ Plato (427-347 a. C.)

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Classification into three groups

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Neuro-linguistic aspect (Isabelle Peretz & Robert Zatorre - 2002)

Intuitive and conscious processes in the acquisition of language skills

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Use of both hemispheres of the human brain: memory, emotion & language exist together in a song

Real learning takes place when there is a switch from the left to the right hemisphere of the brainWith the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Positive effects from using songs on learners’ linguistic and intercultural competences:

songs in the language classroom liven up listening activities; they enable teachers to teach grammar and vocabulary in an

entertaining and relaxing way; the vocabulary of songs often extends beyond everyday

language; it is a great way to practice pronunciation and intonation; a memorable melody imprints linguistic patterns, grammar

structures and vocabulary; through songs learners learn about culture and people, which

also inspires various interesting topics for discussion.

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

What song to choose?It is important to keep in mind three factors:

• Learners’ profile: age, interests, level of language competence;

• Suitable language material: lyrics should be clear /acquaintance with idiomatic & colloquial expressions is useful and fun, but they should not prevent understanding of the songs/;

• Cultural context: through songs, we can learn a lot about the country, culture, history, behavior patterns of people of the particular country or historical period.

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Structure of a Teaching/Learning Unitin the concept of the LIS approach

• 1 phase: approaching which comes before the real work upon the text (Pre-listening activities & First listening);

• 2 phase: analysis aiming at understanding how the text works and at studying morphological and syntactic rules;

• 3 phase: synthesis - new listening to the lyrics, going back to the text to check its assimilation and to extend it to aspects of culture and civilization

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Internet, Youtube & karaoke Great diffusion of the Internet and Youtube, especially among

youngsters; Linguistic education and digital competences are transversal

(they are two of the 8 key competences!) and besides interact with each other in the curriculum;

Schools in Europe are facing up to an ever growing number of immigrants. This new situation requires new didactic and methodological answers and at the same time the use of new proper technologies for the target groups

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Starting from these considerations …

FENICE + 8 institutions (6 countries in total)submitted 3 projects of European partnership

aimed at spreading a method for teaching/learning a foreign language based on the use of videos, karaoke and songs.

Result: www.languagesbysongs.eua website containing teaching materials that can be used by teachers of IT/RO/RU/FR/ES/PT interested in using songs in their classroom, by their pupils who wish to practise at home and, finally, by autonomous learners.

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

To the musical approach the LIS method adds 2 more elements to acquire language skills: video and karaoke

Karaoke is didactically very effective because:• music and verse help one’s memory (the text often has

rhymes);• singing the songs students learn language patterns and

expand vocabulary ;• listening to the songs students develop the ability to

understand;• by singing students practice their pronunciation;• as they read the lines and sing, pupils demonstrate their

ability to understand a written text.With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Teaching and learning resources onwww.languagesbysongs.eu

• Teacher’s Guidebook: theoretical fundamentals of the approach, lesson structure, practical hints on how to create one’s own teaching material

• Didactic handouts present TLU examples elaborated upon a number of songs (now 115)

• Key to exercises are addressed to learners and allow the use of handouts for self-study

• Lyrics: texts of the songs used in the handouts• Video and karaoke for songs used in the handouts - means to

support language learning via Internet

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Prerequisite: To use the materials at their best students should be at least at the A1 level of the Common European Frame of Reference

Testing: The learning materials for Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian and Russian have been tested on the whole by 78 teachers and trainers belonging to 12 countries (IT, ES, FR, GR, LT, MD, RO, BG, SK, SV, BR, USA) on 1963 students of various ages, a number significant enough to give acceptable results.

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Project results

• Looking ahead: community of language teachers using songs in their teaching practice

• Diffusion: on the basis of ShinyStat statistics, the website has been visited 21.202 times by people from 93 countries. This is the visit list of the first nine countries at the 30/11/12:

Country Visits n°

Italy 6249

Romania 5957

Slovakia 2480

Bulgaria 1495

Spain 1419

USA 385

UK 292

Portugal 270

Germany 230With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

FENICE’s partnersE-KU Institute of language and Intercultural Communication - Slovakia (Nitra)Escuela Oficial de Idiomas - Spain (Malaga) EUROINFORM Ltd – Bulgaria (Sofia) Fundatia EuroEd – Romania (Iasi)University of Bucharest – Romania University of Porto Faculty of Arts – Portugal IES “Ribeira do Louro” - Spain (Porriño)

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

Thank you for your attention!

Giampiero de Cristofaro

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU, Grundtvig Learning Partnership

E - mail: fenice.eu@libero.it

www.fenice-eu.org