Music and Second Language Learning
Contents
[hide]Introduction
Listening to music is a great way to "fix" grammatical structures. On this page, there are many links to songs and their lyrics. These links lead various places. On my blog, there are a few songs with gap-fill lyric exercises §. These are songs that I have tested on classes at the 5e / 4e level. Similarly, but in real time, lyrics training offers a game that allows you to listen to a video while filling in words missing from the lyrics. Other links on this page may lead to youtube or daily motion.
Type lyrics + "song title" in any search engine to find the words to songs.
To return to the notion of "fixing" structures (which does not mean "repairing" them, but making them part of your everyday speech), let's take some examples from "Yesterday" by the Beatles:
- All [my troubles] seemed [so far away]
replace what is in brackets with other expressions (for the first you can substitute any noun phrase, for the second any predicate (substantive: infinitival, substantive // predicate adjective / locative... etc. :
- All [[of] the deadlines] seemed so far away.
- All [[of] our clients] seemed so [satisfied].
- All [[of] the accounting] seemed [to be in order].
- All [[of] our IT people] seemed [to want to change the system].
Or:
- There's [a shadow] [[hanging] over [me]].
which could give:
- There's [a deadline] hanging over [the project].
Blogposts
- Louis Armstrong, "Jonah and the Whale", "Go down, Moses"
- Carole King, James Taylor, "You've Got a Friend"
(For the moment you will have to use ctrl-f to find them on the page. Someday I may fix this. ^^)
Artists
at Lyrics Training:
Songs
Comparatives / Participles
Aloe Blacc & Avicii, "Wake Me Up" lyrics training
Present Perfect
Simple Past
- Beatles -- "Yesterday" (used to) / nostalgic past (Cf. Proust) (lyrics training)
- Lauryn Hill -- "I Used to Love Him"
Particles / Phrasal Verbs
- Armstrong, Louis -- Louis and the Good Book (1958) Cf. Creoliste blogpost
- Fitzgerald, Ella -- "Call the Whole Thing Off" (Gershwin)
- Jones, Norah -- "Turn Me On" dailymotion
- Marley, Bob -- "Get up, Stand up" Santana & Friends
- They Might Be Giants, "Particle Man".
-ing
- Black-Eyed Peas -- "Shut up" -- lyrics training
Prepositions
- Leonard Cohen -- "Dance me to the end of love" live, Madeleine Peyroux cover, wikipedia on the origin of the song
Miscellaneous
- "Let My People Go", traditional. (cf. Jubilee Singers, 1872) Paul Robeson 193?, Louis Armstrong 1958, Russian remix
- "Jonah and the Whale", traditional, Louis Armstrong, Louis and the Good Book, 1958. blog
- Blacc, Aloe -- "I Need a Dollar" [1] | modals, simple vocab
- Black Eyed Peas, Shut Up, Lyrics Training
- Black Eyed Peas + Sting -- "Union"
- Clapton, Eric "Tears in Heaven" lyrics training
- Cohen, Leonard Hallelujah
- Cohen, Leonard, Suzanne
- Costello, Elvis, "Let Him Dangle." Derek Bentley case. [2]. lyrics: [3]
- Gabriel, Peter -- "Shock the Monkey"
- Hayes, Richie -- "Follow the Drinking Gourd" mais qu'en dit la NASA? [4]
- Lauryn Hill: I used to love him
- Lauryn Hill (to her firstborn): To Zion
- Franki Valli / Lauryn Hill: Can't Take My Eyes Off of You
- Elton John & Blue, "Sorry seems to be the hardest word", lyrics training
- King, Carole -- "You've got a friend", from [i]Tapestry[/i] u2b.
- Lennon, John -- "Imagine" Lyrics Training
- Lennon, John -- "Jealous Guy" Lyrics Training
- Marley, Bob -- "Three Little Birds" lyrics training
- O'Connor, Sinead -- "War" a capella (Saturday Night Live)
- Queen -- "Spread Your Wings" (fly away)
- Stevens, Cat -- "Father and Son" at Lyrics Training
- Vega, Suzanne, "Luka", Lyrics Training
Project
- Rush, Moving Pictures tour, [5]
- MTV established in 1981
- Tom Sawyer
- Xanadu
- Closer to the Heart
Videos
- Professor Longhair: Big Chief. Cambridge jumping. [6]
- Fantasia 2000, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. [7]
- Elvis Costello. God's Comic. [8]
- The Police. "Walking in Your Footsteps" [9]
Instrumental
Bluegrass: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegrass_music
