Using Songs to Motivate Students

Abstract

The article deals with the ways songs can be used in the ESL classroom to motivate students to learn English and enhance their involvement. One of the big problems we all face, whether teaching English to children or adults, is maintaining learners’ interest throughout our lessons. Consequently, we often have to be very creative in the techniques we use. Singing songs can be relaxing for students and teachers alike as they give us great opportunity to change routine classroom activities into entertainment and fun. What makes music such a great teaching tool is its ability to develop learners’ skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing and can be used in various ways to teach and practice vocabulary, pronunciation, stress, sentence structures. They can be used as language tasks, focusing on particular material and can be adapted to suit the specific purpose a teacher might wish to teach. The article deals with the different ways and activities that can motivate and enhance students’ involvement in meaningful tasks according to the needs and goals the teacher sets for them to reach.