ESL Music

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Students appreciate and enjoy using ESL music to practice listening.

Jump to ESL Music Activities

If your students enjoy listening to music, they might be encouraged to study English harder in order to gain a better understanding of the music.

This type of intrinsic motivation can give students a new purpose to study English, rather than to just pass a test.

6 Ideas For Using Music in the EFL / ESL Classroom

1. Lyrics Gap Fill

Get a copy of the lyrics. Remove key words and draw blanks or lines. Pass out the lyrics to the students. Play the music. Students listen to the music and try to fill in the missing words.

Note: it’s best to remove the last word of a phrase, a rhyming word, or a main word that is relatively easy to understand.

2. Jumbled Lyrics

Get a copy of the lyrics. Cut each line or phrase into strips. Pass out the strips of paper to the students or a group of students. Play the music. Students listen to the music and try to put the strips of paper in the correct order.

3. Lyrics with Rhyming Words

Get a copy of the lyrics. Remove the last word of each line or phrase. Replace with a word that rhymes with the removed word.

Pass out the lyrics to the students. Play the music. Students listen to the music and try to find the words that are wrong and replace them with the correct words.

4. Talk about Useful Expressions

Get a copy of the lyrics. Underline useful expressions. Pass out the lyrics to the students. Play the music. Students follow along with the lyrics while listening. Ask the students to get into groups and talk about the useful expressions (i.e., the meaning, situations when it is used, create a dialogue using the expressions).

5. Summarize the Song

Get a copy of the lyrics. Pass out the lyrics to the students. Play the music. Students follow along with the lyrics while listening. Ask the students to get into groups and talk about the meaning of the song. Then, the students can summarize the song. Ask groups to present their summary to the class. Discuss any differences in interpretation.

6. Talk about Culture

Get a copy of the lyrics. Pass out the lyrics to the students. Play the music. Students follow along with the lyrics while listening. Ask the students to get into groups and talk about the meaning of the song. Then, the students can discuss any cultural differences (i.e., differences between their home country and the country of the musicians).

See also:

Larry Ferlazzo's list of websites that have music resources for teachers and students. Lyrics Mode offers over 700,000 song lyrics from more than 30,000 artists.