Follow these simple tips whenever you are teaching with songs in your classroom:
Pre-Listening:
1. Create interest first. You can do this by showing a picture to your class that relates to the theme of the song, the artist, the music style, or the culture. Have students brainstorm in Spanish whatever comes to their mind when they see the picture you are showing them. You can write keywords on the board as they brainstorm to help reinforce vocabulary. This also helps them create associations with their background knowledge and the new information that is coming. You can also pre-design questions that will hook them into the activity.
2. To create more interest before they listen, tell them that they are about to listen to one of the biggest hits in Latin American music, and best of all, by the end of the lesson they will be able to understand it perfectly!
Listening:
Stage 1:
Decide on an activity you want them to do while listening to the song for the first time. Save the video for the subsequent repetitions of the song. Choose a short activity that is not too distracting. For example, give one of the following sets of directions:
a) "As you listen, jot down all of the words you understand on a pice of paper. How many can you get? We will check as a class when the song is over."
b) "I will pass around some lines taken from the lyrics of the song. Please listen carefuly and stand up when you hear your sentence."
c) "I just want you to listen to the song, and write down your thoughts about what you think the song is about. We will check your guesses later."
Stage 2:
Hand out a worksheet that students will complete as they listen for the second time. Do not show the video yet. Have students focus only on listening to the the audio. These are some ideas for worsheets that you can make beforehand:
a) Create fill-in-the-blank worksheets with certain song lyrics removed. You can remove verbs, nouns, adjectives, or short sentences, depending on the level of
the class, and also depending on the curriculum. Try not to remove too many words to reduce student frustration and increase liklihood of success. I never
remove more than 10.
b) Select some sentences from the lyrics. Put them into a Word docuent and print enough copies for your class. Cut the sentences out and hand them out to
students to put them in order. Students can work in pairs. To make this activity more challenging, add a sentence or two that are never used in the song.
c) Have students rearrange pictures based on the story of the song. You can find clipart of photos online to make your own worksheets.
Check with your students to see how the activity went. They may need to listen to the song one more time in order to finish the worksheet. Check the answers in class, and then focus on defining words that may be new to them.
Stage 3:
By now, your students should be familiar with the tune of the song, the lyrics, the theme, and the pronunciation. Now it's time to give them a treat! Ask them how many would like to watch the actual video of the song. In my experience, the vast majority will raise their hands, which is great because it opens a new opportunity for repetition and comprehensible input.
Post-Listening:
1. If time allows, have students write down all of the words they remember from the song they worked with today. Their list should be pretty impressive. This is a great opportunity for teachers to praise them and raise their motivation.
2. Assign homework to expand the experience. Here are some ideas:
a) Create a poster about the song and the artist you learned to day in class.
b) Write a short paragraph explaining what the song was about, and what you liked the most about it.
c) Draw four pictures that show what the song was about. Include captions to every picture to explain what is happening.
d) Change the lyrics of the song to a specific verb tense, for example from the present to the past, form the present to the future, etc.
3. Most importantly, send your students to this website so that they can watch the video at home. The chances for them to sing along will be higher if they have some privacy.
Good luck!
Note: The songs and lyrics have been revised by a native Spanish speaker to ensure appropriateness, correct spelling, and cultural or linguistic relevance. Some of the videos are more school-appropriate than others. We recommend that you watch the videos before using them in class to make sure they meet your criteria.