Learn Through Lyrics

During my age of learning language in schools, I always thought that songs' lyrics did help me in improving my English competence. As a second language learner, I always wanted to find interactive and fun way to learn, something which won't give me so much pressure in acquiring the language. And now, there is a website that I found and it is useful for students to learn through lyrics! Lyrics Training is very interesting since it allows us (even teachers!) to have fun while learning English.

It has the most up-to-date songs for us to choose and challenge ourself by filling in the blanks while the song is being played. I believe it is not an easy task for certain people especially for those who rarely listen to English songs and have problem with spelling. BUT, as it is FUN and ENTERTAINING, it is worth to try for your own good. So, in this website, we can choose various songs in the search box.

There are three different difficulties that we can opt for, depending on our ability. For beginner level, 10% of the lyrics is missing and need to filled in. It may easy for expert learners, thus the expert level challenge them to fill in all the lyrics on their own. It means all the words are missing and the song won't continue until the correct word is being filled in!

This is for beginner where only a few words are missing from the lyrics!

Try yourself for the expert level and see how far you can go! Your time is being recorded (in the left circle) and it gives pressure for you to do the best. Moreover, you can put yourself in a rank (see circle on the right) for every level by getting as the highest mark as you can.

Teaching suggestion:

English teachers can use this source for lower and upper secondary school students. It is practical and applicable for students to do this activity on their own, and encourage autonomous learning.

There are several reasons why I believe this website will help language learners:

1. It is a good source for listening and spelling activity in a very entertaining way! Students can listen to a very catchy song/ lyrics and spell out words, instead listening to a boring flat tone typical texts.

2. Students have opportunity to practice and learn new vocabulary. Some of words in the lyrics are frequently used in daily conversation, but maybe new for certain students.

3. If such activity is conducted in the classroom, it allows students to participate and engage with the activity very much. Once the students try, I am confident that they won't stop because it is FUN! Well I think it is important for your students to have fun while learning (in a good way) to encourage them using the language.

However, there are also some points that teachers should consider, such as:

1. If this activity is held the classroom during the lesson, teachers should set a time limit so that students know when they need to stop. We don't want our students to be carried away and our lesson planning is distracted. Thus, it can be an option for teachers to encourage students to do this activity at home, as their source of independent learning and report it to the teachers.

2. There is a possibility for students to look up the whole lyrics in the internet without even trying (which is so frustrating for teachers!).

But, in overall, I think, it is WORTH for us to try this out, because this website is FREE!! So, feel free to learn language in a very FUN way.