Week 4: Learn to sing? Sing to learn! -- Lyricstraining

 

“This is the most interesting learning tool I have eve used!”  
 

Hi, welcome to my new weekly post! I learned a new learning tool this week and I can’t wait to share with you!

 

Lyricstraining

Today I am going to introduce a new English learning technology, the Lyricstraining! As shown in the name, this learning website uses songs to teach and practice English, which is the fun part!

(screenshot is taken from https://lyricstraining.com/en)

When we enter the website, there are many videos you can choose to do English learning. From the most popular songs right now, to your old, classic favourites, you can find on the website. If you can’t find the song you are looking for, make sure to use the ‘search’ button, you will be surprised! All the songs are from the YouTube so you don’t need to worry about the copyright issues, feel free to use it in your classroom!

To use it in the classroom

Imagine you are facing a group of children and the class starts at 3pm, everybody is tired and sleepy, the last thing they need is another 2 hour grammar teaching, why not use lyricstraining to lighten their mood, to wake them up!

In here I used an ELT song called ‘welcome to my town’ for example. Before we begin, there are difficult level for you to choose. Based on your students’ level, choose the best difficulty for them.

This the one of the advantages I want to say. Not every students has the same level, but they can all enjoy the game equally.

(screenshot is taken from https://lyricstraining.com/en/play/elt-songs/welcome-to-my-town)

After we select the mode, we start the game (finally!) There are also two question types; one is typing the lyrics you hear; another is select the word you hear from the right side. I use the choice mode so you can get the better look of how this works.

 

(screenshot is taken from https://lyricstraining.com/en/play/elt-songs/welcome-to-my-town)

 

For students, they listen the song and they try to identify the missing word, then tell the teacher which is the right word. If they get it right, the song continues to play without pausing. If they are wrong, they have to get the right answer to listen the rest of the song. There are time and score bars on the top, when they run out, the game ends. If students can’t hear the missing lyrics, you can always replay the part until they get the right answer.

(screenshot is taken from https://lyricstraining.com/en/play/elt-songs/welcome-to-my-town)

 

The lyricstraining can really practice listening and spelling. Students can get familiar with how some words are used in native speakers’ contexts. I think they can help students with vocabulary and culture learning.

They are not just a 'toy' for young learners.

For older and adult learners, the website is also very useful. And I think maybe it work better with adult intermediate learners. They are many song for they to choose and difficulty to challenge, very suitable for self-study and self-testing. Besides, the website has multiple language options, English songs are not the only resource. So all level learners can find the best content for them to learn a language.

 

Limitation

Like its advantages, the limitations of lyricstraining are also obvious. When I use the tool, I don’t feel like I am learning English rather than just playing a very interesting game. So I think this website functions more about entertaining than actually learning. The game can be very immersive, and students are willing to visit again. But the issue is, it doesn’t help much for improving our language ability. For listening, most songs are not designed to teaching purpose, so sometimes we can’t get a very clear pronunciation, and the regular usage that we can adapted in our daily conversation. 

Therefore, I suggest we can use at the beginning of the class, just to lighten the mood and make some fun with students. For older and higher-level students, this can be a part of self-learning.

That’s for today! Thank you for reading and hope you find my blog useful! See you in next post :)!