The important of song and poetry in teaching language

By

Fazreena Aryani bt Abu Bakar

Mohamad Rizal bin Abdullah

Muhamad Ammar bin Safiee

Linguistic awareness:

• Students can discuss differences between spoken and written language on the basis of lyrics and singing. Folk songs from different English speaking countries such as America, Canada, Australia, Ireland can be a great resource for teaching linguistic and cultural awareness

Music makes language learning interesting

• Children are taught to sing together from early grades in primary education. Songs are normally about games, description of daily activities, and moral teaching. Therefore, students in tertiary education are comfortable with singing in class, individually and in groups. They enjoy songs in English classes.

Helps to assist crucial processes taken place

• The elements of movement, language, and song are also developmentally connected. Dr. Alfred Tomatis asserted that the ear's integration of information from sound and motor movements is crucial to the early nervous system. From aural input, an infant develops not only sound perception, location, and discrimination, but also the physical movements of verticality and laterality, as well as language.

• Dr. Tomatis also described fetal and infant orientation to the melody contours of their native language, recognizing the mother's voice (as cited in Thompson and Andrews, 181-182). 

Songs offer a change from routine classroom activities

• They are precious resources to develop students abilities in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. As stated by Lo and Fai Li (1998:8), learning English through songs also provides a non-threatening atmosphere for students, who usually are tense when speaking English in a formal classroom setting.

The connection between the music and the language

• Music and language, the primary concerns of the temporal lobes, are a pair of sisters, close in age, opposite in personality, yet the best of friends. Like close sisters, music and language help each other in the process of learning human expression, a common goal.

• Interconnections between the musical and linguistic areas enable music to assist in learning vocabulary and phrases, which tasks are governed by the linguistic intelligence.

poetry

•  According to Nile Stanley, a reading specialist, researcher, and professor of education, “Poetry helps students do well on high stakes tests because it gives their minds an exhilarating workout. Poetry inspires students to read more, imagine more, think more, discuss more and write more.”

Picture poem• Picture poems offer a visual perspective on

the arrangement of words, and are therefore an effective means of encouraging learners to interact with the target vocabulary. By using non-grammatical structures, students can play with the language, producing visual and verbal output. This poem leaves the reader free to make personal (subjective) associations and interpretations.

• Picture poems can encourage creativity and experimentation with the target language, helping students to view the use of English as a pleasurable and creative experience.

Makes a children to feel happy

• Rhythm is a universal phenomenon wherever movement occurs. The regular rhythm of the poetry appeals to the child as something which satisfies his natural urges to move and speak rhythmically

The suitability of implementing poetry to all stages of education

• The qualities of compression, mnemonics, emotion, and consolation in poetry provide some directions about how it might be a paradigm for active, student-centered teaching in the university as well as primary and secondary education.

• United States poet laureate Billy Collins said,“In times of crisis, it’s interesting that people don’t turn to the novel . . . It’s always poetry.”

• Then, he argues that teaching poetry offers some fundamental cognitive and intellectual skills, and that reading a poem “replicates the way we learn and think.”

HAIKU

• Haiku promote brainstorming and collaborative expression, and facilitate expression without the burden of sentence structure. Students are encouraged to see words and short phrases as self-sufficient, and to play with the sounds of the words themselves.

• Vocabulary, spelling and dictionary skills can also be focused on, as students search for words describing concepts and impressions.

• Example: • Summer grasses –• All that remains• Of soldier’s visions

• Any authentic material exposes students to some ‘real English’ and can be very motivating for a students, provided they are supported throughout the task. The other great thing about poems is for students to have the opportunity to see the language work creatively and freely. Poems can be used in many different ways and…

• the more you use them the more uses you’ll find for them.