Music and Language: How Songs Can Boost Your Learning

Music and language share a deep-rooted connection. Both involve patterns, rhythm, and emotional expression. This synergy can be harnessed to create a dynamic and engaging learning environment for you as an English language learner.

How Music Can Enhance Your English Learning

1. Vocabulary Acquisition: Songs introduce new words and phrases in a natural and memorable context. For example, the classic nursery rhyme “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” introduces a student at the beginner level to basic word classes such as the noun “star”, the helping verb “are” and the adjective “little”. Moreover, these words are presented in meaningful contexts, making them easier to remember and understand.
2. Encourages active listening: As a student you want to listen attentively to the lyrics, identify keywords and phrases, then be able to sing along. The chorus, with it’s regular repetition, can be very helpful here. Why not check out the chorus in “Flashlight” by Jessie J.

3.      Structural patterns:  Songs can introduce and reinforce grammatical sentence structures in a natural and engaging way. A good example is the conditional clause “If I Were a Boy” that is Beyonce’s song.

4.      Sentence variety: Lyrics often showcase a variety of sentence structures, expanding your grammatical knowledge. Consider Alicia Keys’ “Girl on Fire”

           This girl is on fire - this line starts with a demonstrative determiner

           She is walking on fire - while this one starts with a pronoun, followed by a verb phrase

5.      Enjoyable learning: Songs are fun to sing along, which makes learning fun and enjoyable, thus increasing motivation. Repeated exposure to the songs you enjoy will reinforce your vocabulary learning just as indicated in point number one.

Alright, please write back and let me know the new words and phrases you have learnt from your favourite songs!

Best wishes,

Eileen