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Using Song Lyrics to Improve Listening Comprehension

Using Song Lyrics to Improve Listening Comprehension

Date: Mar 23 2009

Topic: Listening

Author: nad1a

Lesson

It's probably no news to you that songs lyrics can be a great listening exercise and practice. You can improve your comprehension and pronunciation and, also, learn a couple of new words and structures. So over here, I would suggest a way to combine your interests in music with learning English.

One thing you can do is, have gap-filling exercises with songs lyrics. You listen to the song and try and find the missing (erased) words in the lyrics.  It's easy to find ready-to-use exercises of that type online.

But if you're interested in a specific song you can't find exercises for, you can either prepare one for yourself, get the lyrics and erase some of the words in it, or have a sort of dictation, where you listen and write what you hear and then check your work. 

1. Listen to the song to understand the main meaning, what it is about etc
2. Listen to it trying to fill the gaps.
3. Check your work and listen to it again.
4. Take out the unknown or interesting words. Search the internet for more collocations and associations with those words. Make your own sentences with them.
5. Listen to the song again (and sing along if you're in the mood :-)) You can do that while reading along and then without the written lyrics, trying to see if you can understand everything you hear.


Actually, you can use this approach with all kind of listening material. You can practice with narrated stories or conversations, interviews. Of course, you will need the scripts and the recorded audio material. Luckily, you can easily get hold of the lyrics of almost any song, or the scripts of any movie or a show online.

This may sound like a lot of work, but after all, you want to learn, right? And apart from that, if you really like the song or the artist in question, you won't necessarily feel like you're doing any work at all. :-)

 ***

I've made a collection of some Similar exercises .

 

More lessons on Pronunciation

Comments

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nad1a

nad1a

Greece

Well, I wouldn’t normally recommend rap songs for learning purposes. Not that there’s much educational material there anyway :-) But unless you have reached a certain level of fluency and understanding in English, it would basically be hard to understand. But if you’re really interested in the lyrics, you could listen to a rap song and follow the lyrics from a text. That’s a good way to actualy study the word connections in a fast speech, contractions etc

03:17 PM Oct 15 2011 |

maxintel

maxintel

Chad

thats is true but its not easy to understand some slang used by a rap song for example!!

01:49 PM Oct 15 2011 |

nad1a

nad1a

Greece

You can actually go ahead and create your own listening quiz based on a song lyrics. Just google the name and artist of the song you’re interested in, copy the lyrics and paste them on a word file and blank out some words/sections of the lyrics. (It goes without saying that it’s an unfamiliar or a new song you just heard, we ‘re talking about) Then listen and try to figure out the missing parts using the steps above. 

01:39 PM Oct 15 2011 |

tonybrown2121

Hungary

check out tunesdiary.com where you find songs and lyrics playing together

12:03 PM Mar 25 2011 |

alsaadi_o

United Arab Emirates

THANKS ALOT IT IS I VERY USEFUL

 

 

 

 

10:56 AM Jun 29 2009 |

ayoub22b

ayoub22b

Morocco

yeah it's good idea  thanksssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

10:55 AM Jun 28 2009 |

rouhollah20

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

this mood is great

i have tested it.

call me on +989173763091 

10:52 AM Jun 28 2009 |

uriel lopez

Colombia

hi verybody, iam, uriel form colombia

11:12 PM Jun 27 2009 |

HYDE!

HYDE!

China

YEAH~

GREAT!Cool

01:43 PM Jun 27 2009 |

uniqueness

uniqueness

Saudi Arabia

yeah

filling gaps

very important

09:19 PM Jun 26 2009 |

funny_girle

United Arab Emirates

i want Using Song Lyrics to Improve Listening

04:56 PM Jun 26 2009 |

tony.yy

tony.yy

China

It is the good way to learn english here and alone,Thanks.

01:41 AM Jun 26 2009 |

Brathless

Brathless

Saudi Arabia

thx nada for whatever u did , I like u,r Idea but somemusic is hard to listen to it coze it isn't clear I hope help me

 

Best wishes : Dahoom

12:09 PM Jun 25 2009 |

favour44

Senegal

Hello dear,
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favour my box( ) so that i can send you my picture to see me.i am expecting to read your email soonest.
you

11:03 PM Jun 24 2009 |

Elle shing

Elle shing

China

I am kinda courious of this studying method,coz I never tried and I doubt its actual help.

09:25 PM Jun 23 2009 |

amir81

amir81

Kazakhstan

its a very interesting way to study english. I liked it but  i have never know about  it.

08:48 AM Jun 23 2009 |

jabree

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

It s very good idea to learning english with people and how they can improve their skills about english

10:29 PM Jun 22 2009 |

celik37

Turkey

hello how are you

we to meet   

06:50 PM Jun 22 2009 |

TranceSoul

TranceSoul

Poland

Yeah, it's great method to learn english. I practise it for a long time and it really works!!

 

It gives me 3  benefits:

1. I listen my favourite music

2. I learn english very quickly

3. I remeberthe text

03:22 PM Jun 22 2009 |

1 person likes this

perhatian ndruru

Indonesia

help me friends, how to open this program..

09:54 AM Jun 22 2009 |

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