Music is a universal language.  Using authentic musical selections with language learners can be very motivating to students and a friendly way for students to hone their listening skills.  Songs lyrics can be presented in written format, as an audio clip or as a music video (sometimes with subtitles).  And, at times, students may be familiar with the artists.

Why use music as authentic text in the language classroom?

• Includes repetition
• Reinforces pronunciation
• Shows language structures in context
• Connects to culture, history, current events
• Can be used as a classroom management strategy
• Improves listening skills
• Motivates students’ interest in the target language
• Reinforces grammar and syntax
• Encourages creative thought in the target language

Konig, Patricia.  “Language Can Be Music to Students Ears.”  The Language Educator, 2011.

Strategies using music as authentic text

Here are some examples of lesson activities you might use as processes for interpreting songs:

Alternate Title: Invent a new title for the song.

Alternate Verses: Given every other verse of the song, imagine the missing verses.

Before and After: Imagine what happened before and after action(s) in song.

Category Lists: Place words heard in specified categories. Variation: Given lyrics, read and place words in categories.

Chronological Order: Given a list of actions in song, decide probable order of occurrence. Listen to verify correctness.

Cover Design: Draw a CD cover to represent theme in song. Variation: Given a CD title, imagine the cover. Cover Speculation: Make conjectures based on CD cover.

Dialogue Adaptation: Adapt song to a dialogue.

Figures of Speech: Locate similes and metaphors in lyrics; discuss.

Four Corners: (1) After hearing song, go to designated corner of room (“love,” “like,” “don’t like,” “hate”) and discuss impressions. (2) Line up to show degree of like/dislike for song; discuss. (3) Rotate partners in inside-outside circles to share opinions about song.

Grammar Recognition: Raise hand/card or stand when you hear a selected grammatical feature in song (specific tense, gender, subjunctive, etc.).

Guess the Title: Listen to song and try to guess title. Imitate the Songwriter: Write a new song on the same topic or change original lyrics.

Incorrect Lyrics: Correct lyrics as you listen to song (listen for extraneous words or substitutions).

Key Words: Take word card or picture and stand when/if you hear your word in song. Variation: Given a list of possible words, check off if you hear a word in song.

Letters: Write a letter to the singer.

Lyrics Modification: Substitute other logical words for underlined words in song.

Motivation: Speculate about reasons for writing song.

Name That Word: When music stops before end of song, tell last word sung. Variation: Predict next word.

Predictions: Before hearing song, predict which words might logically fit in lyric blanks or which words would rhyme.

Ratings: Listen to snippets of songs to rate/compare.

Stories: Narrate or write out story from song. Variations: (1) Retell from another person’s point of view. (2) Write as a newspaper article.

Title Associations: Given song title, brainstorm list of words you might expect to hear in song; check off list as you listen.

Video Speculation: Imagine video of song.

Word Search: Given list of words, listen for synonyms/antonyms in lyrics.

Examples of tasks using music in multiple communicative modes

Songs not only provide practice in the interpretive mode for students, but can also serve as a springboard to interpersonal and presentational tasks.

I invite you to visit my website where on the page entitled “Authentic Resources,” you will find multiple links for songs in the target language, often aligned to vocabulary and grammar points:

Many of our language colleagues have aligned popular songs in the target language to grammatical structures that they demonstrate in context and have generously shared those lists/databases with the rest of us.

French:

Clarisse Les chanteurs français et leurs chansons (crowd-sourced database)

German:

Ten Songs with Hidden German Grammar Lessons

Spanish:

El mundo de Birch Spanish amazing music database!!!

Because of the highly visual nature of many authentic resources, they can easily be used to introduce and reinforce new vocabulary because they provide a context for learning the words and phrases.  Using authentic resources for the input phase of the lesson adds interest for the learners and injects real world connections.

Infographics

Infographics that illustrate results from a survey often provide visuals for the theme of the survey and give the context of what peoples’ preferences are.  They offer the opportunity for students to make predictions about survey results and compare and contrast them with their own opinions.

Here is an example in Spanish about sports preferences around the world:

Here’s one for leisure time activities in French:

And one for favorite foods in German:

And one for most ideal occupations in French:

And one for most trusted occupations in German:

And one for Italian for which region of Italy offers the best job opportunities:

Instead of learning about or practicing vocabulary related to body parts by looking at a drawing of a nondescript person,  think about how much more engaging it will be for students to talk about body parts in the context of a famous soccer player’s injuries.

Some examples of strategies for introducing and reinforcing thematic vocabulary through infographics include:

1. Initially covering up the labels on an infographic as the teacher introduces the new vocabulary and then revealing them while checking for understanding.
2. Students have a version of the infographic with blanks where the vocabulary words are and a word bank with the new words.  As the teacher introduces the new vocabulary, students write the appropriate words and phrases into the blanks.
3. Students are given a version of the infographic in pieces.  They assemble the “puzzle” as the vocabulary is introduced.

More examples:

A. School supplies in the context of shopping for back to school (Spanish):

B. Food in the context of what your pet can and cannot eat (Spanish):

C.  Clothing in the context of packing a suitcase (Spanish):

D. Modes of transportation in the context of how people get to work (French and Spanish):

E. Rooms of the house in the context of saving energy in your home (French):

I invite you to visit my Pinterest boards, many of which are organized by topic, to find infographics aligned to your vocabulary themes for introduction and for reinforcement:

This is a sequel to my first post on “Teaching Grammar in Context Using Authentic Resources” posted on April 13, 2018.

In that post, we explored several of the approaches for teaching grammar in context:

• Concept Attainment
• Using an Inductive Approach
• Discovery Technique
• The Flipped Model
• PACE Model

Many of the above mentioned strategies allow students to use an inductive approach to figure out the “why” and “how” of grammar in context.  Some have more structured protocols than others.  Which one you choose depends on your students, the particular grammar point you want to highlight, and what works best for your teaching.

As we know, ACTFL’s Core Practices for World Language Learning include “guide learners through interpreting authentic resources” and “teach grammar as a concept and use in context.”

For this post, let’s turn our attention to examples of how authentic resources that might be used to teach grammar in context, thus combining two of the core practices.

The most natural way for students to gain an understanding of grammar in the target language is for them to see it being used in context.  Context carries meaning for students in lieu of learning “about” grammar in isolation, often in English.

In no way do the Core Practices imply that grammar or structure are no longer important to language learning.  Looking closely at the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements, beginning at the Intermediate High proficiency level (in the case below for interpersonal communication), students must be able to exchange information and interact across various time frames.  At those levels, language learners must have structural understanding to be able to communicate in a variety of tenses.

Memes and quotes

A great place to start with teaching grammar as a concept and using it in context through authentic resources is to use memes and quotes.

Memes (although they cannot always be verified as authentic) are examples of grammar in context mixed with humor.  Many of them involve cats, dogs, and characters from television and movies.

A series of memes that are examples of a particular grammar point can be shown to language learners to have them draw conclusions about how that particular structure works.

Here are some examples below for adjectives in French:

One way to approach this task is to give small groups of students one meme.  Students analyze the meme first for meaning.  What is the meme trying to say?  Students use the visuals, cognates, words they already know, and words that may be related to ones they know to help them unlock the meaning.  The teacher circulates in the classroom and assists students with guessing the meaning of words with which they are unfamiliar using target language examples, circumlocution, and visuals, etc. to reinforce their meaning.

Then, students’ attention is directed to the adjectives in each quote/saying and the students draw conclusions about:

• the gender of the nouns being described
• the position of the adjectives (before or after the noun)
• the endings on the adjectives and what they say about the nouns they are describing.

The teacher might follow up with asking students to change the nouns in the memes. For example, in the meme with the giraffe, students can rework the quote to include a noun that is feminine, plural, etc.

The small groups of students may then be asked to create a meme of their own using ideas from the examples.

Visit my Pinterest page to see collections of memes and quotes for multiple languages or click on the images below for particular languages (French, German, Italian, and Spanish):

Tweets and other social media posts

The tweets below are authentic social media posts that all demonstrate the comparative in Spanish.  The teacher searched for them in Twitter by inputting phrases like “más que” and “menos que.”  Consider how a teacher might initially have students interact with the tweets as an interpretive task (deriving meaning from them) and then use the same tweets to examine how the comparative works in Spanish.  Students may be asked to highlight or circle the items/ideas being compared in each sentence and draw conclusions about what determined the ending of each adjective.

Poems and song lyrics

Poems and song lyrics are types of authentic text that are very friendly to teaching grammar as a concept in context.  Many of our language colleagues have aligned popular songs and famous poems in the target language to grammatical structures that they demonstrate in context and have generously shared those lists/databases with the rest of us.

French:

Clarisse Les chanteurs français et leurs chansons (crowd-sourced database)

German:

Ten Songs with Hidden German Grammar Lessons

Spanish:

El mundo de Birch Spanish amazing music database!!!

For more links for target language music aligned to grammar points, go to:

An example of a poem that French teachers often use as a great example of grammar in context, is “Déjeuner du Matin” by Jacques Prévert

The entire poem is embedded with examples of the passé composé in context:

Example in practice:

In an intermediate German class, the teacher shows a meme “It’s enough for me that I know that I could if I wanted to” to gain students’ attention and to spark a review of the use of the subjunctive in German.  Students are asked to brainstorm descriptors of the frog (confident, lazy, smart, etc.).  The teacher asks the students to tell why they chose the various descriptors.  If necessary, the teacher models an example (I think he is _____ because _____.)

The teacher draws the students’ attention to the verbs in the meme and their tenses.   She tells them that they will be listening to a song with a similar title and theme, “Wenn ich könnte wie ich wollte,” by Howard Carpendale.

The students are given a cloze activity with the lyrics to the song where all of the subjunctive forms (and other phrases) are removed and the students fill in the verb forms.  As they listen to the song, they check their answers and fill in other missing phrases.  The students share their answers in small groups and then listen a final time with all lyrics complete.

The teacher then provides a chart where the students fill in the present tense, imperfect tense, and the subjunctive verb forms (the verbs in bold all appear in the song):

As an extension activity, students are led through a guided writing task where they plan, peer edit, and write the final draft of a journal entry entitled “If I could, I would…”

Authentic resources are created by and for the target language users either for information or entertainment.  They are texts that students can read, listen to, or view in the target language.  Much attention is paid to written authentic text.

For this post, let’s turn our attention to building students’ interpretive skills with authentic text for listening and viewing.

As indicated by the infographic below,  listening has many benefits which include increasing literacy, fluency and motivation.

https://ebookfriendly.com/improve-reading-skills-infographics/how-audio-increases-literacy-infographic/

When considering having students listen or view authentic text, we must first anchor ourselves in the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements that describe what students can do in the Interpretive Mode at the various proficiency levels.

Novices can: identify words and phrases, some isolated facts, and the topic or gist of an authentic text that is composed of simple sentences that is listened to or viewed.

Students at the intermediate level can: identify the main idea and some details from short straightforward authentic text and conversations.

Here are some examples of novice-level listening/viewing activities:

1. Spanish- During a unit on the theme of school, students listen to and watch a 30 second commercial about back to school sales at Arrocha, a store in Panama:

During their listening/viewing, students are asked to:

• circle all of the words/phrases they hear in the commercial based on a word cloud of words created on Wordle or Tagxedo
• circle each vocabulary word/phrase they hear and draw a line to the backpack
• complete a cloze activity with the commercial transcript.

2. French- During a unit on the theme of describing people and things, students listen to and watch a Coca Cola commercial called “Du bonheur pour tous.”

While they listen to and view the commercial, in addition to bullets one and three listed above (circling key words in a word cloud and doing a cloze activity using the transcript) an alternative activity might be:

• Students are given two columns of adjectives/descriptors.  As they listen to/watch the commercial they connect the opposites.

For links to authentic commercials in the target language, go to:

Or, go to my Pinterest boards that have target language commercials sorted by language:

French:      

German:    

Spanish:   

Types of authentic text that might be listened to or viewed include:

• commercials
• podcasts
• songs/music videos
• video clips
• movie trailers
• news clip
• live or recorded interviews
• live or recorded performances
• animated short films
• fine art
• photographs

The approach for teaching students how to listen to or view an authentic text (with audio) is very similar to that of teaching students how to read an authentic text.  Students listen/view for words they know, words that sound like words they know (cognates), and figure out meaning of words based on context.

Students’ comprehension can be bolstered before listening or viewing (with audio) by using typical before reading strategies:

• Students make predictions about the authentic text
• Students brainstorm connections with and ideas and questions about the topic of the authentic text
• Students list what they already know about the topic of the authentic resource

Similarly, students can use during reading strategies for listening and viewing (with audio) as well.

• Students take notes about authentic text as they listen/view
• Students record new vocabulary gained from the authentic text
• Students use a graphic organizer to record ideas while listening/viewing

What makes listening and viewing very different from reading as an interpretive skill, is that the text (unless the transcript is provided or there are subtitles) is not visible to the student.  To overcome this challenge (of not being able to see the words), students can be taught skills for capturing ideas they listen to through the use of a variety of strategies.

Supports and Scaffolds for Students During Listening and Viewing Tasks

Cloze activities

Cloze activities are those that use the script for a text with words or phrases omitted.  The task of the student is to listen to the text and fill in the missing words and phrases.  A great source for cloze activities for Spanish based on music is Zachary Jones’ website called Zambombazo.  He calls the activities “Clozeline.”

Here’s an example:

Here’s a cloze activity example in French for the song by Gerald DePalmas called “Mon Coeur Ne Bat Plus.”:

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers assist students in capturing what they have heard/viewed and classify those ideas into topics/themes.  A great example is a 5W’s (who, what, when, where, why) and 1H (how) graphic organizer.  Here are some examples in Spanish below:

And here’s an example in French:

Or, the organizer might be where students record events from the text in sequence.  Here is an example in French:

and one for Spanish:

For more examples of graphic organizers, click here

Visual Notetaking or “Sketchnoting”

Visual notetaking or Sketchnoting is a strategy whereby students draw symbols and pictures to indicate their understanding of a text.  The result is a visual version of the text that was listened to or viewed.

Here’s an example in Spanish:

For more on how to teach listening skills, explore the slideshow below:

Viewing authentic resources without audio

Included in the examples of authentic text are visuals like photographs and fine art.

How do we teach students to interpret text like pictures?

Some strategies students can use when “reading a picture” are:

• describe what they see (what is going on, who is doing what)
• make connections with the visual
• describe how the picture makes them feel
• express an opinion

A great scaffold/support for students to practice how to interpret a picture is a “Picture Description Frame.”  Here’s an example below for Italian.  Students lay the “frame”(with the center cut out) over the picture and use the expressions around the perimeter of the frame to help them describe the visual either through speaking or writing.

Here’s an example for French:

During a unit on leisure activities, students view the painting called “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat.

The students overlay their “description frames” onto the image.

Then, the students use the prompts around the frame to assist them with describing the picture either orally or in written format.

This tool and ones for other languages can be found at the link below by scrolling down to the bottom of the webpage:

https://www.grahnforlang.com/scaffolds-and-supports.html

To find out more about viewing comprehension strategies, check out the resource below:

http://www.thinkfinity.org

What topics are of high interest to 21st century language learners?

Current fads like fidget spinners?

Protecting the environment by recycling?

The impact of natural disasters?

Immigration?

Bullying?

Sports?

Women’s rights?

Homelessness?

Cellphones?

The best way to find out what your language learners are interested in…

is to ask!

Imagine that you are beginning a unit on the topic of school.  What interests your students about schools in the target language country/countries?

The slide above shows some examples of authentic text you might select for your students based on what they are interested in learning about:

• How are their classes similar to or different from ours? (school schedule in Spanish)
• Do students dread having to go back to school like we do? (meme in French)
• Are students in the target culture stressed like we are? (infographic in German)
• What do students in the target culture carry in their backpacks? (video in Italian)

More questions students may have:

• Do the students have to wear uniforms?
• What do they have for lunch?
• What supplies do they need for school?
• Do they use cellphones/technology in their schools?
• Are their backpacks heavy like ours?
• Do they have after school activities?

These questions provide a rich context for the “school unit” as the teacher plans tasks and activities for the daily lessons.  In addition, students feel empowered that the teacher asks them about their interests and may be more engaged in class tasks because they feel that they have contributed to the plan.

FYI- For more authentic resources on the topic of “back to school” for French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, go to:

Implementing K-W-L Charts

K-W-L charts are a more graphic way to collect information from your students about their interests.  K-W-L is a strategy developed by Donna Ogle (1986).  It is set up in three columns:

• “K”- What I know
• “W”- What I’d like to learn
• “L”- What I learned

What students write in the “K” column reveals what students already know about the topic.  It may include vocabulary words, phrases, beliefs, and misconceptions.  Teachers can use this information to recognize knowledge students bring to the topic and use that information as a starting point for the unit theme.

Student thinking recorded in the “W” (What I’d like to learn) column gives teachers information about how to craft lessons that will address students’ interests, and therefore should increase student motivation and engagement.

Here are some examples of K-W-L Graphic Organizers in Spanish, French, and German:

Using high interest authentic resources as lesson hooks

A lesson hook is another way of naming what Madeline Hunter referred to as the “anticipatory set.”  It is the first thing students see and do when the lesson begins.  The lesson hook has several purposes:

• grab students’ attention
• directly relate to the lesson objective/target
• tap prior knowledge
• reinforce previously learned material
• connect or combine learning
• extend or enrich learning
• show grammar in context
• add a cultural component

When selecting an authentic resource to act as a lesson hook with student interest in mind, consider using

• humor/jokes
• current events
• novel visuals

The lesson hook authentic text can be used as a jumping off point to any number of learner-centered tasks like interpersonal exchanges or a free write.  They can also begin a conversation about grammar and syntax in context.

Some examples:

Meme (in French)    

Cartoon/comic strip (Spanish)   

Commercial (in German):   

Art:    

Quote (in Chinese):  

Example classroom scenario:

In a novice high/intermediate low level Spanish class, during the unit on leisure activities, the teacher has discovered that many students in the class are fans of FIFA and/or play on the school soccer teams.  Guided by the interests of the students, the teacher shows two infographics from a Pinterest board called “Radiografías Mundialistas” to review with students how to express comparatives and superlatives in preparation for a performance assessment where students must compare and contrast two texts.

https://www.pinterest.es/notimex/radiografías-mundialistas

The teacher begins by asking yes/no and either/or questions about the infographics and then spirals up to who, what, when, where questions. Based on student performance, the teacher may elect to increase the rigor of questions by including how and why questions with students justifying their responses.  She uses comprehensible input strategies to review key words in the target language such as:

the same as                                        larger

as many ____ as                                 smaller

more _____ than                                the most

less _____ than                                   the least

better                                                  but

worse

The teacher then puts students into pairs.  Each pair selects two countries’ soccer teams from the Pinterest board and read the information on the infographics for those teams (ex.Uruguay and Suiza).  They work together to glean the similarities and differences between the countries and teams.  The teacher provides them with a list of the expressions reviewed earlier in the lesson.

Each pair creates a quiz using Google Forms that consists of the two infographics, three true comparison statements about them, and two false ones.  Classmates take each pair’s “quiz” through the Google Forms.