ESL Songs are one of the absolute best tools you have for teaching preschool and kids English; they’re engaging, memorable, authentic, and great for working off youthful energy. However, there’s a big difference between a song taught well and one done poorly. Here are ten tips to make sure your ESL songs don’t flop.
Tip #1. Master Your ESL Songs
The first tip is simply to prepare well and know your ESL songs. It sounds obvious, but I’ve seen more than a few teachers fumble their way through a half-learned song. The lack of confidence is clear on their face and in every single case their students didn’t connect with the song at all.
So, make sure to learn to your song before you go in to class. Read the lyrics or listen along, but don’t just stop there. Practice and get comfortable with it.
In addition to learning the lyrics and tune, you need to prepare a few other elements:
How are you going to sing it?
Are you going to perform the ESL song in a capella (voice only), or with the help of pre-recorded music? A capella offers a lot of flexibility, but music can provide more energy (and cover for a weak singing voice) as well.
A lot of teachers like playing songs from Youtube videos, which can be attractive, but come with the drawback that a lot of students go into a watching passive mode. They just sit or stand and watch the video instead of singing along or doing the actions. It’s best to avoid using video every time. I’ve seen some teachers stand in front of their screen to block the view and their students became much more involved.
What actions are you going to use?
Actions are a great way to add movement, motivation, and meaning to a song.
Movement is great for working out wiggles and burning off energy, along with building fine and gross motor skills.
Actions also can make songs sillier and more engaging which motivate students to participate and learn.
Finally, actions can help clarify and reinforce the meaning of a song for students.
Fingerplays: These are a really common option, and for good reasons! Lots of songs come with their own already; “One Little Finger,” “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” and “Family Finger Song” are great examples.
Whole Body Actions: These really get your students moving and include songs like; “Walking Walking,” “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes,” and “Walking in the Jungle.”
Pointing: Finally, you could just have students mostly focused on pointing during the song. This might include songs like “My Eyes Nose Mouth Ears,” “The Balloon Song,” and “I see something…Blue!“
Of course, lots of songs include two or more kinds of actions. It’s up to you to decide what to use – or you could even involve your students in brainstorming actions if you’d like.
What visuals or props do you need?
Flashcards: Sometimes songs need more than just the lyrics and some actions. For example, “The Balloon Song” from above is pretty meaningless without any balloons. It goes great, however, with some balloon flashcards that students can look for around the room and wave at.
Scene Card: Other times it helps to find a picture that can summarize the whole song. “Itsy Bitsy Spider” might be beyond your students’ understanding without the help of one or two pictures to help out. You can elicit vocabulary from students and talk about the picture before singing it.
Props: A lot of teachers also like to bring or have students create little props to use in their songs. For example, you might make family member finger puppets to illustrate “daddy finger”, “mommy finger”, and so on.
Puppet: Preschoolers and young students also love it if you lead your songs with the help of a puppet friend. They can join for a round or two and get students excited for a song.
Video: Again, song videos can be a great option for showing the meaning of a song, but use them just once or at most only once a lesson so students focus mainly on listening and singing – not passively watching.
Related Post: Six Reasons Kindergarten EFL Songs Rock
Tip #2. Pre-teach Your Songs
When it comes time for the song in your lesson, there are lots of things you can do to ensure your students’ understanding and enjoyment.
Core Vocab: First, cover any core vocabulary that students need to understand the song. In my lessons the songs are always related to the lesson content, so this amounts to maybe an extra word or two.
Students don’t have to know all the words before singing a song, so don’t get bogged down in teaching everything. They’ll pick up a lot from context or skip over unnecessary bits without problem until they figure them out later.
Core Actions: You can also pre-teach some of the core actions for the song. In my experience, this helps children connect with a new song a lot quicker.
Song Name: Next, tell your students the name of the song that they’re going to sing. Lots of teachers skip over this (I used to, too) because it doesn’t seem necessary. However, later on your students will get excited when you tell them “Let’s sing (One Little Finger)!” and they’ll even request songs by name once they know them.
Tip #3. Play the Whole Song
Kids have great gist listening skills from learning their first language, so let them listen to the whole song the first few times. They’re used to going with the flow of a conversation or song and not understanding everything that they hear.
In your first time through the song you can play or perform the song and just have students listen and watch. Many of them will quickly start mimicking your actions and repeating the chorus on their own.
Another option is to give students some visuals or handouts and have students listen and point at things as they hear them in the song. This is great for activating their listening skills and seeing what they understand. You can use handouts, flashcards, scene cards, or realia.
Early on, you don’t need to stop the song or cut it into chunks to help them understand it. This ends up confusing them and ruining the pacing. Later on, though, if they have a trouble spot you can break the song down, but not before they’re familiar with the flow.
Tip #4. Smile!
I see a lot of well-prepped teachers get themselves into trouble because they forget this next key tip. When you’re singing an ESL song make sure to sing with a smile on your face and act like you really enjoy it, even if you’re already bored to tears.
This is because your students look up to you and want to like what you like. If you look miserable or disconnected during the song they will quickly pick up on that and act accordingly. Then nobody is going to enjoy it.
There are songs I’ve probably sung a thousand times (“Hello Song,” I’m looking at you) but I always make sure to smile so my students and I have fun with it. They’re much more likely to love a song that I “love”.
Tip #5. Be Big
As you perform the song and the actions, don’t forget to be big. Kids like big actions because they’re more energetic and easier to see and understand.
They don’t really do slow and subtle well. So, exaggerate your gestures to attract their attention and engagement.
Tip #6. Quiet and Loud
You don’t have to sing ESL songs all at a normal volume every time. Kids love to go from quiet to loud and vice-versa when they’re familiar with a song.
At that point you can also modify your actions to signify the volume, making your movements bigger the louder everyone sings and smaller the quieter they are. Another option is to stand taller to get students to sing louder and stoop down so everyone sings quietly.
Tip #7. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
Your students will need to hear and sing a song more than once to understand and enjoy it. Don’t make the mistake that some teachers make and quit after one round because the students didn’t seem to like it. Oftentimes they’re just busy trying to figure it out.
Instead, plan on going through the song at least two or three times in your first lesson and twice in later lessons until they’re really familiar with it.
In most cases it will take several lessons for students to get confident with even a simple song.
Tip #8. Play In Case of Emergency…
I find that every class has one or two songs that they really connect with and enjoy. One ESL song tip is to always keep these songs in your back pocket for emergencies.
If one of my lessons starts to lag or students are wiggly, then I stop and say “Let’s sing the (We All Fall Down) song!” Everyone cheers and we all sing together to work out some excess energy. Once it’s over they’re almost always ready to get back to the lesson.
Tip #9. Don’t Overload
In general, just stick to one new song per lesson. More than that is going to overwhelm your students’ ability to learn on top of all the other content in the lesson as well. Remember that with these ages, less is often more.
The one exception to this is if you’re teaching your routine songs like a greeting song and a goodbye song.
Tip #10. Functional Songs
ESL Songs are great for teaching English. They’re also great for other functions in your class like getting students’ attention, cleaning up, or getting into lines.
It’s also nice to play some songs on rotation quietly while students are on break or quietly doing a craft.
Related Post: How to Choose the Best EFL Songs for Kindergarten
Bonus! Tip #11. Send them home
One bonus ESL songs tip! If you can, send class songs home with your students. For example, you can send links or song names to parents so they can play them at home. A lot of parents are looking for ways to help their children learn English and this is an easy way to reinforce class learning.
Did you find anything useful in this post? Don’t forget to like, share, and comment with any tips you have!
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By the way, I think you can tell I’m a big fan of Super Simple Songs. What other producers do you like?
