Ask them to think about thought groups—do the breaks in
the melody match the places where we would expect to !nd
thought group boundaries? Sometimes they do, and
sometimes they don’t.
Cloze listening: In a cloze listening activity, students try to
!ll in missing words in printed lyrics as they listen to a song.
This is a good way to help students focus on the sounds of
connected speech and to “translate” reduced forms into
standard spelling. If you use this type of activity, make sure
the blanks you choose are words that can be heard fairly
easily. Spread the blanks out a bit. It takes time to write the
missing words, and it’s very hard if there are too many blanks
too close together. Also, give students plenty of space to write
the required words. Here’s an example cloze activity:
Row, row, row your _boat____
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily.Life is but a dre am__.
Retell the story: Choose a song that tells an interesting
story. Have students listen and go through the meaning,
making sure they understand the plot. Have students retell
the story to a partner, using some of the same phrases,
reduced forms, and connected speech forms that they heard
in the song.Find the mistakes. Give students the lyrics to a song, but
change some words to incorrect words with similar sounds.
The new words don’t have to make sense. For example, “I
want to hold your hand” might become “I want a folder
hand.” Ask students to listen to the song, !nd the mistakes,
and write the real words. With more advanced students, ask
them to think about the examples of connected speech that
they heard. (Murphey 1992 p. 70)Write your own lyrics. Give students the lyrics to a verse
of a familiar song—one whose rhythm is like that of natural
English. Ask students to change the words or write their own
lyrics to express a new meaning, being careful to match the
rhythm of the song by choosing words with the right number
of syllables and stress pattern. (Murphey 1992 p. 74)Songs are not good for teaching intonation
Finally, here’s a word of caution: Songs have their own
requirements that are often di"erent from what we !nd in
natural language. Sometimes syllables are stretched out in a
song when they wouldn’t be emphasized in normal speech, if180