Lyrics Training

What is Lyrics Training?
I think we all agree that music is a universal language. I enjoy Korean and French songs even though I don’t understand the lyrics. For music lovers like me, Lyrics Training is a fantastic tool that can help improving listening skills while enjoying music.

How it works?
On the website, there are numerous videos in different languages extracted from YouTube. The texts used are the lyrics of pop music. First, choose the language you want to learn. Then you choose a music video. If you have something particularly like, you can search by the singer’s name or the title of the song and see if it is available. If you have no idea where to start with, you can begin with the popular videos in the “Top Lyrics” section on the website.
After choosing the song, you can also choose from four levels of difficulty: beginners, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert. 10% of the text is left blank in beginner level, while 25% in intermediate level , 50% in advanced level and all the lyrics in expert level is left blank, and the words are randomly chosen.
It is like a dictation, you listen to the song and type the missing words in the gaps. You can always listen to the same line if you are not sure about it. You can also skip by clicking the arrow and the answer will be shown.
The lyrics in the chorus section are usually repeated a few times throughout the song, some lines are repeated within the same part, just like the example below. (AND YES the examination is coming and I use Lyrics Training and other tools to practice French. Don't really like doing grammar exercises in the book hahaha)

Repetition is one of the useful ways to practice English. This is a good way to practice listening skills, and speaking too if students sing along!

Lyrics Training can also allow students learn new vocabulary. Some may argue the dominant theme of pop music is love and the lyrics may be discrete items, sometimes about feeling and sometimes are not meaningful at all. This depends on the music that you choose. Take Rihanna's Take a Bow for example:

Take a Bow Rihanna
How bout a round of applause?
Standin' ovation
OhYeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

You look so dumb right now
Standin' outside my house
Tryin' to apologize
You're so ugly when you cry (Please)
Just cut it out

Don't tell me you're sorry cause you're not
Baby when I know you're only sorry you got caught
But you put on quite a show
You really had me goin'
But now it's time to go
Curtains finally closin'
That was quite a show
Very entertaining
But it's over now
Go on and take a bow

Grab your clothes and get gone
(You better hurry up)
Before the sprinklers come on
Talkin' bout "Girl, I love you you're the one"
This just looks like a re-run (Please)
What else is on?

And the award for the best liar goes to you
For makin' me believe
That you could be
Faithful to me
Let's hear your speech out

The lyrics highlighted, such as a round of applause, standing ovation, take a bow are vocabulary related to shows. Therefore vocabulary in lyrics are related to each other, sometimes loosely, sometimes more closely, as the words should go together to covey the same message that the song is about.

Benefits
1. It motivates students, especially the music lovers to learn the language while enjoying music.
2. The texts are from lyrics, which are authentic and if the website is updated regularly, the material are more attractive as the songs and popular.
3. Learners can choose the level of difficulty.
4. The tool is very simple and only focuses on listening skills.

Limitations
1. Listening to songs is a nice way to motivate students to learn the language but not the best way to train their listening skills. Songs do not show the rhythm and intonation of real conversation. The structures of lyrics are more like poem, which does not resemble conversations neither.
2. The lyrics, or sometimes the Music Video may contain content that is not appropriate for young learners. There is a Children's Music Section for young learners, but what I'm worried about is young adults who are not interested in those songs anymore, and can get easily affected when exposed to some inappropriate behaviour appearing in the music videos.


Some ideas
I think this will be a nice tool to be used as a warm up activity in ESL classes for adults. Take my experience of teaching ESOL class for example, participants are mature students who come to class after work and some arrive a few minutes late. This will be a nice activity for the punctual students while they are waiting, especially if we can find songs related to the topic the we’re going to teach that day.