Adding actions to songs

Actions help students to learn language, and they are good for younger children who have shorter attention spans need to move around in class.

Open the Adding actions to songs resource below and listen to two more songs. How you could use them with your students?

Adding actions to songs

Listen to Incy Wincy Spider and The Alphabet Song and think of suitable actions that could be used whilst singing.

Incy Wincy Spider

The Alphabet Song

See some ideas for actions by looking at Commentary - Adding actions to songs resource.

Commentary - Adding actions to songs

Here are some ideas for how the two songs could be used with actions. Did you have similar ideas?

Incy Wincy Spider

It's best to have just one action per sentence otherwise it gets too complicated. 'Incy Wincy Spider' could be a hand with wriggling fingers. 'Climbed up' could be the action of climbing up a ladder (the song has a water spout but this doesn't matter).

'Down came the rain' could be both hands raised in the air and then falling down whilst moving the fingers. 'Out came the sun' could be the hands together making a circle. It doesn't really matter what you and your class choose. But you can be sure of one thing - your students will definitely know the actions of a spider!

The Alphabet Song

You've probably got the idea by now, but the words you would probably want to represent with actions are some or all of the following:

· jungle

· coconut tree

· come

· play

· friend

· two

· zebra

· chimpanzee

· play (again) and

· bed.

Some are obviously easier than others - for example, what is the action for a zebra? However, as we said above, if you ask your class they will probably have lots of good ideas!

If you already use songs in your young learner classroom, you probably select ones which are fun and because they fit in with the general theme of your lesson.

A song such as ‘Old Macdonald’ can be sung in its original form, even though it contains vocabulary and a tense which the children may only be able to copy. Other songs such as The Alphabet Song may be repeated many times, long after the language content has been mastered. As we have already mentioned, songs can be used for practising certain language targets and provide an opportunity for lots of repetition.

Songs are natural, fun, emotionally engaging and an entertaining alternative to other forms of drilling that you might use in your class.

Other song ideas

For many more examples of songs suitable for young learners of different ages,visit Learn English Kids.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 985