3.2 Adapting songs for the language classroom

Listen to Old Macdonald Had A Farm and If You're Happy And You Know It and think about how you could use them to focus on language in your lessons.

Old Macdonald Had A Farm

 

If You're Happy And You Know It

 

Read about some ideas for adapting songs in the Commentary - Adapting songs for the language classroom resource.

3.1 Commentary - Adapting songs for the language classroom

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

Old Macdonald Had A Farm

In Old Macdonald Had A Farm you could focus on the topic of farm animals and the noises they make. You could also get the children miming the animals with their partners trying to guess which animal they are.

The topic of animals is easy for children and pre-teens to relate to. Even teenagers are usually happy to talk about their pets.

If You're Happy And You Know It

This song is obviously great for bodyparts and associated actions, such as stamping your feet, but it could also focus on feelings:

If you're happy and you know it, Clap your hands If you're sad and you know it, Clap your hands If you're angry and you know it, Clap your hands If you're tired and you know it, Clap your hands ...

This is one of a number of techniques that can be used with songs and it is known as Substitution - where the original words are replaced with new words. Either you or your children can do the replacing.

Some other techniques include actions, adding sound effects, substituting other tunes and omission. Have you ever tried them?

Actions

Here you or your children simply add actions to the lines of the song or rhyme.

Adding sound effects

Simply add noises which the children can make by themselves or, by using objects.

Substituting other tunes

This is great if you don't know the tune to any of the songs mentioned in this unit, or if you are using a course book but don't have the cassette. All you have to do is simply put the words of the song to a tune that you doknow.

The following is a song that one teacher created because she wanted to focus on toys, but couldn't find a suitable one. She wrote the song but substituted a tune from another traditional song "This Old Man..."

I like bikes, I like planes, I like fun computer games, But I don't like teddy bears, cars and trains and boats, I like bikes and planes the most. I like dolls, I like kites, I like robots red and white, But I don't like computer games, trains and planes and boats, I like dolls and kites the most.

Omission

With this technique the children sing the song and then keep repeating it, but each time a word is omitted until no words are being said and only the actions are being done. A good example of this is "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes":

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, Knees and toes. Head, shoulders, knees and toes, Knees and toes. And eyes and ears and mouth and nose, Head, shoulders, knees and toes, Knees and toes.

The second verse is sung like this:

(The children just touch their heads without saying the word HEAD), shoulders, knees and toes,

_____, shoulders, knees and toes. _____, shoulders, knees and toes, Knees and toes. And eyes and ears and mouth and nose, _____, shoulders, knees and toes, Knees and toes.

The third verse continues:

_____, _____, knees and toes, ... etc.

3.2 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?