Send Me Simple Songs

November 12, 2007 2:37 AM

Looking for songs with which to teach English.

So I'm teaching English to French kids aged between 15-18, and I'm looking for songs to work with in class. Ideally the songs should have the followinhg features;

- Clear, slow lyrics, using simple vocabulary.
- Describe some sort of story or idea that is not immediately obvious, and needs working out (rather than "Baby, I love you")
- Lead into a discussion of another topic. historical period, moral dilemma etc. (again, not "Baby I love you")
- And the kids have got to enjoy it.

So far I've come up with "Yesterday" the Beatles, "The Secret Marriage" Sting, "Make Your Own Kind Of Music" The Mamas and the Papas. But I'm sure you can come up with much better. I'd be interested in hearing from Mefites who don't have English as their first language, what songs sucked you in?

posted by greytape to Education (25 answers total)

I have used KT Tunstall's "Other Side of the World" to teach some poetry basics to students in English classes. Here's the first verse:

Over the sea and far away
She's waiting like an iceberg
Waiting to change
But she's cold inside
She wants to be like the water

I like it because the language is simple, yet it lets use focus on poetic language a bit. Plus, it's lyrical rather than narrative.
posted by wheat at 3:31 AM on November 12, 2007

Yeah Beatles. I hear that a lot from others who speak English as a second language. You already mentioned Yesterday. Eleanor Rigby and In My Life seem to be common. When I was tutoring a boy in English a few years ago, his book had Yellow Submarine in it.
posted by chillmost at 4:18 AM on November 12, 2007

I am a native english speaker, so I can't assess the speed. However, some of the songs by Richard Shindell tell a story and the second song should lead to an interesting discussion.

"Are you happy now"
"Fishing"

Also, Sting's 'They dance alone", although this version has spanish lyrics so you may want to look for a different version so you don't confuse students.

This is just my perspective if the lyrics do not have simple words. You can play the song over and over and stop it at different parts. You can get the lyric, print them out, and look at them. I learned french (including songs) this way, it was a lot of fun. Harder words did not bother me as long as the story was interesting.

good luck
posted by Wolfster at 4:51 AM on November 12, 2007

I remember having a conversation with a Peace Corps volunteer who said he had great success using "If I Had a Hammer" to teach English, but I can't for the life of me remember how he specifically used it.
posted by HeroZero at 5:12 AM on November 12, 2007

Anything by Frank Sinatra.
posted by Memo at 5:28 AM on November 12, 2007

For some reason I thought of David Bowie's Space Oddity
posted by jozxyqk at 5:34 AM on November 12, 2007

I've used Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson with surprisingly good results. It is slow and simple but also has parts of the chorus that are sung a little faster so even the good students won't be bored.
posted by geekyguy at 5:39 AM on November 12, 2007

Perhaps an old folk song by someone like Woody Guthrie or Leadbelly. The language tends to be pretty simple while conveying a more complicated message. "Goodnight Irene" is one of my favorites and the entirety of "This Land is Your Land" could lead to some interesting discussion of patriotism and American history.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 6:02 AM on November 12, 2007

You may try using a popular American (or British) song that they know in French (and teaching it in English).

When I was teaching in Japan, I had a very hard time teaching even the easiest songs to middle school kids. They didn't know any English, and the songs were sooo simple that they sounded like songs for toddlers, so there probably wasn't much motivation.

The one song they really wanted to sing in English and got excited about was My Heart Will Go On from Titanic. They couldn't get enough. Perhaps by talking to them first to find out what their favorite English songs are, you could start with those.

You could also try having them sing the verses in French and the chorus in English at first - it's a good first step.
posted by kdern at 6:10 AM on November 12, 2007

Puff the Magic Dragon
posted by PowerCat at 6:14 AM on November 12, 2007

I used Rocky Raccoon by the Beatles for a listening exercise... I typed up the lyrics and then cut them apart into different, fairly long, sections since the lyrics are pretty fast. Several people worked together in groups to put all of the lyrics in order as we listened to it (many times)...It went really well and the lyrics are great.
posted by unreasonable at 6:20 AM on November 12, 2007

I've done exactly what you're doing, and I used She's Leaving Home (Beatles). And if you can work out whether they're singing 'she's leaving home after living alone' or 'she's leaving home after living a lie' you're better than me and my class. (the internet says 'alone' but I was trying to be a language assistant in the pre-internet era, which was hard).

Also, don't do what I did - I was playing the songs really loud because I had a cold and couldn't tell how loud they were - lots of complaints from other teachers. Also don't faint in front of a class of 16-year-olds, it really frightens them. :)
posted by altolinguistic at 6:25 AM on November 12, 2007

use something they're already familiar with, like muzaky pop everybody has heard already
posted by matteo at 6:29 AM on November 12, 2007

Here are the songs I've successfully used with ESL teens:

Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man
Leonard Cohen, Everybody Knows
Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy
Warren Zevon, The French Inhaler
Warren Zevon, Lawyers, Guns and Money
Tom Waits, Gin Soaked Boy
Tom Waits, A Soldier's Things
Tom Waits, Telephone Call from Istanbul
Robbie Robertson, Somewhere Down the Crazy River
Pink Floyd, Have a Cigar
Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb
Velvet Underground, Waiting for my Man
The Violent Femmes, The Country Death Song
Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark
The Beatles, Within You Without You
Black Sabbath, War Pigs
Sting, Fragile

The lyrics really don't need to be slow, just not crazy fast. Also keep in mind that you should have a series of progressively more challenging listening tasks, and multiple listenings. If the lyrics are so clear they are immediately 100% comprehensible, you aren't really helping them develop their listening skills. Thus stuff like Tom Waits - at first the learners laugh or throw up their hands in frustration. But after picking out individual words, doing guided tasks like checking off the correct lyrics, true / false, etc, they feel a real sense of accomplishment having understood them.

If you provide the written text immediately you are creating a reading lesson, and not developing their listening skills. Let them sing along later, with the text, after a few listenings. Singing along will help encourage fluent and properly stress-timed speech.

Songs are a great tool, they bypass the grammar processing bit of the brain and make fluent speech much easier for learners. (caveat: I am not a neurologist, I am pulling this theory out of my ass)

And you've got the right idea about avoiding the "baby I love You" stuff - there are plenty of songs with deeper lyrics that can encourage some really meaningful discussion.

Good luck with it.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:31 AM on November 12, 2007

Most Johnny Cash songs are pretty simple gramatically and slow enough to understand.
posted by electroboy at 6:33 AM on November 12, 2007

Sorry, another good one:
Pink Floyd, Time
posted by Meatbomb at 6:37 AM on November 12, 2007

Here's a previous askme, in which I second Frank Sinatra.
posted by hydrophonic at 6:51 AM on November 12, 2007

"Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds. Kids love singing it and while the song is simple, it naturally leads into discussions of individuality and consumerism. (Lyrics)

It's the theme music on Weeds, although Malvina's version was only used for the first season.
posted by JaredSeth at 6:57 AM on November 12, 2007

Schoolhouse Rock: "A Noun is a Person, Place, or Thing," "Verb: That's What's Happening," "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Adverbs Here," "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla" (pronouns), "Unpack Your Adjectives," "Conjunction Junction," and "Interjections!"
posted by kirkaracha at 7:06 AM on November 12, 2007

Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now, The Circle Game, Big Yellow Taxi

Harry Chapin: Cat's in the Cradle
posted by Daily Alice at 7:28 AM on November 12, 2007

The key search term you've been looking for may very well be 'karaoke'.
Not mentioned so far: 99 Red Balloons; Livin’ on a Prayer; Since U Been Gone; Hotel California; Respect.
posted by enfa at 8:50 AM on November 12, 2007

The first I thought of was one of Bob Dylan's story songs: "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts." Thievery, prostitution, gambling, death, and love.
posted by booth at 9:19 AM on November 12, 2007

Joe Jackson's 'Real Men' could lead to an interesting discussion, and the lyrics are quite simple.

Janis Ian's At Seventeen could be good for students with a more advanced vocabulary.
posted by goo at 9:20 AM on November 12, 2007

The Three Dog Night hit "Black and White" was originally written as a way of teaching English to foreign students.
Lyrics here Tune here
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:58 PM on November 12, 2007

Savage Garden's "Two Beds and a Coffee Machine" is good to talk about domestic abuse without being too explicit. I've also used "A Thousand Words" in good measure to teach the class about vocabulary.

Darren Hayes's current album "This Delicate Thing We Made" has themes of time travel and some of the songs on there are similar to what you're after.
posted by divabat at 4:43 PM on November 13, 2007