ESTRATEGIAS PARA APRENDER UN NUEVO IDIOMA: LA MÚSICA
It’s no secret that listening to a language that you are learning is an incredibly good way of increasing not only your comprehension, but also your vocabulary knowledge.
If you can unite enjoyment with what you’re listening to, then your motivation is going to increase and you’re more likely to repeat the activity.
Let’s look at all the advantages of adding music to your language learning toolkit.
- As I mentioned before, listening to music is something that you do for pleasure and therefore it’ll be easier to do and more motivating. Compare this to listening to the news to help you learn a language.
- It’s very likely that if you’re learning English, you’re listening to a lot of English music already. So, it’s going to be easier to continue doing so.
- According to the Economist Interactive (29/01/22), of the 50 most-streamed tracks on Spotify over the past five years, 47 were in English. Most radio stations in Spain play music in English, and YouTube has practically every popular song ever written. What this means is that you’ll never be short of material.
- You can always read aloud articles and stories, but most people love singing songs. With lyrics and karaoke versions of songs readily available on YouTube, you have never had a better opportunity to sing along to your favourites, and at the same time get a real feel for the words, melody and rhythm of the language.
- Portability. Just like podcasts, you can carry around millions of songs, especially if you have a subscription to Spotify, and therefore, you can integrate music into other activities from driving to jogging.
Music seems to tick all the boxes when it comes to language learning and if you are serious about improving quickly, you need to incorporate it into your life.
How do I learn with music?
Here are a couple of tips.
1.Pick a song you like but are not familiar with yet.
2. Listen to it without the lyrics a few times to see if you understand it all.
3. Now check the lyrics and look up any words you don’t know.
4. Listen to the song with the lyrics and notice the way the words link together as well as the rhythm and melody.
5. Now listen again without the lyrics. Do you understand the whole song now?
6. Time to sing. The best option is to memorise the lyrics and sing the song with the singers and later without them. If not, you always have the karaoke version.
7. If you really love singing and are good at it, why not join a choir? In Barcelona and other large cities there are English choir groups, and you may have the opportunity to meet English speakers. Win-Win!
If you want to know more about Personal Language Learning Strategies, feel free to contact me.
