Using Music to Improve Listening Comprehension Skills

Listening is a key element of the verbal communication process. We spend a good portion of our time listening, and this involves paying attention to what we hear and understanding what it means. Having an extensive vocabulary helps, but to listen successfully you need to be able to figure out the situational nuances – what meanings do the words convey in different circumstances? If you can’t, your communication abilities are severely handicapped.

When you’re learning a new language, listening is more difficult than reading or speaking. Try listening to a radio broadcast in a language you don’t know. It comes across as a barrage of indecipherable sounds; it’s hard to figure out where a word starts and ends, let alone a sentence. It seems impossible that you will ever understand or manage to speak the language. But, you know, we picked up our mother tongue by listening, and we can do the same with learning a new language.

One of the popular methods for both teaching and learning a language is using music in the classroom. Music is a wonderful aid in improving listening comprehension skills for several reasons –

• Most people usually like music.
• Music is part of everyday life. From earliest childhood to dotage, it’s a rare individual that escapes being exposed to some kind of musical influence – lullabies, group songs, bands, orchestra, radio, T.V., film music, etc.. So, it’s something familiar, something we already know how to relate to.
• Music affects moods and emotions. It can help shake off boredom in learning, whip up some motivational spirit and make language learning a fun, enjoyable process.
• Music often transcends language barriers. It’s possible, for example, to enjoy an Italian operatic aria without knowing a word of Italian. And when you are finally able to comprehend the words it’s a double joy.
• Song lyrics assist with expanding your vocabulary and picking up idioms and colloquial expressions.
• Listening to the singer helps with pronunciation and in understanding native dialects and accents. Or informal, everyday speech patterns. This helps in developing natural conversational skills.
• Understanding the music can help you ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ in relation to the theme and comprehend new words as they crop up in the lyrics.

When using music in the classroom to improve listening comprehension skills, it is generally advisable to –

• Choose songs with clear and understandable lyrics, at least at the start, as beginners might have trouble understanding colloquial lyrics.
• Equip the class with print copies of the lyrics.
• Select songs that the students like, are familiar with, or can relate to.
• Use songs that can help with cultural understanding of the language.
• Use songs that will remain interesting even after repeated listening.
• Use cheerful, humorous songs. Never anything violent or offensive.

Using music, you can improve listening comprehension skills by –

• Intensive learning – This is mostly the work done in the classroom, involving repetitive listening and singing along with the song, noting the words in the lyrics, memorizing them and discussing the word meaning as well as the song meaning.
• Extensive learning – This is where you listen to a wide variety of music without any pressure to understand exactly what you’re hearing. Extensive learning is somewhat like osmosis, you let the understanding seep in gradually.

Both intensive and extensive learning are essential. It’ll also help if you equip yourself with knowledge of the regional, social and cultural background of the language you are learning. An understanding of these will support the listening ability.

Please also see the articles

'Language Learning: Using One Language To Learn Another'

Utilizing Popular Music and Songs in the ESL Classroom

Language learning through music:

Learning German with Earworms MBT

and for other uses of music in the classroom:

Understanding the Need for Toddler Music

Music Therapy and Autism: Can It be used as a Tool in Classrooms?

Ways to Use Music and Songs in an English Classroom

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