26/10/2015
Using Songs in TEFL – Aerosmith – Cryin’
I frequently use music in my classroom to teach English. Music is insidious; it works its way into the deepest recesses of your mind and lingers long after the song stops playing. Music stirs emotions, memories and feelings in a way that no other form of media does. Doing a Google search on song lyrics and TEFL, you will find numerous sites with some great teaching ideas – tefltunes.com is a good example. Music can be used in a variety of ways in the TEFL classroom. One of the most popular ways of highlighting a point of grammar, for example the past and present continuous, is to listen to a piece of music and highlight examples. The Aerosmith song Cryin’ is a song that I’ve used in the past with great success. It’s not only modern and relevant, but also one of my favourite bands.
“Cryin'”
There was a time
When I was so broken hearted
Love wasn’t much of a friend of mine
The tables have turned, yeah
‘Cause me and them ways have parted
That kind of love was the killin’ kind
Now listen
All I want is someone I can’t resist
I know all I need to know by the way that I got kissed
I was cryin’ when I met you
Now I’m tryin’ to forget you
Love is sweet misery
I was cryin’ just to get you
Now I’m dyin’ cause I let you
Do what you do – down on me
Now there’s not even breathin’ room
Between pleasure and pain
Yeah you cry when we’re makin’ love
Must be one and the same
It’s down on me
Yeah I got to tell you one thing
It’s been on my mind
Girl I gotta say
We’re partners in crime
You got that certain something
What you give to me
Takes my breath away
Now the word out on the street
Is the devil’s in your kiss
If our love goes up in flames
It’s a fire I can’t resist
I was cryin’ when I met you
Now I’m tryin’ to forget you
Your love is sweet misery
I was cryin’ just to get you
Now I’m dyin’ cause I let you
Do what you do to me
‘Cause what you got inside
Ain’t where your love should stay
Yeah, our love, sweet love, ain’t love
If you give your heart away
I was cryin’ when I met you
Now I’m tryin’ to forget you
Your love is sweet misery
I was cryin’ just to get you
Now I’m dyin’ just to let you
Do what you do what you do down to me,
baby, baby, baby
I was cryin’ when I met you
Now I’m tryin’ to forget you
Your love is sweet misery
I was cryin’ when I met you
Now I’m dyin’ cause I let you
Do what you do down to , down to, down to, down to
I was cryin’ when I met you
Now I’m dyin’ to forget you
Your love is sweet
I was cryin’ when I met you
[fade]
There is an opportunity to discuss not only vocabulary, but also to elicit meaning from metaphors and phrases like Your love is sweet misery. You can ask students to discuss the italicised phrases in pairs for meaning and to offer examples from their personal experience. Songs stimulate discussion. What is the song about? How does the singer use word stress and intonation to create a mood? How does the song make you feel?
Song lyrics, like poetry, are also a good vehicle for practicing pronunciation. In this instance, the fact that the ‘g’ is silent in words like crying, dying etc. Why? Is it the nature of American English? Does it create a better rhythm in the verse?
Try and be creative using songs in the TEFL classroom. Create gap-fill activities, word substitutions, running dictation or creative writing in your lesson. Most importantly, it will engage the student in a way that a simple piece of text won’t.
