The learning of pronunciation through songs and dancing: A conjectural situated theory

This story is about a group of adult students at A2 level to whom I used to teach oral conversation skills. Many students had difficulties in pronouncing fluently and most of them became too tense when having to read texts aloud or when asked to communicate. While devising methods and techniques to help them overcome their underlying fear and inhibition, I thought of using a famous song by The Beatles to work on fluency in pronunciation. Once fully developed, my scheme was based on a conjecture which stated that dance and physical expression would promote body relaxation and, ultimately, fluency. At the beginning of the class, I told my students we were going to do something different and innovative that day. They were adults, and at first, they had a very critical look on their faces. As the lesson proceeded, their emotions and sensations varied. To begin with, we did some relaxation and breathing exercises while listening to some quiet music. Next, I made them listen to the song we were going to work with and guess the band, a task which, to my surprise, only some of them did successfully. Later, we focused on some vocabulary words they would later encounter in the lyrics. The next stage was to listen to the song while carrying out various tasks on the incomplete lyrics they had on their worksheets. After checking the answers, we sang and even played a song quiz. As soon as we finished, I elicited what emotions and sensations the song evoked and I wrote the students’ contributions on the board. The most interesting part of this sequence was when I encouraged my pupils to walk around the room and represent though body movements the emotions they felt while listening to the song. Many students were quite reluctant at first, and I had to intervene to give praise to the brave learners and further reassurance to the shy ones; I even got myself involved in the activity. Once all had performed this task, I led the pupils to repeat the activity with the addition of singing as well as listening. During this final task, I witnessed that making body movements helped my students relax and therefore, achieve greater fluency and intelligibility. When the lesson finished, my pupils left the classroom with a huge smile and a sense of achievement.