"Still Reminds Me" to Teach English

Have you ever applied songs in teaching EFL? I have a dream that someday I can use songs to teach my students since I find that some students are interested in translating song lyrics better than a text. Most of them are interested in understanding the meaning of a song, especially when the theme is about love. 

Last semester, I got a very interesting subject on my study: Discourse Analysis. I didn't know before that DA could give pleasure in viewing a string of sentence. But, from the moment I met my lecturer, ibu Diah Kristina, I began to understand that a sentence might give not only one single meaning for the speaker and the listener. 

In the end of the semester, she gave us a challenging final assignment to make a lesson plan using DA point of view. For me, it will be much pleasant when I can apply songs to the lesson plan. From some methods of DA introduced to our class, it seemed that Critical Discourse Analysis is a good choice to integrate songs in English teaching.

Cover of the assignment

Here are the teaching steps and the explanation.

1.         Preliminary Activities (10 minutes)

a.       The teacher greets the students.

b.      The teacher checks the attendance list.

c.       The teacher reviews the last material.

d.      The teacher explains the objectives of the teaching and learning.

e.       The teacher explains the benefit of the teaching and learning.

2.         Main Activities (70 minutes)

No	Teacher’s Activity	Students’ Activity	Time
a.	The teacher gives questions to the students whether they have ever been in love.	The students answer the teacher’s questions based on their own experience.	5’
b.	The teacher plays a song entitled “Still Reminds Me”, distributes worksheets to the students, and discuss the answers.	The students fulfill a worksheet about the cloze lyrics of the song and discuss the answers.	10’
c.	The teacher invites the students to a discussion about the song writer’s perception about the woman who just broke her love in the lyrics.	The students analyze the lyrics individually and write their answer on their notebook.	15’
d.	The teacher asks the students to make groups of five people to discuss their analysis.	The students discuss the analysis in group and they make a group decision about the lyrics analysis.	15’
e.	The teacher asks the students to make a discussion with other groups in the class to find the class decision about the reason behind the phenomena of what the woman does.	The students make a discussion in the class to find the class decision about the reason behind the phenomena of what the woman does. They may use PowerPoint presentation.	15’
f.	The teacher invites the students to end the discussion and leads the class to get the right answer.	The students convey their opinion to the teacher and discuss the right answer.	10’

3.    Closing (10 minutes)

a.       The teacher summarizes the lesson.

b.      The teacher reflects the teaching and learning activity.

c.       The teacher invites the students to give feedbacks or questions related to the lesson.

d.      The teacher conveys the forthcoming topic/lesson.

e.       The teacher says goodbye to the students.

Explanation

The discourse analysis approach I apply in this teaching plan is Feminist Stylistics Approach (FSA) by Sara Mills. Following her, I also want to see how females are constructed as the marginalized agents. The material I choose is the song lyrics of “Still Reminds Me” which was popularized by Anggun. I assume that FSA will be interesting, especially for university students. The love theme of the song will also be interesting. I predict that they will pay attention to the woman activities in the song and keep thinking about the phenomena. The technique will lead them to be able to speak English without being aware that they actually learn the language.

There are six steps I apply for the main activities. The first activity is the teacher asks the students whether they have ever been in love. This activity is applied for brainstorming. Love is a theme which is usually interesting for university students. They are mature enough to receive materials employing the topic. The teacher gives some questions, such as:

a.    I saw a very romantic couple this morning in the parking lot. They look very happy. Have you ever been in love?

b.    Do you have some criteria in selecting someone to be your love?

c.    What will you do when you suddenly break your love with the one you love?

d.   What will a woman probably do when they are in a broken heart?

There will be several answers to the questions. The students may answer them with what they have experienced or their imagination. The last question (c) will direct them to think about the broken heart women, which will be the topic of the teaching and learning at that day.

In the second step, the teacher plays a song entitled “Still Reminds Me”, and the students have to fulfill a worksheet about the cloze lyrics. The song lyrics in the activity will be their main material.  Besides, it is also used to make them relax since the song is relaxing. The teacher invites them to listen to the song by saying, for instance, “I have a song in my file about a woman who just broke her love with his sweetheart.” She also asks them to fulfill the blanks in the cloze lyrics on their worksheet. The focus of the teaching is speaking. However, listening is involved here because it will be useful to check their accurateness in receiving information and their vocabulary mastery. Without enough vocabulary mastery, they will not be able to write the words correctly. 

In the third activity, the teacher invites the students to a discussion about the song writer’s perception about the woman who just broke her love in the lyrics. They are supposed to analyze the lyrics individually. The students are invited to be aware of the phenomena about what a woman usually does when she feels bewildered because of her broken heart. The teacher says, “Now, please pay attention to the lyrics and give underline on them explaining about what the woman does in the situation. What phenomena you can find? Write the possible reason why she does it”. The students work individually in analyzing the lyrics. Hopefully, this activity can be a foundation of the next activity since they are asked to provide the reason behind every single phenomenon. For example, she cuts her hair because the woman wants a new look on hair to help her release her frustration.

In the fourth activity, the students are divided into some groups, and they have to make a group decision about the lyrics analysis. They have to be able to communicate their idea with other persons in the group. Speaking is assessed here. The teacher invites them by saying, “Please make a group of five persons. Based on your individual analysis before, make a group decision. Communicate your idea and your opinion with the other members of the group. In this activity, the students practice two-way speaking in which they state their opinion, agree or disagree with their friends’ idea. Everybody is supposed to speak up.

Next, the students have to make discussion in the class to find the class decision about the reason behind the phenomena of what the woman does. They have to be able to communicate using the ideas which reflect their group idea. It will be a more challenging speaking activity since they are supposed to state their opinion, arguing something with full consideration about politeness and ethics in a discussion. The teacher starts by saying, “Well, has every group got a decision about the woman activities in the lyrics? Let’s discuss the reason behind them. Every group has to present the reasons and others have to give their opinion whether they agree or not. You may also give additional reasons.” Hopefully, this activity can encourage all of the persons to speak up. The spokesperson will present their opinion and other members may help to argue or stating agrees to other groups’ answers. In this activity, they are also allowed to use PowerPoint presentation.

Finally, the teacher invites the students to end the discussion and leads the class to get the right answer. The activity is important to answer their curiosity about what a woman does when experiencing a broken heart. The teacher started the final discussion by saying, “Why does the woman cut her hair and polish her nails? Does woman like applying make-up? Is there any psychological reason behind it?” In fact, the focus of the activity is not the answers, but how they speak their idea to others. They are also invited to state their opinion politely and in an academic manner. This is the time for the teacher to provide the

Culturally, the activities can encourage the students to be aware that the song provides some activities which are usually done by a woman in English-speaking country. Although the song singer is originally from Indonesia, it provides non-Indonesian original activities, such as using make-up and having parties. Another cultural implication is that they are supposed to speak using English culture. As everybody knows, some Indonesian students speak English by using Indonesian culture. The activities presented in the teaching plan can provide some knowledge and practice to them that English is a language with different culture. To state that we do not agree with someone’s idea, for instance, it is not suggested to state, “I don’t agree with your opinion,” but it is better to change the culture of the language to be, “Yes, I agree to a point, but I have a different opinion.” They also present that to state an opinion, we should not always use “In my opinion” all the time, but we can vary the introductory phrase using other chunks, for instance, if you ask me, personally I think, etc.

For the institution, applying the activities is one of the effective ways to teach speaking with an integrated method. All language skills are involved here. Listening is applied when the students listen to the song and find the answer for the cloze lyrics.  Also, when they are discussing, it can be seen whether their respond is comprehensive or not.  As everybody knows, a comprehensive respond is one of the indicators that someone listens and understands the utterance before. Reading is involved when they have to read the lyrics and analyze them. Importantly, they practice critical reading in which they read and focus on the problem without being aware that they are learning English. Writing is also involved since in every single step, they cannot avoid writing. In the listening activity and discussion activity, writing will help them to memorize. It also helps them to rehearse the accurateness of their writing when they present their opinion using PowerPoint presentation, for instance. Obviously, although the focused skill is speaking, a material can be taught using integrated method if it is well prepared.

That's all some copy of my work taken from DA final assignment.

Thanks for reading :)