PL25 HA Let’s sing! Language challenge.

This activity aims at the development of the students’ listening skills with the application called LyricsTraining, which bases on completing gaps in the lyrics of songs played online. A mistake or lack of a word in the lyrics stops the exercise and students need to start from the beginning. Teachers divide students into four international groups (two Serbian, two Romanian and four Polish students in each). Then students select a title of a song sung in English (all of them have approximately the same length). The video with the lyrics in the application appears on the screen and students, collaborating in their groups, start to fill the gaps. There are two criteria taken into consideration in the assessment – the speed of performing the task as well as the points calculated by the application and indicating the quality of the performance. The task is challenging: the application has four levels of difficulty. The students operate the upper-intermediate level, which means they need to fill 50% of the missing lyrics. After the activity the students in groups briefly discuss their musical tastes and favourite artists. Teachers also initiate a discussion about a complete domination of the English-speaking singers / songwriters on the world music scene and why it is so difficult to make an international career singing entirely in the national language, rather than English. Students learn something new about the world of music. The activity reinforces their listening skills, the ability to collaborate in an international group (with a strategic division of duties – students need to choose the scribe and their assistants and they need to work in a team to perform the task well., but first of all it develops listening comprehension skills in English. 

The final product of the activity is the fully completed set of lyrics of four songs in the Lyrics Training application. The exercise is a challenge for the students and it significantly improves their listening comprehension skills. To achieve a full success students need to cooperate with each other, The aim of the activity is also to introduce an element of competition and rivalry in a positive sense.