Tag Archives: singing

Making a Karaoke file

by

Microphone-SizeKaraoke is a great tool for teachers and students that I’ve been promoting for ages. Lots of posts on here about it. It is great for both controlling audio and text, contextualizing audio and listening/reading skills coupled with phonemic awareness. It is multimodal and really has the WOW factor.

I finally updated the tutorial on how you can make your own karaoke file. Watch – it really is simple. Also, in the first part , I outline the resources available for instant addition to your library and meeting your classes’ needs. One great thing about crowdsourcing and teachers sharing these great resources.

PS. I didn’t mention but with the editor, you can download any song and then in the editor, copy the lyrics, paste and print for a transcript for your students. That’s a pretty cool backdoor!

The #1….(song activity)

by

Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

Last One Standing

lastonestandingThis game is fantastic! I’ve done it in countless teacher training sessions and with students. It’s gotten so that other teachers when they see another teacher doing this with their students – tell me they know they must have been to one of my training sessions!

It’s easy to do. Select some vocabulary from a song your student’s enjoy (select words that repeat a lot). Then, ask them to choose and write in large letters, one of those words/phrases. Divide the students into groups. The students stand up showing everyone their word and holding it high.
Play the song and students must sit down when they hear their word. Stand up again when they hear it again. Last one standing wins and the group with the most standing wins too!
Lots of variations, students can decide to begin sitting or standing and that gives an element of chance.
See many examples in ppt HERE. Or go to the video examples HERE.

This example is also wonderful!


Top 10 Young Learner’s Songs

by

Here is my list of top 10 songs for Young Learners and suggested teaching points. Please comment and add any other suggestions.

Most are found on our Kid’s Karaoke page or by searching in our videos…. ) Not surprising that many of these songs are also chants! This one, is my personal fav. but it didn’t make my Top 10.

1. Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes – body parts
2. If you’re happy and you know it – possibility, commands
3. Old MacDonald Had a Farm – animals / animal sounds
4. He’s got the whole world in his hands. ‘s got / to have
5. 5 in the bed / 10 little Monkeys – counting and numbers
6. The Wheels on the Bus – actions
7. B-I-N-G-O – spelling, pronunciation and rhythm
8. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom – alphabet / letters
9. Do The Hokey Pokey – directions / prep of movement
10. There was an old lady who swallowed a fly – animals


[special mentions to One of these things is not like the other / There’s a hole in the bucket / Skinnermarink / Rubber Ducky and Barney’s – I Love You songs….


Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

Gosing – Another Karaoke option…

by

I’m really proud of the karaoke on EFL Classroom! We have so many options for teachers – see this post for how to get these and set up the player and make your own karaoke.

However, often not mentioned, is a cool alternative, Go Sing.

Go Sing is a traditional karaoke player that is in the public realm. You can’t edit and it just has a standard karaoke background music. So it is different from the Karafun player here. Yet it does have its strengths.

You can get many songs on the Go Sing site but if you want to avoid a lot of time downloading all of them individually, just Go HERE and download. Thousands of songs to save you time! Install the player and right click the screen. You can change the main picture – a picture of your class/school works wonders! Using the arrow keys, you can scroll your library and even fast forward through parts of the song.  See the screencast below for a nice visual run through of what to do….

Go Sing is a great tool for learners, especially for parties and less formal learning environments. Give it a try! (also, make sure you get a microphone for your class!).


Mix Tube – An easy way to “gather” your Youtube videos

by

MIX TUBE

Mixtube is a really simple way for teachers to make a list of their favorite Youtube videos You simply put in the url/address of the video and it will be added to your list. You can “borrow” a list of others and use it as the foundation to build your own. (just go to the bottom of the list and select – “create your own playlist based on this”. It is really simple! VeeWow is another option but Mixtube is even more user friendly.

The music industry is making it VERY hard for teachers to use music in their classrooms. They are the “Nazi’s ” of the Net. Mix Tube came about as a solution to the trials of Muxtape – a great site that now is limited and on Vimeo (a great place to find new artists/bands). Also, we know well what happened to our beloved MixWit! (see an example here – our past contest winner Justinnoxxi , we preserved this one!)

Here’s a huge one of great songs for the EFL classroom that have subtitles. No need to scour youtube for this anymore. Just go there and practice. You can also just use it for background music and shuffle it……. (Also see our Dizzler or Jukebox for the same thing!) If you want to add subtitled music videos, please do so and submit the new url to me! I’ll update for us! Can you help us build this great playlist? Let’s go!