How to Teach a Song in Spanish Class (Music Activities for the World Language Teacher)
Do you want to include authentic songs and music videos in your Spanish classroom but are not sure how?
Or are you a Spanish teacher who has already been teaching songs and you want to find new activities to do with a song for you students?
You’ve come to the right place!
Why Teach Music?
Music is one thing every student in your class can relate to. Everyone has a favorite song, artist, or band!
Music is an excellent way to include authentic resources into your Spanish classroom. Songs and music videos are rich and filled with cultural references, vocabulary, and grammar that you can bring students’ attention to. It is a great way to promote cultural appreciation in your classroom.
A song can stay with a student for a lifetime, so why not get an extremely good and catchy song in Spanish stuck into your students' heads?!
How to Select a Song to Teach
This best way to select a song to teach in your Spanish class is for you to listen to Spanish music! Listening to Spanish music will allow you to discover amazing songs and artists that both you and your students will love. You know your students best. A song that may be catchy and wonderful in another Spanish teacher’s classroom may not be the best choice for your students.
However, if you are looking for somewhere to start, I recommend looking at artists such as Morat, Alvaro Soler, and Sebastian Yatra. (These are currently the top artists in my classrooms, and maybe your students would find them to be interesting too!)
I have a Song I want to Teach….What do I do Next?
Perfect!
Finding a song is sometimes the most difficult task. But now you have one, excellent! What do you do next?
There are many options.
First, think about what your want your students to achieve after listening to the song.
Do you want them to understand specific vocabulary? Do you want them to pay attention to a grammar rule? Do you want them to identify cultural products, practices, or perspectives from the music video? Do you want them to just listen to it to enjoy it?
Once you know the goal, then you can move on to activity options.
Activities to do with a Spanish Song
There are three different paths when thinking about activities students can do with a Spanish song. There are pre-listening, during listening, and post-listening activities. (Of course, if your focus in on the music video, then replace listening with viewing!)
Pre-Listening Song Activities:
Provide Context: Who sings the song? What is the song about? Where is the music video located?
2. Vocabulary Preview: Do you have specific target structures that you want students to know? Introduce key vocabulary words or phrases from the song lyrics! A Blooket or Kahoot would be a fun way to gamify this!
3. Make Predictions!: Share the title of the song, play the music video while the song is muted, share pictures from the music video, and/or find an instrumental version of the song and share before viewing the entire song. Encourage students to predict what the song might be about, how the rhythm will be, if they’ll like it or dislike it!
During Listening Song Activities:
Wordclouds: Have students mark how many times they listen to a specific word or phrase on a word cloud.
Scavenger hunt: Create a scavenger hunt for students to mark objects that they see in the music video.
First or Second: Provide students with lyrics. They have to decide which lyric came first or second!
True or False: Create true/false statements about the video. Students decide if the statement is true or false!
Movietalk the Music Video: Movietalk the music video and discuss the music video in depth!
Games: Use lyricstraining.com or Roxemm.com to play fun games while listening to the song.
Fill in the Blank: Create a fill-in-the-blank/CLOZE activity for students to do while listening to the song.
Music Chairs: Who said high schoolers can’t have fun?!
Post-Listening Song Activities:
Draw the Lyric!: Students draw a visual representation of the lyric.
Opinions/Reviews: Students express their opinions about the song. Teach them specific song lyrics (such as ritmo, pegajosa, etc) that they can use!
Questions: Students can answer questions based on the music video or song.
Debates: Have students debate why the song is a hit or miss!
Ranking: Have you listened to other songs in Spanish class? Have students rank/compare and contrast this new song with others!
Karoke: No explanation needed!
Matching: Match lyrics to a screenshot of the music video or the lyric’s translation
Create a Music Video: Have students create their own music video for the song!
Other Ways to Include a Song in Spanish Class
Do you just want students to listen to Spanish music? I can relate! Here are some other ways to include Spanish music in your classroom:
Timers: Instead of putting on timers for students to finish work, put on a song! Tell them at the end of 1-3 songs, they should be done with X or doing Y.
Start of Class: Play music while students walk into the room and leave at the end of the period.
Weekly Routines: Pick a day of the week where students will be introduced to one new song!
Music Madness Bracket: Create a bracket for students to listen to songs in a march madness style!
Want to See Examples?
My TPT store has songs and activities ready to go for you!
Bajo la Mesa by Morat (my personal favorite song out of all of these!)
I hope you found this to be helpful and useful! If so, please consider subscribing to my blog email for all future blog posts.
From one Spanish to another, con mucho amor 🧡,
-Chanel
