Hauptseminar The Role of Music in the EFL Classroom

The first situations we remember in life usually are concerned with music: our first birthdays when our family sang for us, Christmas and/or other important festivities and occasions with their songs. The most important incidents in life are accompanied by music and song: falling in love (don’t you have a special song with your partner or a song you hear and are immediately reminded of someone special?), getting married, funerals – basically, feeling on top of the world, or in the depth of despair. These emotions are very likely to be linked to certain rhythms, melodies and sometimes whole songs. But it works also the other way around: when we watch a movie what makes us sad is what we see, sure, but what really moves us to tears is the soundtrack, isn’t it? There are violins in the air and suddenly we cannot help but start to cry like babies. Music cannot only put you in a certain mood, it also provides a rich environment of teaching and learning opportunities. We can use music within the EFL classroom to foster ICC and a lot of other factors important to learn not only a language, but also to understand the culture(s) around and interwoven with it. What else music can do within the L2 classroom we will try to figure out within this course. Please, be prepared to think on your own, together with others, to talk, to listen, to interact and definitively to have songs stuck in your head. Anglistik Universität Duisburg-Essen SoSe 2014 Steinhoff Sarah