Using songs in English language teaching
Songs can be used in English language teaching for a variety of purposes. The resources on this site provide two ways of selecting songs: by their usefulness for pronunciation practice and by their potential for discussion.
Choose the approach that best suits your lesson:
- Songs for Phonology – songs selected for their frequent occurrence of English vowel and consonant sounds.
- Songs for Discussion – songs organised according to topics and themes suitable for discussion.
Published song books with texts and music
The following song books provide collections of songs, lyrics and music which can be useful when selecting material for English language lessons.
- The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook – lyrics and chords for guitar – 194 songs from the actual recordings in the original keys.
- The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook – 200 songs.
- Tom Paxton: The Honor of Your Company – lyrics and music including his classic compositions – over 85 songs.
- American Favorite Ballads – tunes and songs as sung by Pete Seeger – over 80 songs.
- Peter, Paul & Mary: Deluxe Anthology – 80 songs.
- The Best of Bob Dylan Chord Songbook – Guitar Chord Songbook – 70 Dylan classics.
- The Joan Baez Songbook – 66 of her best-loved folk songs.
- Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits – Piano/Vocal – 14 of their best songs.
- The Peggy Seeger Songbook – Forty Years of Songmaking – circa 148 songs.
- Folksinger's Wordbook, edited by Fred and Irwin Silber – 1,000 songs organised into 39 sections. Buy used on Abebooks.
Searching the internet for song lyrics
Searching for a song title alone can produce a large number of unwanted results, including advertising and spam sites. A more effective method is to search for a distinctive line or phrase from the middle of the song.
Put the complete line or phrase in quotation marks when you search.
For example, a search for "the sun so hot I froze to death" should quickly locate the full text of Oh, Susanna.
This method can be particularly useful when you know part of the song but do not know where to find the complete lyrics.
Explore the song resources
You can return to either of the two song indexes at any time: