I often dread looking at 'made for ELT' songs and music (I actually have a degree in music and studied jazz performance), but I was recently nicely surprised to see what ELT Songs have been doing on their site. They really seem to have got the knack of approaching and creating songs for younger learners well and with obviously very high production values.
If you check out the ELT Songs site you can find 58 units (with an additional 68 new units coming later this year). Each consisting of 6 videos per unit all of which are 100% aligned to the Cambridge Young Learners curriculum (starters, movers and flyers). The videos are great and really tap into the current K-Pop style with songs and synchronised dance moves and even UK sign language integrated in to help students understand the words while they sing and dance along and enjoy learning.
The lesson videos from each unit cover conversation practice, pronunciation, vocabulary rap and grammar tutorials as well as karaoke where students can just sing along. The videos are hosted on Vimeo, so they are all high quality, can have closed captions on or off, and you aren't going to be surprised by any unsuitable ads.
As well as the videos they provide teachers with downloadable lesson plans, worksheets, and flashcards. You can see a nice example here in the 'Downloads' section underneath the video panel: https://eltsongs.com/unit/planet-pop-unit-7/
As well as the core offer they have a great resources section that has videos with tips and advice from some of the best young learner materials writers in ELT publishing. These include:
- Katherine Bilsborough with speaking tips for young learners:
https://eltsongs.com/resources/teach-tips-kath-speaking/ - Amanda McLoughlin with tips for help students with numbers:
https://eltsongs.com/resources/esl-lesson-plan-numbers-1-10/ - Michelle Worgan with tips to help students with grammar structures:
https://eltsongs.com/resources/lesson-plan-31-michelle/
The blog is also another great resource and it has lots of materials, and activities around a wide range of topics.
I love this posting about International Women's Day and ideas for helping make students aware of issues around gender equality and download able lesson plan. This can be a difficult but really important issue to address with younger learners and they handle this in a really positive way.
Not all the materials are free but there is a free trial that runs until the end of July, so that's lots of time to try things out and maybe even convince your school to make the purchase so that you get access to additional features like student tracking, fluency and pronunciation activities, Google Classroom integration and some free training.
If your school isn't interested then individual teacher pricing is under $4 a month and that can save you a LOT of planning and preparation time so that seems like really great value for anyone who is teaching young learners.
Overall ELT Songs is a really great resource with lots of really great speaking and listening activities for kids. I hope you and your students really enjoy it.
More Teacher Resources
You can find links to many more resources like this and activities for the digital classroom in my e-books at: https://payhip.com/peacheypublications
Check Out My Books:
- 10 Business English Lessons
- Hacking Creativity
- 10 Short Image Lessons
- 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy
- Digital Video
- Thinking Critically through Digital Media
Nik Peachey