Popular Song ? Authentic Material in Foreign Language Teaching

At the mere beginning of the article a brief introduction into the term popular song i.e. “canzone” is provided and its accompanying unique place in a range of auditory teaching aids is emphasized. The introductory part is followed by the review of the didactic role of a popular song in Italian language teaching and by placing special emphasis on its potential use in other foreign language teaching curricula. Criteria acting as prerequisites for its appropriate choice in foreign language teaching are further listed. Next, the importance of the introductory part of a lesson hour is especially emphasized as a relaxing teaching situational context providing learners with relevant information on a particular popular song and setting them free of anxiety, discomfort and fear of this, not so frequently, employed medium in foreign language teaching. After that, a systematic outline of a variety of numerous activities is provided, which are to be carried out after the acquisition of global orientation and which aim at making learners entirely familiar with the particular text of the popular song. The possibility of presenting and consolidating text-based grammatical structures serving as a framework for designing various exercises oriented towards enhancing grammar competence is further highlighted. The grammar reinforcement is followed by the whole panoply of well-designed teaching activities targeting learners’ familiarity with the lexical specificities of Italian and systematic vocabulary expansion. The subsequent set of exercises pursue the reinforcement of learners’ speaking competence and thus active production of the phonetic-phonological language component; Italian pronunciation, rhythm, intonation. Subsequently, special emphasis is placed on the importance of a popular song in raising learners’ awareness of the existence of both their own culture phenomenon and the particularities of another, foreign culture leading to the desired enrichment of essential, yet in the course of teaching process often neglected learners’ cultural competence. By linking a particular popular song with a topic-related newspaper and/or literary text a range of multiple activities is introduced involving development and improvement of all four linguistic skills. Afterwards, examples of a more fluttery didactic use of this authentic teaching material are presented inspiring learners’ intellectual curiosity and consequently resulting in the learning process improvement. Finally, reasons justifying the didactic use of popular songs in foreign language teaching are pointed out and foreign language teachers are encouraged to attend to and foster the musical tradition of the foreign language they teach even in the classroom.