Can You Use Music to Practise English?

What is Your Favorite Kind of Music?

Do you enjoy listening to music? What sort of music do you enjoy? Do you enjoy music from a variety of countries? Have you ever used music to practise English?

You Can Use KPOP to Practise English?

This week in Spotlight English we feature some music from Korea. Liz Waid and Ryan Geertsma explain that this particular music has global appeal and crosses cultural divides.

From personal experience I can confirm that it does! In 2008, I lived in a small English town close to the sea. One day I was surprised to hear Korean music and voices in the house. My son, David, had discovered KPOP – Korean pop music. He was listening to the girl band, Wonder Girls. I was amazed by their music videos and their precise dance routines. Soon even I was singing along to their songs ‘Tell Me’ and ‘Nobody’. I was able to do this because KPOP often combines both Korean and English languages. Later the Wonder Girls released English versions of their songs. They became the first group from South Korea to feature in the US music charts.

wonder girls” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by patsun

You can see the Wonder Girls song “Nobody” in English

Even at the time I thought that this music could possibly help people practise English if they sang along with the music. In fact, many people practise English by listening to music and copying the words. It can be very effective!

This week Spotlight English features the programme ‘KPOP: Asia’s Popular Music.’ Why not listen to the programme to find out more about KPOP and practise English at the same time? You can also see the program on YouTube. Speak out loud with us as we speak slow English. Then maybe have fun dancing to some fast KPOP music!

Listen to the program KPOP: Asia’s Popular Music

Do you use music to practice English? What songs would you recommend for this purpose? Do you listen to KPOP? Tell us about it below!

-Katy

Join the discussion

7 comments
  • Dear editorial office. I like your broadcast very much. Teachers read slowly and clearly. You can see that they perfectly understand the idea of the program and foreigners’ problems with learning English. You can reach the stars with you. It is a pity, however, that you gave up the possibility of downloading texts and recordings. It was a great learning method, which I used to learn the language myself and often to help my grandchildren. I cordially greet you from beautiful Poland. Gina

    • Hi Gina, thank you for this feedback! It is true that some things on our website have changed. It is sad, but they had to change; we had no choice. However, we are looking into this problem.

      You can download some of our archive of programs using a podcast app like Apple Podcasts. And we are adding new programs every week. We really want to give our listeners what they want! So again, thank you for this helpful feedback!

  • Oh. I’m a fan of Twice so I like listening to their music. Their songs always have some English words that I want to know them to understand the content of their songs. Therefore, I can know many new words

  • ofc,iam a big fan to k pop and k drama,and iam really interisting in these programs , i hope you will made a lot of these kinds of programes. bye bye .

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