ABSTRACT
Why should pop songs be integrated in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom? And what do we know about the nature of the language of pop song lyrics that is relevant and valuable for teaching practice? This chapter addresses these questions from two perspectives: a linguistic and pedagogic one. The aim is to bridge the gap between corpus analysis in linguistics on the one hand and research and theorizing in the field of EFL teaching on the other. To approach this, the field of corpus analysis focusing on pop songs is surveyed in order to identify common features of pop song lyrics. This furthermore serves as a basis for the analysis of a small corpus of pop songs that may be potentially used in the EFL classroom. On the basis of a consideration of linguistic features of pop songs and an outline of the potential of songs for developing foreign language competences, a model is developed that aims to serve as a guideline for the development of song-based tasks by teachers or material writers.
