Learn Irregular Verbs easily with Rap song

I wouldn’t recommend using this video for teaching/learning irregular verbs, especially for non-native speakers of English. Here’s why. The idea might be OK for teaching the American English version of irregular verbs, particularly for native speakers of American English. It was already tried out a few years ago from memory. Nothing new here, except perhaps monetarisation on YouTube.

Unfortunately, while the instructor is singing/rapping, he gives a very poor model for pronouncing and forming each of the verb forms. He’s dropping the consonant off the end of every word and even occasionally whole syllables! To me, it seems he’s forgot that he’s teaching language learners, treating his students like an audience at a second-rate karaoke bar while trying to show how he can rap.

So, would he be saying ”break, broke, broken” or ”breee, ’bro, broke”?

In short, this video demonstrates what a language teacher should not be doing. When you are learning something for the first time as a language learner - particularly at lower levels where you would be learning such irregular verbs - then everything needs to be as clear as possible - especially how the word is said. If you learn the pronunciation of words such as irregular verbs incorrectly and you hear these words when  incorrectly formed and containing dropping consonants and syllables, then it goes on to affect your ability to say them correctly or even to listen to such words accurately, not to mention problems with spelling, using irregular verbs in a grammatically correct manner and so on.

And no, not all rappers drop consonants off the ends of words. Listen to Eminem for example. He pronounces the words correctly just about every time when he sings! I’d potentially use his songs in English teaching, careful of course not to give songs with too much swearing

The dirty little secret of the music industry is that untalented singers in order to ”sound good” often skip consonants at the ends of words or even whole syllables so that they can sing to the beat of the music while at the same time not singing out of tune. It’s for this reason that you need to choose songs carefully for language learning. Not everything is appropriate for language learning, no matter how ”good” or ”cool” it sounds.

So, unless you can rap very well or can find a rapper who can really rap to make a recording of this, then I’d probably drop the idea. Eminim, if you happen to be reading this, here’s your shot at fame in the English-teaching world