The Song as an Unconventional Teaching Method for Foreign Languages

Long ignored in the teaching of foreign languages, the song is considered, even today, as a too insignificant genre to be seriously studied. So, what songs the teacher can present to students and what can he do with them? In our paper we try to present an activity of understanding and exploitation of a French authentic sound document: «Avoir trente ans» (“Being thirty years”), composed and performed by the famous French singer and songwriter – Yves Duteil. The song is a whole, an ensemble of music, words and performing, which are combined, closely bound. Beyond the grammatical meaning, everything in the song helps us perceive and perform it. By leaning on the text of the song, the students are led to enter the “world” of the text by the guided and progressive identification of grammatical and lexical elements, in order to understand its significant structure and decipher the deep message of the author. The song helps the students directly take over, by themselves, the text of the song, in order to express and communicate, in a creative way, the emotions and feelings that it gave birth into them, from a listening situation. Thus, it would be desirable to choose songs which suggest an atmosphere or express an engagement (ideological, amorous, etc.) which provokes emotions, feelings or sensations that we would like to be communicated. Activities and games of type we present in the paper seem to give encouraging results to develop the desire of talking and communicating in the classroom.


Introduction
The origin of the songs is also fun and educational: children sing to learn to speak, to dress, to recognize objects, colors, briefly to discover and organize the world [1][2][3][4]. But, if this didactic function is evident in the children's songs, it is much less so in the songs "of adults", where we must learn to discover it [1,[5][6][7]. A song is a whole, a set where music, lyrics and performance are combined and interrelated.
Beyond the grammatical meaning, in a song everything helps us perceive and interpret it. As a specific language activity, the song has its rules. Through listening and interpretation strategies, it is the language teacher who has to make his students discover these rules, by guiding them in their work [8].
A song allows at any time to take part in the game which consists in recognizing who is speaking, how, about what, through the verbal achievement of the enunciations -which always corresponds to the individual trial of appropriation of a foreign language [9][10][11]. Therefore, among various language activities, especially the song seems to lend itself to teaching a foreign language [12][13][14][15][16].
The enunciation being the dominant feature of its discursive structure, the song must especially attract attention to the modalities of enunciation. Moment by moment, it underlines the kind of verbal exchange that takes place, affecting the sensitivity of the listener, its true recipient. The listener is led to discover a message that is not in words, but beyond them.
To illustrate this type of comprehension activity of an authentic sound text, we chose the Yves Duteil's song -Avoir trente ans (Being thirty years) ( Table 1) [17]. There were proposed as linguistic objectives the followings: the developing oral comprehension with an extension to an exercise on the emphasis and, as cultural purpose, the problem of age and, in particular the thirties as seen by Yves Duteil [18,19]. 1. voir venir quelqu'un (see someone coming): guess his intentions 2. la legend a fait son temps (legend has had its day) Infer from the context the meaning of this expression: the legend is exceeded, no longer believes. In the song, find an equivalent expression for: la legend a fait long feu (the legend has fizzled). These two expressions are, however, not synonyms:

Study of the Song
1. faire son temps (make his time) means être périmé, dépassé (to be outdated, obsolete); E.g. This device / this method had its day; we no longer use it today, it is old-fashioned.
1. faire long feu (fizzle) is the idea of failure, of not achieving his goal; E.g. This joke has backfired: it no longer has effect. But attention: in the negative, this expression has a different meaning: ne pas faire long feu = ne pas durer longtemps (not fizzle = not last long).
1. gravir les marches du temps (climb the stairs of time = getting old); b) expressions designating periods of life: 1. les printemps qui se posent sur nos épaules (springs that alight on our shoulders) These are the years. Le printemps (Spring) symbolizes flourishing period and, over the life, period of youth. Similarly, l'automne (the fall) represents, in contrast, old age or decline.

les années tenders (tender years)
It is rather l'âge tender (tender age) that is used to designate l'enfance (the childhood) and l'adolescence (adolescence). We can find, on this occasion, other expressions, corresponding to different stages of life: 1. l'âge ingrate (the ungrateful age); 2. le bel âge (the beautiful age); 3. la fleur de l'âge (the prime of life); 4. l'âge mur (the aged); 5. l'âge de raison (the age of reason); 6. entre deux ages = n'être ni jeune ni vieux (middle-aged = being neither young nor old); 7. le troisième âge (the third age); 8. ne pas faire son âge = ne pas paraître (do not do his age = not to appear); 9. être à la fleur de l'âge, etc. (be at the prime of life, etc.). We can continue the work at home to develop the list of expressions on âge (age), using them in sentences illustrating / expressing its various meanings: age, era, time, period.

The Emphasis
Based on the two exclamatory forms in the song: Qu'estce que c'est bien d'avoir trente ans ! (How good is to be thirty!) and Comme c'est drôle ! (How it is fun!), if considered useful for the class, it could work on emphasis. We will ask the students to find them in the text and After working on the problems here presented, we will try to reformulate the ideas of the song: contrary to popular opinion, the beautiful age, according to Yves Duteil, is 30 years. For him, the youth was silent, full of anxieties and sorrows. It is now (30 years) that he is happy, blooming. The years that passed did not bring him the worries which we always talk about, but, on the contrary, balance and love.
We will provide students opportunities to express their opinion, vis-à-vis the Duteil's one, which was anxious throughout his whole adolescence (Appendix) [18]. He considers thirty years as his well and happy age, being convinced that his thirty years are also a little bit of others… When Duteil writes songs, he has the impression of giving tings to others and to freeing oneself of things.
He does not feed on his own despair and believes that trying to get out is the only way. When one is about to "drowning", it should not describe what is happening around, but it must "swim" towards the bank to save himself. We think this is what Yves Duteil is trying to do in his songs. This is the profound message of the song and it can become a valuable impetus for us all: to cross the ocean of existence -LIFE. We can suggest students to comment and express their opinion on le plus bel âge de la vie (the best time of life), compared to those of the singer.
What is important is that the song circulates in the streets "from mouth to ear" and that it lives a life of its own beyond its author, as another famous French singer, Charles Trenet, says in his song L'âme de poètes (The soul of poets) [20]: «Longtemps, longtemps, longtemps, Apres que les poètes ont disparu Leurs chansons courent dans les rues.» ("Long, long, long, After poets have disappeared Their songs run through the streets.")

Conclusion
What interests in a song is less the origin of its words (historical, psychological, social), but when the words circulate and where someone listens to them. The cultural function of the song is simply evoked by the verb "to hum". It is, indeed, the discursive dominant of the enunciation which allows fragments of songs to circulate, even if one does not know what their significance was in all the original text.
Activities and games of the kind that we presented here seem to give encouraging results in promoting the need, desire and pleasure to communicate in the narrow space of the four walls of a classroom.

Avoir trente ans
Being thirty years Qu'est-ce que c'est bien d'avoir trente ans ! How good is to be thirty! On se moque de l'air du temps, We laugh air of time, On est encore dans la jeunesse.
We are still in youth. À cheval sur les souvenirs, Astraddle on memories, On a le temps de voir venir We have time to see coming La vieillesse.
Old age.
On parle beaucoup des tourments, We talk much of torments, Des problèmes avec les enfants, About problems with children, Des querelles et des jours de peine, About quarrels and sorrow days, Mais quand parfois on est content, But sometimes when we're happy, Qu'est-ce que c'est bien d'avoir trente ans ! How good is to be thirty! Quand on aime.
When we love. To be faster today.

Avoir trente ans Being thirty years
Pour échapper à mon silence, To escape my silence, J'ai gravi les marches du temps. I climbed the stairs of time. Qu'est-ce que c'est bien d'avoir trente ans ! How good is to be thirty! Quand j'y penseç! When I think of this! On croit toujours que tout s'éteint, We always think that everything goes off, Que le temps défait les chemins, That time destroys ways, Que les rues sont toujours les mêmes, That the streets are always the same, Mais la légende a fait long feu.
But the legend has fizzled. Moi, mon chemin c'est un ciel bleu, Me, my way is a blue sky, Et je t'aime.
And I love you.
Si je t'écris ces mots d'amour, If I write you these words of love, C'est pour te dire que si un jour This is to tell you that if one day Je t'ai fait pleurer, ma tendresse, I made you cry, my love, C'était les derniers soubresauts There were the last convulsions De mes peurs et de mes sanglots Of my fears and sighs De jeunesse.
Of youth.
Et puis pour dire à ton petit And then, to tell your little Dont les yeux se sont assombris, Hose eyes are gloomy, Que j'ai pleuré pour des nuages, I cried for the clouds, Que j'ai passé par son chemin I passed by his way Avec ma tête entre mes mains, With my head in my hands, À son âge.
At his age.
Je t'ai attendue bien long temps, I waited for you a long time, Mais pour t'aimer plus tendrement, But to love you more tenderly, Je n'ai plus rien qui me retienne.
I have no thing more that retains me. Je n'ai plus mal à mon passé I do not have bad in my past Le present a tout effacé The present has erased everything De mes peines.
From my sorrows.