My company trained us with a variety of activities and techniques to use in our teachings, but I've gotten ideas from other sources as well. L.A.'s Freestyle Fellowship inspired a lesson last year and another musician, Bobby McFerrin, has helped me teach pronunciation. 

Though students learn to read and write English, pronunciation is another beast entirely. Repetition addresses this but simple "repeat after me"'s get played out quickly, causing students to zone out or do it unconsciously(which leads to less retention). So I was constantly trying to figure out a better way to teach it.

And then this clip of McFerrin and the pentatonic scale started circulating:

After seeing it, and noting how the audience associated his physical location with relative pitches, I thought I'd give it a shot with my students. But instead of scales and pitches, I used vocabulary words and syllables.

For example, the word "communication" would be broken into 5 syllables, "com", "mu", "ni", "ca" and "tion", and I'd demonstrate each one at a relative location. In the clip, the audience was able to follow McFerrin as he physically (and sporadically) moved between pitches. Likewise, my students could follow me as I moved (sporadically) between syllables!

It turned out to be a great way to teach pronunciation. The McFerrin technique made practicing more puzzle-like, and their desire to solve each puzzle kept them attent and focused while participating.

Not only that, but by concentrating on the syllables, they ended up doing better with similar sounding words. A word like "immunization" would be intimidating until the syllabic breakdown revealed "mu", "ni" and "tion"--3 syllables they had already learned and felt comfortable with.

I wouldn't have guessed that you could learn something about teaching English from Bobby McFerrin; I only thought of him whenever someone said "Don't Worry, be Happy"! But by keeping an open mind, I was able to once again see how unrelated things can help you solve a problem.