Using Songs in Class

Students love listening to songs in class, don´t they?

The problem is, most of the activities you see are just gap fills, where students have to fill in the missing words. Here are a couple of my favourite song activities, which are more creative.

Song Drawing - elem +
Play the song, repeating as many times as necessary. As they listen, ss draw what they hear on their paper. You can suggest they use several colours in their drawings. When the song finishes, in pairs ss explain to their partner what the things they have drawn represent. They then try to reconstruct the song from their drawings. (You can also do this activity with a poem). Good song: Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong.

Word Ring – elem +
Give the ss 8 – 10 key words from a song you know. Write them in random order in a ring on the board and ask them to copy them down. In pairs, ss make up a short story using all the words. Invite ss to tell their stories to the class. Play the song. Ask the ss to tick the words as they hear them, and at the same time put them in order. In pairs, they try to remember the lines in which they heard the words. Challenge ss to reconstruct the whole song! Play the song again. Good song: Norwegian Wood, The Beatles. Words: girl, room, anywhere, chair, wine, morning, wood, laugh, bird, fire. Not necessary to have the lyrics.

Song Opposites – elem +
Before class study the lyrics to a song. Choose some key words and think of approximate antonyms /opposites for these words. Write them in a vertical list on the board. Arrange the class in teams, either pairs or small groups. Each team writes on antonym for every word in the list on the board. Tell them they will hear st on the cassette. They get one point every time their word is mentioned, including all repetitions. Count up the points to see who the winner is. Elicit which words appeared in the song, pairing them with your list of opposites on the board. Elicit as much of the song as you can. Good song: Yesterday, by the Beatles. Antonyms: tomorrow, near, there, gradually, woman, light, come, right, short, hate, work, show. Not necessary to have the lyrics. Or We Are Family, by Sister Sledge.

Group Song Writing – Pre Int +
Ss in groups of 5- 6. They have to complete the stem sentence which the teacher will read out, writing the full sentence on top of a piece of paper, and then passing the paper to the left. Teacher dictates 6 stems. By the time they have completed 6 such sentences, each member will have a list of 6 different sentences on different themes which together form a poem.
Stems: The sun is like; The evening is like.. ; Love is like.. ; a baby is like..; Friendship is like.. ; the morning is like.. .
Ss study the “poems” of each member of the group and attempt to arrange the “best” sentences in some sort of poetic order and to edit them as a song –poem. Ss then put the poems to music!!