Music and Songs

Stand up, sit down.

Aim of the activity Word recognition. Preparation Write the words from the gap fill on to the board. Procedure 1) Ask the students to look at the words and guess what sort of song they are going to hear: 2) Before they listen ask each student to choose two of the words on the board 3) When they hear their word they should stand up, shout the word and then sit down again. 5) Play the song again and this time the students stand up when they hear all of the words. Variation The student stands up when they hear a word and sit down when they hear the word again. This is better for low level students.

Dictation
Aim of the activity To improve listening skills, especially linking, and written accuracy. Preparation Have the song and copies of the lyrics ready. Procedure Following on from the above activity you play the first 2 lines of the song and students have to write it down accurately. You then move on to the next two lines and continue as above. Students check and correct in pairs and then you play each line again and they check their answers in groups of four students. The song is then played through completely. Do not dictate more than six lines! Then you hand out the lyrics to see how much they got correct. Students can then put the words in from the gap-fill if this is a continuation from the Stand up, sit down activity.

@Lake School

Email: enquiries@englishinoxford.com

Bingo
Aims To improve listening skills. Listening for specific information. Preparation and Procedure Write 15 words from the song onto the board or use a wordle package at www.wordle.net and ask the students to draw a 3x3 grid on a sheet of paper. They choose 9 different words and insert one in each of the 9 boxes. They listen to the song and when they hear one of their chosen words they cross it out. The first person to get a vertical, horizontal or diagonal line shouts bingo and the game stops. You check to make sure the 3 words have already been sung and then continue. The students will now listen for all the words and try and get a full house. A full house is when all 9 boxes are crossed out.

Song Lyric Ordering.

Aims To improve listening skills. Practice collocation. Preparation and Procedure Copy the lyrics and cut up each line. Hand out one set of cut up lyrics to groups of 4 students. For low levels you can cut the song into paragraphs. Students listen and put the song lyrics in the right order.

Wrong words
Aims To improve listening, especially for minimal pairs. Preparation and Procedure Write out the lyrics of a song, replacing some of the words with substitute words that have similar sounds to the original words. Students underline wrong words as they listen to the song and correct them. Alternatively, add extra words and ask the students to cross them out as they listen.

@Lake School

Email: enquiries@englishinoxford.com

Opposites
Preparation and Procedure Pick out a selection of words from the song you are going to play and write down the opposites of these words. Read out these opposites and ask the students to write down the opposites of the words you read out. Now ask them to number the words they have written in the order they hear them in the song. When they have listened to the song, ask the students if there were any of their words they didn't hear. Discuss the notion of "opposite" and the fact that words have different opposites depending on the context.

Grab the lyrics

Aims To improve listening skills for specific phrases Preparation and Procedure Cut and copy sets of words or phrases in the song. Laminate them and give out one set per group. Students listen to the song and when they hear the lyrics on the card they grab them and keep hold of them. The winner is the person at the end who has the most laminated paper.

How many Schwas?

Aims To identify the schwa Preparation and Procedure Copy a song and give out the lyrics. Ask the students to look at the first verse and to highlight any schwas in the sentences when they read it normally. Ask them to give you their totals and see how many students agree with you! Go through the pronunciation of all weak forms in the sentences to check pronunciation before singing the verse and seeing if the singer also pronounces the sound as a schwa. Variation: When you copy a song put in the symbol for a schwa into the lyrics . Students then have to sing using this annotated sheet and afterwards write the words down in correct English and check.

@Lake School

Email: enquiries@englishinoxford.com

Guess the other half

Preparation and Procedure Write out the lyrics of a song, leaving alternate lines blank. Write out the blanked lines on a separate worksheet, cut them out and mix them up. Give each pair of students a copy of the blanked lyrics and a set of mixed up lines. Ask them to arrange the lines so that they fill in the blanks. Listen and check.

Sort out the songs

Aims To improve vocabulary and listening Preparation and Procedure Write out the lyrics of two short songs and mix them up. Ask the students to separate the lines into two songs. Listen and check. These activities can also be used with dialogues and reading texts.

Sources
Many great worksheets are easy to download from http://www.tuneintoenglish.com/ If you have a computer and microphone in your class a fun site is http://www.karaokeparty.com/ Good source of lyrics at www.batlyrics.com

@Lake School

Email: enquiries@englishinoxford.com