Musical Interview (Anne-Marie – Her) Teaching English with SONGS

Description:

This song-based activity STEP-BY-STEP LESSON PLAN for ENGLISH language TEACHING features the song “Her” by Anne Marie. Students LISTEN to a song intro, TALK about it and ANSWER questions about it, DO listening exercise with the lyrics in an interactive worksheet, REVIEW question formation, work in groups to FORMULATE questions for an interview with the singer and as homework do a piece of writing or record a video.

OBS: This lesson plan was made to be used for ONLINE TEACHING WITH ZOOM features like ZOOM WHITEBOARD, ZOOM SCREEN SHARE and ZOOM CHAT, but it can be modified for face-to-face instruction, as well.

Language level: B1 and above
Learner type: All ages
Skills: speaking, reading, listening and writing
Topic: Family relationships
Language/grammar: Question formation/ writing articles
Materials: Song intro mp3 file, google doc, google slides, interactive worksheet
Duration: 1 hour - 1h 20 min
Downloadable materials:  instructions; google slides; song intro.mp3;
 Collaborative Google doc (for you to make a copy you can edit)

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO VERSION OF THIS POST:

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO VERSION OF THIS POST!

STEP-BY-STEP LESSON PLAN

Step 1 (5 min)

Tell your students that you are going to play 1 minute of a song and they must pay attention. After playing it, ask students: Is it a happy or a sad song? Get answers as a class, have students explain their answers.

Step 2 (5 min)

Screen-share the slide with the questions. Have students read the questions and clarify any doubts. Play the song intro again (1 min).

Questions:

1- What is the singer feeling? Why do you think so?
2- Who is the singer singing to? 
A- her brother/sister
B- her mother
C- her boyfriend/girlfriend

Step 3 (7 min)

Ask students to write their ideas in the Chat Box. Correct any mistakes in the sentences or ask other students to correct.

Step 4 (5 min)

Share the link with the interactive worksheet

Play the whole song and students drag the lyrics to their right places in the song.

When they’re done, you can play the music video and ask students what they thought about it.

Step 5 (3 min)

Show the slide with the full lyrics. Students read. Help with the vocabulary

Step 6 (5 min)

Do a quick review on question formation by writing some sentences on the board and asking students to write the questions to the answers in the chat box.

E.g., write on the board. I studied for a test yesterday. Students write in the chat box: What did you study yesterday? Remind them to start yes/no questions with the auxiliary verbs. Have students ask you questions with present perfect and simple present, too.

Step 7 (10 – 15 min)

Interview with the singer. Tell students they are going to prepare questions about the song for an imaginary interview with the singer.

Divide the class In small groups and in the breakout room, they will have a time limit of 10 min to come up with as many questions as they can for the singer. Make clear that the focus is on quantity, not quality. You can have a competition to see which group comes up with the most questions.

Step 8 (5 min)

Share the link to the collaborative google doc with a designated working space for each group. The groups write their questions in their designated spaces.

Step 9 (5 – 7 min)

Highlight the mistakes in the questions and have random students correct them.

Step 10 (5 – 7 min)

As a class, students choose the best questions from all the ones the groups prepared for the interview.

Step 11 (homework)

Students imagine they are the singer and answer the questions, and then write a short magazine article with the answers.

Alternatively, you can ask the groups to record a video in which one of them pretends to be the singer and answer the questions and share with the class.

This song-based lesson plan is sure to spice up your classes! However, would you like to think, feel and act more creatively on your own to be able to turn ANY song you want into an engaging lesson plan?
HERE are TIME-SAVING ideas that do the heavy work so you can focus on the most important: INSPIRING and MOTIVATING YOUR STUDENTS to learn CREATIVELY!