Mixing Songs & Houses? Musical Neighborhood: A Creative LP For ELT

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Here is the place to be if you believe in the power of songs to teach English!

This week’s song-based lesson plan features the song “Wasted Love” by Ofenbach!

Description:

This song-based STEP-BY-STEP LESSON PLAN for ENGLISH language TEACHING features the lyrics for “Wasted Love” by Ofenbach. Students TALK about where they live, DESCRIBE neighborhoods and compare photos, LISTEN to the song and match it to one of the pictures, IMAGINE and DESCRIBE what the people who live in the neighborhoods look like, READ The lyrics, and WRITE a story (Cambridge English: First for schools Style) for homework.

OBS: This lesson plan was made for ONLINE TEACHING, but it can be modified for face-to-face instruction, as well.

Language level: B2
Learner type: All ages
Skills: speaking, reading, listening and writing
Topic: Neighborhoods, lifestyles, relationships
Language/grammar: describing, comparing, writing stories
Materials: Collaborative Google doc, genia.ly presentation 
Duration: 1 hour - 1h 30 min
Download your free teaching resources:  instructions; Collaborative Google doc (for you to make a copy you can edit)

STEP-BY-STEP LESSON PLAN

Step 1 (5 min)

Warm up questions. Do you like where you live now? Why (not)? Is it a quiet or a noisy neighborhood?

Step 2 (7 min)

Photos of neighborhoods (slide 1). Use the Genial.ly Presentation below:

Screen-share the pictures of the three neighborhoods. Have students describe them. How do they imagine the people who live there? Ask students to talk about the places and compare them. What might be some good and bad things about living in those neighborhoods? Would they like to live in one of these places? Why (not)?

Step 3 (7 min)

Song: first listening. Tell your students that you are going to play a song that one person that lives in one of the neighborhoods likes a lot. Their task is to imagine where the person who likes the song lives: picture 1 , 2 or 3?.

Play the song and have students write down the number of the picture and why.

Step 4 (5 min)

Have students share their answers via chat box. Count how many votes each picture had, and ask students to explain their choices.

Step 5 (10 min)

Working in pairs (breakout rooms), have students choose one neighborhood and describe the person who lives in it with the help of the following questions (have them write their description in a doc or notepad for the next step):

Slide 2. (Have students take a print to use the info in the breakout rooms)

1- What does he/she look like?
2- What’s his/her name?
3- How old is she/he?
4- what’s his/her occupation?
5- is he/she happy? Why (not)?

Step 6 (10 min)

Share the LINK to the collaborative google doc. Have the pairs paste their descriptions under the picture they chose. Have the pairs present their residents.

Step 7 (10 min)

Screen-share the lyrics of the song (slide 3), and play it again. Help students with the vocabulary.

Ask your students what they thought of the song and if the message really connects to the person and the neighborhood they chose in the previous steps.

Step 8 Homework (or in class, if you have time!)

Students write a story in which the person from neighborhood 1 meets a person from neighborhood 2 or 3. How does this meeting happen? Where are they? How does it end?

Write a story in which the person from neighborhood 1 meets a person from neighborhood 2 or 3. How does this meeting happen? Where are they? How does it end?
Start with the sentence: “If I knew how to find the words I'd tell you.” said the man looking sad.
Include: 
1- good news
2- one line from the lyrics

Write 140 - 190 words

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!