Teaching With Songs: Musical Texting with Anne-Marie and Niall Horan’s “Our Song”

WELCOME to the SONG ACTIVITY FACTORY!

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

This week, the Song Activity Factory features Niall Horan & Anne-Marie’s new song: OUR SONG!

I hope YOU and your students have a BLAST with it!

Description:

This song-based STEP-BY-STEP LESSON PLAN for ENGLISH language TEACHING features the lyrics and music video for “OUR SONG” by NIALL HORAN & ANNE-MARIE. Students TALK about pictures and imagine how the people are feeling, WRITE texting messages using the lyrics word cloud, REVIEW verb tenses and grammar structures with a matching exercise, LISTEN to the song and identify sentences, work with an INTERACTIVE WORKSHEET, WATCH the music video and SPECULATE about it..

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: Relationships
Language/grammar: texting, verb tenses, used to, can, let
Materials: YouTube video, genial.ly presentation, interactive worksheet
Duration: about an hour
Download your free teaching resources:  instructions

VIDEO VERSION! NEW!

STEP-BY-STEP LESSON PLAN

Step 1 (5 min)

Genial.ly presentation.

Screen-share the slide with the pictures of the guy texting. Ask students to say how he’s feeling in each one and use their imagination to say why.

Step 2 (10 min)

Tell them to work in pairs (breakout rooms) and write a text message dialogue for the sequence of pictures using as many words from the word cloud as they can. Obs: Tell them these are words from a song

Step 3 (7 min)

Back to the main room, have the pairs read their dialogues. You can have a vote on the funniest, most tragic, imaginative, etc.

Step 4 (10 min)

Verb Review.

Screen-share slide 3 with some phrases from the song. Tell them to match them to the grammar structures and tenses. In the correction, ask students to make other examples with the structures and tenses. Write them on the board.

1- MATCH THE GRAMMAR STRUCTURES AND TENSES (A-G) WITH THE EXAMPLES (1-9)
You’ll use some letters more than once.

A. We use this structure when we refer to things in the past which are no longer true.
B. This structure can be used to express ability, possibility or permission
C. We use this structure to talk about permission
D. Simple future
E. Simple Present
F. Present perfect
G. Present perfect continuous

(     ) I can get you out of my head
(     ) I haven’t thought of her
(     ) I remember you’re gone
(     ) I’ll be honest
(     ) I’ve been trying 
(     ) The places we used to go 
(     ) You never ever let me forget 
(     ) I’ve been waking up alone
(     ) The song on the radio that we used to know 

ANSWERS:
1 B 2F 3E 4D 5G 6A 7C 8G 9 A

Step 5 (7 min)

Tell students that these are sentences taken from the lyrics of a song. Ask them if they recognize it.

Ask them to guess if the song is happy, sad, fast, slow, music genre, etc. then play it for them to check.

Step 6 (7 min)

Tell students that one of the following phrases is not in the lyrics (slide 4). Their task is to listen to the song again and identify which one is not.

But every time I think
Can’t fight it
I still love her (not in the lyrics)
In my own white tee
On the radio
Stop smiling
Takes me back
in my own bedsheets

Step 7 (7 min)

Interactive worksheet LINK

Students listen to the song and drag the phrases to their right places.

To see their results, tell students to click FINISH!! And then CHECK MY RESULTS!

Step 8 ( 5 min) Optional

Play the music video, or send the link for students to watch on their devices.

Ask them what they think it’s going to happen to the characters on the video.

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!