CREATIVE TEACHING IDEA for Reviewing and Practicing Question Formation With English Songs: Musical Interview

MUSICAL INTERVIEW is an IDEA for an adaptable song activity along with a suggested step-by-step LESSON PLAN for English language teaching.

IN THIS ACTIVITY, students listen to a song, read the lyrics, and work in groups to formulate questions to the singer.

There is focus on the four skills and students practice COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, CREATIVITY & CRITICAL THINKING during this activity.

LEARN HOW TO APPLY THIS IDEA TO ANY SONG YOU WANT BY FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE VIDEO BELOW:

MUSICAL INTERVIEW IDEA – Quick Description And Preparation:

In this activity, students listen to the song, read the lyrics, and work in groups to formulate questions to the singer.

Make a slide for the lyrics and a google doc for students to collaborate.

SUGGESTED STEP-BY-STEP LESSON PLAN

Step 1. (5 min)

Ask students to share some verses they remember from their favorite songs, and say why they like them.

For online classes, have students use the chat box for this.

Step 2. (7 min)

Play the song you’ve chosen for the activity.

Ask students what they thought about the song, and what they understood about the message.

Step 3. (5 min)

Show or screen-share the lyrics. Let your students read them as you play the song again.

Help students with the unknown words.

Step 4. (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. Use the chat box for online students. Focus on the Simple past.

E.g. write on the board. I studied for a test yesterday. Students may write in the chat box: What did you study yesterday? Remind them to start yes/no questions with Did. Have students ask you questions with BE in the past, as well.

Step 5. (10 to 15 min)

In small groups, (breakout rooms), students have to prepare questions for an interview with the singer about the song.

Tell them they will have a time limit of 10 minutes to come up with as many questions as they can for the singer.

Make it clear that the focus is on quantity, not quality. You can have a competition to see which group can have the most questions.

Step 6A. (5 min)

Share the link to a collaborative google doc with a designated working space for each group.

The groups write their questions in their designated spaces.

Step 6B. (5 to 7 min)

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

Step 7. (5 to 7 min)

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

Step 8. Homework or in-class work if you have time.

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 they pretend they are the singer, and answer the questions and share with the class.

Check out this idea in action with the following song-based lesson plans:

MUSICAL INTERVIEW: Do You Have The Courage To Change? (Sia – Courage To Change) Teaching English with Songs!

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

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!