Teach English With Songs: Musical Sentences – a Fun ESL Activity Idea

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

IN THIS ACTIVITY, In this activity, students MATCH sentences from a song to images with speech bubbles, explain their choices, LISTEN to the song and order the sentences.

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 SENTENCES IDEA – Quick Description And Preparation:

In this activity, students MATCH sentences from a song to images with speech bubbles, explain their choices, LISTEN to the song and order the sentences.

Make a slide with the three sentences you got from the song you’ve chosen for the activity.

Use phraseit.net to choose 3 funny photos and make speech bubbles easily. See a quick tutorial in step 7!

Make a second slide with the 3 photos (number them 1-3) also include the three sentences (a-c) somewhere on the slide (see example in step 3).

SUGGESTED STEP-BY-STEP LESSON PLAN

Step 1. (5 min)

Ask your students to tell you what makes a good song. Is it the rhythm, the singer, band or the message?

Ask students to share their opinions, and ask them to tell you their favorite songs, and why they like them.

Step 2. (7 min)

Tell your students that you are going to show them three sentences from a song.

Show the slide with the 3 sentences. (see example below)

Check if students know the vocabulary.

Tell students that these are sentences from the lyrics of a song. See if any student recognizes it, but don’t expect them to.

Step 3. (3 min)

Show the slide with the 3 pictures with speech bubbles. Have some students describe the pictures.

example:

Step 4. (7 min)

In pairs, (breakout rooms, if you are teaching online), the students match the sentences and the people. They have to come up with an explanation to why the person, (or animal), is thinking that in 15 to 20 words.

Step 5. (10 min)

The pairs share their ideas, and explain why the people are thinking that.

Step 6. (10 min)

Tell students you’re going to play the song. Their task is to put the sentences in the order they hear them.

Play the song twice. Ask students to write their answers in the chat box. (if you’re teaching online).

Step 7. Suggested activity.

You can prepare a lyrics worksheet with the song for students to do some kind of exercise with the lyrics. See the link for an example activity HERE.

Now, here’s is a quick tutorial to use Phraseit.net!

click on “Upload Photo From Your Device”. (Or use Random Stock Photo)
Select a photo from your hard drive
You will now be redirected to the Speech Bubble Generator view
It’s time to get creative! Select the speech bubble layout you want from the top navigation and start adding speech bubbles to your photos. To do this just grab the speech bubble you like and DRAG it to the photo. Then you can adjust the position. When you’re done, click preview & save it to your device! SIMPLE

Check out this idea in action with the song-based lesson plan below:

Using Speech Bubbles In a Fun Song Activity For English Language Teaching!

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!