August 2025 – Song Activity Factory

$Featured image for the 'Ordinary' ESL lesson plan. A prism refracts light over icons of a couple, an angel wing, and a lightbulb, symbolizing how one song can have many interpretations. Text reads 'Ordinary Lesson Plan B2/C1'.$

How To Use Alex Warren’s Ordinary To Turn Boring ESL Into Extraordinary Success

August 14, 2025 Márcia Bonfim (Mars)

A creative ESL lesson plan using Alex Warren’s “Ordinary.” This B2/C1 song activity goes beyond gap-fills to teach critical thinking and figurative language

Featured image for a creative ESL song activity. The image contrasts a boring gap-fill worksheet held by a frustrated teacher in black and white with a brilliant, colorful scene of two engaged teen students learning with music, showing the transformation from ordinary to extraordinary teaching.

ESL Song Analysis: Why Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” is Great

August 6, 2025 Márcia Bonfim (Mars)

Tired of boring gap-fill exercises? Discover how to use Alex Warren’s hit song “Ordinary” to create a truly creative and time-saving song activity for your teen or adult ESL students. This deep dive moves beyond the surface, offering a line-by-line analysis of powerful metaphors and vocabulary you can actually teach with. Get a FREE, ready-to-use lesson plan designed to develop critical thinking, listening skills, and grammar in a meaningful context. Stop searching and start teaching with an activity that fosters deep discussion and engages students with music they already love.

An ESL teacher points to a screen showing song lyrics like 'DREAM, WANNA, DANCE' in a creative lesson plan for Ed Sheeran's 'Azizam,' while teen students collaborate happily.

Creative ESL Lesson Plan: Teach ‘I Wanna…’ with Ed Sheeran’s Azizam

August 3, 2025 Márcia Bonfim (Mars)

Tired of boring gap-fill exercises? This creative, time-saving lesson plan uses Ed Sheeran’s song “Azizam” to teach the informal contraction “I wanna…” in a way that truly engages teens and adults. Move beyond memorization and discover a step-by-step guide to boost visual literacy, critical thinking, and 21st-century skills. This is the interactive song activity you’ve been looking for to bring energy and authentic language use back into your ESL classroom.