Tag: song based lesson plan for english language teaching

Can We Pretend – P!nk feat. Cash Cash

can we pretend

Description:
This song-based activity lesson plan for English language teaching features the song ‘Can We Pretend” by P!nk feat. Cash Cash and its Lyric video. Students answer Have You Ever questions with Wheeldecide.com, do a matching exercise with vowel sounds and diphthongs, listen to the song and put the words in order.

Language level: Pre-intermediate (A2+ - B1) and above
Learner type: All ages
Skills: speaking, reading, listening, pronunciation (vowel sounds and diphthongs)
Topic: Experiences and Pretense
Language and Grammar: Vocabulary related to experiences, Present Perfect tense
Materials: Youtube video, worksheet pdf and mp3 file
Duration: 1 hour 
Downloadable materials:  instructions; Vowel sound worksheet; song mp3

PART 1 – Warm Up + Have you ever…? (Is it real or just pretending?)

Important information:

This warm-up uses WheelDecide.com – a free online spinner tool that allows you to create your own digital wheels for decision-making – more info here. However, this can be substituted. (See step 2.).

The teacher must also have a list of possible Have you ever questions and follow-up questions in hand. 

Example questions:
– Have you ever been on TV? When? Why?
– Have you ever broken a bone? How did it happen?
– Have you ever ridden a horse or another animal? give us details
– Have you ever forgotten someone’s birthday? What happened?
– Have you ever received a gift that you did not like? What was it?
– Have you ever fallen asleep in class or at work? Did you get in trouble because of if?
– Have you ever been in a car accident? How did it happen?
– Have you ever tried an extreme sport? How did you feel?

Step 1.

A student comes to the board. Explain to him/her he/she is going to answer a question according to what the wheel dictates! If the wheel says yes, he/she has to pretend they really did that activity and invent details. Tell them to do their best to be convincing. After the student answers, the class is going to vote if it was real or just pretense!

Step 2.

The teacher asks a Have you ever question and with the help of a magic pen or the mouse, the student spins this wheel. (in our school we use a white board with a projector connected to a computer with Internet access).  The options are just YES or NO. OBS:  As an alternative to wheeldecide.com, you can use a die (even numbers meaning yes, odd numbers, no), or a coin (heads means yes, tails means no).

Step 3.

The student answers the question according to the wheeldecide (or coin/die) and the teacher then asks follow-up questions (only if the answer was ‘yes’.).

Step 4.

After the student answers, the teacher asks the rest of the class if they think the student was telling the truth or just pretending.

Step 5.

The student says if it was true or just pretense.

Step 6.

Have another student come to the front to answer another question according to the wheel (or die/coin). This can go on for about 15 – 20 min. or as long as it is still fun for the students to do it!

PART 2 –  Vowel Sounds & Diphthongs Worksheet

Step 7.

Hand out the worksheet and quickly review the vowel sounds and diphthongs. Show the symbols on the table and have students repeat the model words.

Tell students that they are going to work with 10 words from the song “Can We Pretend” by Pink and Cash Cash. Their task is to put the words in the box in their appropriate places in the phonetic table:

Answer key exercise A

(see) /iː/   feeling
(go) /əʊ/ nowhere
(my)   /ɑɪ/ sometimes
(say)          /eɪ/ conversations
(saw) /ɔː/   walked
(cat)   /æ/ daddy
(sit) /ɪ/ pictures  

lips

miss
(two) /uː/ dudes

PART 3 – Listening

Step 8.

After checking the answers, divide students into small groups. They are going to listen to the song and order the words they worked with in exercise A, according to the order they appear in the song.

Step 9. Play the lyric video for students to watch and check their answers

Answer key Exercise B

Conversations ( 1    )
Daddy (  6 )
Dudes ( 10   )
Feeling (  8 )
Lips (  9 )
Miss ( 7    )
Nowhere (  3 )
Pictures (  2 )
Sometimes  ( 4 )
Walked (  5 )

That’s it for this week! I hope this activity is helpful and enjoyable!

Happy teaching!  🙂

Beautiful Life – Now United

beautiful life post

Description:

This song-based activity lesson plan for English language teaching features the song Beautiful Life (Now United) and its official music video. Students talk about countries and do a matching exercise with flags, watch a video, do a word search exercise, listen to the song, do a listening exercise with the lyrics, and write an email.

Language level: Basic (A2) and above
Learner type: All ages
Skills: speaking, reading, listening and writing
Topic: Countries
Language: Vocabulary related to countries, expressing opinions and writing e-mails
Materials: Youtube videos, worksheets pdf and mp3 file
Duration: 1 hour - 1h 30 min

Downloadable materials:  instructions; Country flags worksheet; Lyrics worksheet; song mp3

Part 1 – Warm-up – Intro

Step 1. Ask students if they know a group called “Now United” and if so, ask them to say what makes this group unique.

If nobody knows or if they do not have much information about it, read/ project this piece of news about them:

Now United is an international co-ed group with 14 different singers and dancers from 14 different countries. The group was formed by Simon Fuller in mid-2016 and is led by XIX Entertainment. They officially debuted in 2018. More information about the band here 

Step 2. Country flag worksheet. Hand out the worksheet and have students work in pairs to match the countries and the flags. (5 min) When they’re done, play the meet Now United video so they can check their work.

Answer key:
Brazil (5) Finland (3) Mexico (8)
The Philippines (1) Canada (7) India (13) 
Senegal (10) China (14) Germany (6)
South Korea (12) The UK ( 9) Russia (2)
Japan (11) The USA (4)

PART 2 – Reading + Listening (Lyrics Worksheet)

Step 3. Hand out the lyrics worksheet. It has 2 exercises: 1- word search and 2 – listen to the song and fill the gaps with the words found.

Step 4. Have a competition to see who can find all the words first!

Step 5. After everybody has found the words, tell students to turn their worksheets with the page down, because they are going to watch the music video for “Beautiful Life”, and while they watch, they must try to identify the words they found in exercise one.

Step 6. Have students tell you if they could identify some of the words in the song while watching the video.

Step 7. Exercise 2. Play the song and have students complete the gaps with the words from exercise 1. Check answers.

Answer key:
[1] stars [2] glad  [3] sky [4] paradise [5] breath [6] fire [7] diamond [8] colors [9] world [10] dream [11] hands  

PART 3 Speaking & Writing (an Email)

Step 8. Ask students to look at the Country Flag worksheet again. Ask them if they have ever been to any of those countries. Get some answers, ask some follow-up questions (When, what did you think of it, etc)

Step 9. In pairs, students talk about which of those countries they would like to visit and why. After some time, have the pairs share their answers with the whole class.

Step 10. (writing – it could be assigned as homework if time does not allow it to be done in class)

Tell students to write an email to one of the members of Now United and:
.Say where they are from and mention some interesting facts about it;
.Tell the member of the band they would like to visit their country and ask some questions about it (ex: about the food, customs, history, etc)

That’s it for this week! I hope this activity is helpful and enjoyable!

Happy teaching!  🙂