Posted in listening, songs, tagged collocations, EFL, English Teaching, ESL, Mr. Brightside, phrasal verbs, The Killers on June 29, 2009| 3 Comments »
As promised last time, another song.
(Note: I do not like the Killers. They are definitely not my thing. Apart from the fact that $4MT has had a strong hip-hop/R&B bias in its musical slant, I should note that the Killers for me are well on their way to dethroning U2 for the post of Most Overrated Rock Band.
But I had another special request from a student who said it was his favorite song. He just wanted to know what the words were. Luckily, I was able to extrapolate a slightly more relevant teaching point than just “What’s he sayin’?”, being that there’s a ton of little phrasal verbs and what not to be picked apart.)
There’s two parts basically to this worksheet. You may or may not want to fold it neatly in half before giving it to the students.
Mr. Brightside song activity (MS Word doc, 22 KB)
1. Start with the words from the first part on two columns on the board and elicit combinations. They don’t have to correspond to the ones used in the song. Get students to give you example sentences for each combination. Do a little mime game if you want. All that good stuff.
2. Then students listen to the song and fill in the blanks. Then after that you can ask them what the hell this guy is talking about. For example, what the hell is “turning saints into the sea” supposed to mean? (Personally, I can’t stand this sort of pretentious fake-poetry rock lyrics. Another example from a Killers song, “Are we human or are we dancers?”–um, you’re probably both, idiot. But I digress.)
After you’ve got at least one or two possible ideas, show them the video.
Elicit what they think the situation is–how are the singer and the girl in the video related, etc., etc.
As a writing exercise, have Ss choose to be either the singer or the girl in the video. They must write a diary entry about what happened to them in the song, starting like this: “Last night, I went to a party and…”
Posted in listening, songs, video lessons, tagged EFL, Englsih Teaching, ESL, Incredibad, Lonely Planet, New English File, sports, TEFL, vocabulary, We Like Sportz on June 19, 2009| Leave a Comment »
I’m back! What?! What y’all know about that? What?! What?!
Oh, ahem. Hi, hello there. I’ve not been doing much posting as of late. To make up for that, I’m gonna try to double up here.
As things wind down to a close and the kids finish their schoolwork and take their exams, we’re left in a bit of a lull until the actual end of the course. And of course, the people want songs. Songs, songs, songs.
So here’s one. It’s related to sports and sports vocabulary. It’s “We Like Sportz” by the Lonely Planet, from their album Incredibad. It’s kind of hilarious. Could be appropriate for that unit related to sports in your typical pre-intermediate/intermediate level. The “cheating sux!” line goes perfectly with Unit 1C from New English File Intermediate, for example.
It starts with a little vocabulary word-map / brainstorming activity. Then there’s a listen-and-tick-the-things-you-hear joint. Then you got a little correct-the-rhyme-scheme, then-listen-and-check joint. Then a little fill-in-the-blank action. Then some discussion activity type flavor–do a “Why? Why? Why?” game in pairs, then talk about it together as a group.
We Like Sportz (MS Word doc, 36 KB)
And here’s the video:
Posted in listening, songs, tagged EFL, Eminem, English Teaching, ESL, Guilty Conscience, songs, teenagers, TEFL, video on April 20, 2009| 2 Comments »
(Oops!!! I forgot to attach the worksheet at first! Sorry!)
Materials:
– guilty-conscience-task-sheet (MS Word doc, 39 KB)
– Eminem “Guilty Conscience” video (click here)
In recent months, a private student of mine, a teenage boy with a lower Upper-Intermediate (yeah, I know, right, huh? By that I mean a kid who is basically forced to prepare for the FCE at school although he doesn’t really have the level to do so) level seems to have become obsessed with Eminem.
Evidently he saw “8 Mile” not too long ago (more than a couple of years late, I might add) and so now, instead of the crap Spanish adolescent rock-pop he was listening to before (El Canto del Loco and other lame bullhockey of that nature), he’s all into some Eminem.
He asked me if we could do something in English class related to the song “Guilty Conscience” by your boy Slim Shady himself and Dr. Dre. And I said, “O.K.” And in fact, as he was recently reviewing reported speech and so forth, I realized hey, this is as good a song as any for practicing reported command verbs and so on. Matter of fact, it lends itself quite well to said linguistic chore.
And so it was that, in the process of making a worksheet to accompany this song in our private class, I seem to have a created the single most un-P.C. piece of English Language Teaching material known to man.
I realize a lesson like this will be of little use in 99% of teaching situations around the world. If nothing else, it should just go to show that you can adapt damn near anything for use in the language classroom.
Behold: I give you the “Guilty Conscience” Song / Reported Commands Worksheet and Lesson Plan.
(note: this songs features heaps and heaps of cuss words and unsavory topics such as armed robbery, “date rape” drugs, and marital infidelity. Strictly for use with teenagers?)
Disclaimer: $trictly 4 my T.E.A.C.H.E.R.Z. accepts no responsibility for any jobs being lost, teachers being fired, students and/or parents complaining, etc., due to use of materials presented here which may or not be considered controversial or taboo. Teachers should use good judgment in choosing materials to be used with each student or group. Just putting that out there…!
STAGE ONE / Lead-in Discussion (5 min.)
Write the word “CRIME” on the board. Elicit some words for different kinds of crime–murder, rape, kidnapping, drug-dealing, robbery, etc. List them vertically on a piece of paper (or on the board). Elicit the noun and verb form for each (to murder, to rape, to kidnap, to sell drugs, to rob and/or to steal)–this will help them in Part One of the handout.
When you have a good handful of crimes, have Ss rank the crimes from the most serious to the least serious. (In a 1-to-1 class, you can do this together with the student, asking questions about the reasons for their choices. With a group of student, you can put them in pairs or groups and have them discuss. Then ask questions in feedback, recording the rankings of each group next to the words on the board.)
STAGE TWO / Listening (10-15 min.)
1. Give S the handout and play the video. Set the gist questions (part one) – what does each person do in the song?
(Eddie robs a liquor store. Stan has sex with a drunk girl. Grady shoots his wife and her lover.)
2. Play the video again. Who says what? -in part b, S listen and mark the speaker for each sentence. (Odd numbers – Eminem, even numbers – Dr. Dre) After the second listen, quickly check the answers.
3. Focus on the words in bold and the definitions. S match the words and the definitions. (With a larger group, Ss can do this in pairs, with the teacher monitoring.)
4. Ask: “who is more likely to use these phrases: a young student at the University, or an old woman? How would an old woman say these things in normal English?” Elicit an answer for the first one. When S understand the task, have them “translate” the sentences in pairs. Board and correct as necessary.
5. Ask S what they would do in Grady’s situation. How would they react if they caught their husband and wife in bed with another man?
PART THREE – GRAMMAR (15-20 min.)
1. Review reported commands – You may need to work with the example a bit before doing the exercise, explaining the backshifting of the verb, the change in demonstrative pronoun (“this liquor store”–>”that liquor store”, etc. Write the example on a piece of paper. Work with the student to get the correct reported verb structure with “to” + infinitive–or with “that”. S do the examples individually. (Possible answers: 1. Eminem told Eddie to go in and steal the money, etc. 2. Dr. Dre recommended that Eddie think about it before he walked in… 3. Eminem commanded Eddie to do that shit. 4. Dr. Dre advised Grady to think about the baby, etc. 5. Dr. Dre ordered Grady to shoot them both.)
Check in feedback. Go over any structural errors on the board as necessary.
2. Have S read the information in the box. As they read, draw two rudimentary faces, a boy and a girl (with long hair, to tell them apart). Draw a speech bubble coming from the boy’s mouth. Give S time to read and then draw their attention to the board.
Write the sentence: “I’ll pay you back” Elicit a sentence using a verb from the first column. (He promised to pay her back.)
Write the sentence: “Yes, we made a mistake.” (He admitted that they had made a mistake.) (You may want to point out that this sentence is also possible with the gerund–He admitted making a mistake.)
Write the sentence: “YOU stole my sandwich!” (He accused her of stealing his sandwich.) Then write another sentence, this time from the girl. (“No I didn’t!”) (She denied that she stole the sandwich.) (Or: She denied stealing the sandwich.)
In pairs, S use the sentences in part II of the worksheet to summarize Eddie’s story. Afterwards, have volunteers explain the story, correcting any incorrect use of the structures.
STAGE FOUR – WRITING / SPEAKING
1. On the board draw another three faces–one big, two small. Put a halo on one of the small ones, and some horns on the other.
Refer to the instructions in part IV of the handout. Tell Ss to think of a time when they were tempted to do something bad. (They can make something up if necessary.) Tell them to imagine that they heard two voices telling them to do good and to do bad, have them write a a short paragraph for each one.
2. Put Ss in pairs and have them explain their situation to their partner, and what happened in the end. Switch partners afterwards.
Posted in songs, tagged Can't Believe It, English Teaching, ESL, house vocabulary, songs, T Pain, TEFL, vocabulary on February 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »
level: pre-intermediate, intermediate
materials:
- t-pain-call-my-bluff(MS Word doc, 28 KB)
- cant-believe-it-gapfill(MS Word doc, 30 KB)
I know what you must be thinking. “Oh, no he didn’t.”
You thought I was just messin’ around when I said I was gonna make a lesson using a T-Pain song. Wrong answer again! I decided that this video would be useful as a pretext for reviewing and expanding house vocabulary.
I would embed the video here but they have it disabled–so go check out the video first, then check the lesson plan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT_fnAjZNDY (more…)
Posted in songs, video lessons, tagged "If I Were a Boy", 2nd conditional, Beyonce, ELT, English Teaching, ESL, songs, TEFL, video on January 22, 2009| 16 Comments »
level: intermediate
aims: practice listening for detail, practice speaking, writing using 2nd conditional forms
- beyonce-task-sheet (MS Word doc, 32 KB)
or
- beyonce_task_sheet (PDF, 11.8 KB)
(The Lesson Plan appears below.)
Those of us lucky enough to have students who fall into the demographic category now referred to as “tween” are always up for some song action in class. The students–out of either genuine interest or simply the lazy-minded perception that doing activities with songs is less “worky” than normal book work type things–clamor for them almost constantly.
Problem is, in recent years, we’ve been flooded by a lot of crap music. I mean, straight garbage. I mean, not to offend, maybe one of you out there reading this likes Black-Eyed Peas (I don’t), but you try finding a language point worth teaching in the lyrics of a song like, say, “My Humps”. Or “Get Retarded”. And don’t even get me started on that High School Musical shite. And Camp Rock, well, I’m not even trying to go there.
It is with great pleasure, then, that I present “If I Were a Boy” by Beyoncé, complete with idea for warm-up, two videos to use in class, two listening gap-fills, personalization, and a writing activity. (more…)
Posted in kids' lessons, songs, video lessons, tagged "Christmas in Hollis", English Teaching, ESL, Run DMC, TEFL on December 9, 2008| 3 Comments »
It’s that time of year again. If you teach in a school, or if you do extracurricular private classes with school-age kids you know what I’m talking about–the month of December (here in Spain, ehem, Catalunya, at least) finds us in the midst of a lull, between the trimestral or semestral or whatever exams and the start of Christmas vacations. And with no real “meat” on the syllabus to feed to our hungry learners, what better way to while away the time than with a variety of holiday themed activities. Yeah! Wahoo!
Now, if you’ve googled xmas activities for TEFL or ESL or what-have-you, you’ve no doubt come across the TEFLtastic page of X-mas goodies, which pretty much has the market cornered on holiday ideas. Really, dude is mad thorough over there.
Nonetheless, I see my opening here, so I’m goin’ in: Run DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis”, for a variety of different language points. Give ’em the video with the sound off first and have them tell you about it scene by scene, if you like. Then hit ’em up with the worksheet of your choice. (Note that the “definitions” worksheet could easily be incorporated wholesale into one of the others, with just a little cutting, pasting and boldfacing.) (more…)
$trictly 4 my T.E.A.C.H.E.R.Z 