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Using songs in class Attention! Extraterrestrials!

Songs are often used as fillers or something to use up a few We do not have articles in our mother tongue, so it
minutes at the end of a lesson, but there are things that you is often not an easy task to get my students to use
can do that make them more than just entertainment for the them at all, let alone correctly. We learn all the rules
students by adding an element of language practice. Here are and do all sorts of exercises, but, alas, when it comes
ten ideas: to speaking and writing (it is especially noticeable
1 Jumble the words of the song title and ask the students to in written assignments) articles seldom make an
put them in the correct order. appearance. I have seen innumerable pieces of
students’ work without a single one! When my
2 Jumble the lines of the song and ask the students to use their
students are speaking and they miss out articles,
knowledge of clauses, collocations or grammatical structures
I correct them, they correct themselves and then, in
to put them in the correct order.
no time at all, they have forgotten and made the
3 Get the students to identify and comment on any incorrect very same mistake all over again! Sometimes I feel
language usage within the song. desperate, but I have decided that the answer is
4 Encourage the students to do some research on the song. simple: articles are just aliens – and it will take us
Who wrote the lyrics? Who wrote the music? Has it featured in more effort and more time to deal with them
any films? If it has won an award, what did it win and when?
One of the things I like to do is to choose a couple
5 Elicit the students’ personal responses to the song. Do they of paragraphs from the coursebook we are using –
like it? What do they think it is about? Do they think it is paragraphs we have dealt with before, not ones which
optimistic or pessimistic? are completely new to the students. I copy these out
6 Choose a number of words from the lyrics and pair them with and omit all the articles. I usually let my students
other words that might be mistaken for them, eg words/worlds, know the number of articles omitted and ask them to
eyes/ice, singing/sinking. Make a list of these pairs and ask improve the paragraphs by adding suitable ‘aliens’.
the students to underline the words they hear as they listen They usually cope fine and, moreover, they revise the
to the song. vocabulary they have learnt before – killing two birds
7 Write some of the words from the song lyrics in phonemic with one stone, as the saying goes.
script and get the students to listen to the song and write the Another technique is to get the students to watch a
words next to the phonemic symbols. film (our favourite out-of-class activity). I then write
8 Ask the students to write sentences using new words they have a short summary of the film – again with no articles
learnt from the song. – and ask my students to supply them whenever
9 Give the students a list of adjectives which include some from necessary. This has the same benefits – raising the
the song lyrics. Get them to listen and underline the ones they students’ awareness of the use of articles, plus
hear. Then ask them to say what the adjectives are describing. revising vocabulary from the film.

10 Write definitions of some of the new words in the lyrics and I have tried this technique several times, and each
ask the students to listen and find the words that match the time I was well satisfied with the outcome – and so
definitions. were the students.
Helena Dobersek Nataliya Potapova
Ljubljana, Slovenia Uzhhorod, Ukraine

32 • Issue 89 November 2013 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

 Twenty questions – with a difference
Everyone knows the guessing game ‘Twenty questions’, in 4 Conversation twenty questions
which one person thinks of an object and the other players The questions have to be built into a conversation. For
have a maximum of 20 yes/no questions to find out what it example:
is. However, there are lots of ways to adapt the game for use A Yesterday I saw something strange.
in language teaching. Here are six variations: B Was it big?
A Well, yes, quite big. I was a bit afraid of it.
1 Twenty question tags
B Perhaps it was an animal. Was it alive?
Specify that the students have to start guessing the object
A Yes, it certainly was. It was moving.
by using negative statements and positive tags, eg It’s not
B I see. I wonder what it was. Did it have a tail?
green, is it? When they are more sure of the answer, they
can change to using positive statements and negative tags, 5 Competitive twenty questions
eg It’s expensive, isn’t it? In this version, the aim is to get the answer yes as many
times as possible. The students play in groups of three; one
2 Twenty grammar questions
thinks of an object and the other two take it in turns to ask
Choose a short (four-word) question instead of an object,
questions. Students score one point for each positive answer
eg Do you like icecream? The questions the students ask to
they get. The person who finds the word gets three extra
guess the object have to relate to grammar as well as
points. The student with the most points at the end wins.
content, eg Does it have an auxiliary verb? Is the main verb
regular? Is there a pronoun? Is the pronoun singular or plural? 6 Twenty-five questions
Is it present tense? Is it about food/drink/music? Is it about This is the same as the traditional game, but the person
your preferences? thinking of an object is allowed to ‘pass’ on five of the
questions. This adds interest to the game, because the
3 Vocabulary twenty questions
passes can be used to prevent the guessers from getting
This is similar to ‘Twenty grammar questions’, but the
helpful information. Alternatively, the passes can be used as
questions have to relate to spelling and word form,
‘red herrings’ or distractors, to make the guessers think a
eg Does it have an F? Does it have five letters? Does it start
question is important, when in fact it is not.
with a vowel? Is it plural? Is it a noun? Is it countable? Does
it have a double letter? Does it have two syllables? Does it Finally, why not make up your own variation of the world’s
have a suffix? best-known language game?
Simon Mumford
Izmir, Turkey

Cartoon strip dialogues

This is a pairwork activity that encourages students to
talk to each other as they prepare cartoon dialogues,
and gives them an opportunity to present their work to
the rest of the class.
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You will need several cartoon strips which either have As a subscriber to ETp, you have full access to our website.
no dialogue or where the original dialogue has been
Browse through our archive of downloadable articles from
obscured. Display these on the board.
previous issues – ideal for inspiration or research.
Put the students into pairs and ask each pair to choose Add your opinions to ongoing discussions, and comment
one of the cartoons strips. Give them five minutes to on articles that you have read.
prepare a dialogue between the characters in their Visit our bookshop for recommendations – and discounts.
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• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 89 November 2013 • 33