The “power” of possibility – change the lyrics.

I’m a big fan of always exciting students with “possibility”.  By that I mean, designing a lesson so that they can change and interact with the content in creative, personal ways. They can be touched by possibility – much like we are when online and using Web 2.0 tools.

One easy way to do this is to use music/song.  A “change the lyrics” activity.

Basically there are 3 steps involved.

1.  Teach the song in any way you see fit. It could be the typical listening cloze, Lastonestanding, karaoke or many other ways.

2. Have prepared on the board the chorus or one main part of the song.   In front of the students rub out some main content words.  Ask students to put in their own words for the song. Have fun!

3.  Challenge students to do the same and then share.

Here are two already prepared examples. The first, very simple for the gospel classic, “This little light of mine”.   The second more lengthy for “What a wonderful World”.

Whatever you do, have fun adapting a song – I know your students will!

This little light of mine song cards

Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

Go here for the What a Wonderful World lesson.

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ddeubel

Teacher trainer, technology specialist, educational thinker...creator of EFL Classroom 2.0, a social networking site for thousands of EFL / ESL teachers and students around the world.

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1 Response

  1. Mohammad reza Minoosepehr says:

    That’s really great.Once,we did the same with a story book to see what we would change and how we would finish the story if we were the writer..but working with song is more exciting ( and full of fun!)

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