Illustrating Lyrics

Last night on #LangChat we had a GREAT discussion on ways to use music in class, take a look at the archive of the chat!

The idea that I shared was an idea I learned from Leslie Davison at iFLT 2018 in Cincinnati when I was an apprentice demo teacher there. The idea is pretty simple, but it's fun, gets students moving, and forces students to listen and re-listen to a part of a song.

So first thing I do, is decide what part of a song I want to use. Usually it's the chorus, because it's repeated often OR that's where whatever target structure I'm focusing on is.

Next, write/type a line from the song on a full sheet of computer paper. If I type it, I try to make it so that the text is at the bottom of the page, and I include translations of words if necessary.

Step 1 of the activity is students DRAW a representation of the lyric. I then take up willing artists drawings and we talk about them a little bit.

Step 2: I play the portion of the song I want to focus on, students hold up their paper when they hear their line. We do this a few times, especially if it's fast.

Step 3: Students try to organize themselves at the front of the room while the song plays. We do this a few times as well, this usually takes the longest amount of time.

Step 4 options: Have 1 student hide their paper, students listen to figure out what is missing, have students trade papers and re-organize while listening, students close their eyes and the teacher trades two people's paper students listen to figure out what got switched.

This is usually a fun activity, I hope you have fun with it, and please share any way you modify it!