Category Archives: Music

Using a Song to Revise Vocab Related to Fashion

This song will fit like a glove if you are learning/teaching a Fashion- and- Clothes related semantic field.
This song You Look Good on Me is performed by Natasha Bedingfield, one of my favourite singers, and though I don’t think she had English teachers on her mind when she wrote it, the thing is that it is just perfect for teaching fashion and clothes related vocabulary. So, this is how I am planning to use it with my intermediate students- nothing to write home about, really. I intend to play the song as a revision exercise, so my students will already be familiar with most of the words/expressions in the song.

First and Second Time– they listen to the song twice without seeing the lyrics and in pairs they will have to write down as many words as they identify, related to the above- mentioned semantic field. Students, in turns, say the words or expressions they’ve jotted down and explain them to the rest of the class while I write them on the board for everybody to see.

Once this is done, I’ll write on the board the words/expressions they‘ve missed and ask students to explain the meaning of them.

♥Finally I’ll give them the lyrics or display them with OHP ( we need to save the planet, don’t we? – even though it is a small drop in the ocean, it is still something)

Here’s the song

 

Here are the lyrics

Da da da da da da
Oo oo oo
Da da da da da da

Goin’ on a shopping spree
Pick something out to look good on me
I want quality
Not quantity
Want a classic
Not a trend
Casual yet still high end
I know what I want
and I’m not afraid to spend

So if you
Fit me tight but let me breathe
Let me wear your heart on my sleeve
Be the thread that winds the seams
You could look so good on me
Fit me like a second skin
My favourite jeans that I could live in
Wouldn’t need accessories
You would look so good on me

I’m checking out
Goods on display
Don’t play it safe or too risque
I’m done window shopping
I’m ready to pay
I’m going up
Fifth floor
The best stuff’s in store
Cos that’s where they keep
What every girl would die for

So if you
Fit me tight but let me breathe
Let me wear your heart on my sleeve
Be the thread that winds the seams
You could look so good on me
Fit me like a second skin
My favourite jeans that I could live in
Wouldn’t need accessories
You would look so good on me

ahh ahh ahhh
da da da da da da

ahh ahh ooo

Everything’s perfect
When you’re looking through the glass
The colours can fade as seasons pass
This time I wanna, wanna nail them to the mast

Fit me tight but let me breathe
Let me wear your heart on my sleeve
Be the thread that winds the seams
You could look so good on me
Fit me like a second skin
My favourite jeans that I could live in
Wouldn’t need accessories
You would look so good on me

Fit me tight but let me breathe
Let me wear your heart on my sleeve
Be the thread that winds the seams
You could look so good on me
Fit me like a second skin
My favourite jeans that I could live in
Wouldn’t need accessories
You would look so good on me

Typing Phonetic Symbols

It’s six o’clock in the morning and already awake. Bugger! Today is the day I don’t have to teach first period but my mind doesn’t seem to know and has already decided it’s time I get down to some serious work so I’ve decided to turn on my computer and listen to the amazing voice of this guy ,James Arthur , apparently the winner of the XFaxtor. I am not a follower of this programme but the truth be told I think he’s got that kind of voice I could fall in love with and, to top it all, I have just heard his version of the song “I’m sexy and I Know it” originally sung by Lmfao and I can’t hardly believe it’s the same song. Well, I just wanted you to know.

Anyway, I wanted to share with you this tool that can come quite handy when working with phonetics .You can find it in a blog called Random Idea English, which is worth a visit. Here’s what it looks like ; you just need to type and copy/paste. Here’s the link .Easy peasy!

Here’s the song and the guy I was telling you about. By the way, he is also the one singing the latest hit “Impossible”

A Five-Minute Activity to Bring Music into the Classroom

Wouldn’t you like to be listening  to the latest hit on the radio and find out that you are able to understand the lyrics? Wow!!! Don’t you, every now and then,  sing along even though you can only remember some  of the words from the chorus and you don’t have the slightest clue about what it means? I’m sure you do! We have all been there!

But time flies and the course is short  and even though I feel listening to a song can be as good as doing a traditional listening comprehension exercise  the truth is that dedicating 20 minutes to a song never seems to fit into my lesson plan .

The idea is to bring music into the class as often as possible but without this activity taking too much time off my lessons. My focus in this five- minute-maximun activity will be on teaching  vocabulary – a structure , an idiomatic expression, a phrasal verb or a certain word. The idea is to help students  improve their listening skills and pronunciation, as well as teaching vocabulary.

In this song, we focus on the verb “to try”.

STEPS

♥Orally introduce the word you want students to learn by giving examples and asking them to infer the meaning. In the case of the verb “to try” I might want to teach the structure: Try+inf

♥Choose a song that contains the word or words you want to teach

♥Crop the video with, for example, tubechop; remember you don’t want to play the whole song .

♥First time: Students listen to the cropped video and identify when, in the song, the highlighted word(s) has been used -they can raise their hand when they hear the target word(s) .

♥ Second time: students do a fill- in- the- gaps exercise or a spot- the -mistakes exercise with the lyrics.

♥ Third time: students sing along; yes, why not? It’s  a very good pronunciation exercise!!!

♥ HOMEWORK: Now, very important, students need to go home and write a sentence containing the highlighted word(s). Ask for volunteers to translate the cropped song .

My Fill in the Blanks

DESIRE,DIE,GET UP, SOMETIMES,SOMEONE’S, LIES,WONDER,JUST

Ever _____ about what he’s doing
How it all turned to ______
__________ I think that it’s better to never ask why

Where there is ____
There is gonna be a flame
Where there is a flame
____ bound to get burned
But ______ because it burns
Doesn’t mean you’re gonna _____
You’ve gotta _____ and try try try
Gotta ……

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A Word on Grammar: Think Of,About, On or In?

If you must ask, yes, it’s still raining in Asturias; raining and freezing cold but…I have to say that this is unusual weather for this time of the year. So, if you are considering holidaying in this part of the world, don’t cross it off just yet; the weather must definitely improve this week ( it can’t get any worse).

The idea for this post came while dozing off on the sofa watching the new (probably not so new now for some of you) James Bong film SkyFall. I suddenly came wide awake when , in the film, M’s computer is hacked and a THINK ON YOUR SINS is displayed on her computer. This single preposition got me thinking … how, in the name of God, are my students supposed to learn English prepositions? Thus, I decided to write this post, about the tricky English prepositions.

Think Of/ About. Most of the times you can use both when talking about people. So: I’m thinking of you and I am thinking about you mean pretty much the same.

But

-Think about. You use think about with the meaning “consider”:

I need to think about this problem

Think of. You use think of   with two meanings

  1. when you are “asking somebody’s opinion”.

What do you think of my sister’s boyfriend?

2. Or with the meaning “to imagine”

It is hot! I am thinking of lying on the beach eating a big ice-cream.

I also very often use the expression Come to think of it…

 

On the other hand, both Think On and Think In are less used.

♥Think On is a bit archaic and it is much close to the meaning of think about 

Think on your sins

Think in is very easy to differentiate as it is only used with the verb to speak

Do you think in Spanish when you speak in English?

I hope it is helpful! Now if you want to relax after this boring explanation, enjoy the soundtrack of this film, performed by the great Adele.

Love is in the Air!!!

Happy Valentine’s Day Week!  Love is in the air….and all that!

I’m not a big fan of Valentine’s day, maybe because I’m Spanish and well into my forties, and  in Spain, in a small village in the north  and in the 80’s, we never ever heard of a special day to celebrate love. But I don’t want to be a party pooper here  so I always get into my best mood to do an activity related to this special day in the Anglo culture.

On Monday , Gotye’s song “Somebody that I Used to Know” was awarded a Grammy for the record of the year. Needed a better excuse to play the song? Yes, but I’ve got it!! It contains irregular past verbs, something I am currently working with and also a great  opportunity to introduce “used to”. … the only catch is that the song is about breaking up and not about perfect love… but you can’t have it all guys! So, off we go!

Used to= Explanation here

Used to = Exercises here

Worksheet for the song  here